American nations : a history of the eleven rival regional cultures of North America

by Colin Woodard

Paperback, 2012

Status

Available

Genres

Publication

New York, NY : Penguin Books, 2012.

Description

An illuminating history of North America's eleven rival cultural regions that explodes the red state-blue state myth. North America was settled by people with distinct religious, political, and ethnographic characteristics, creating regional cultures that have been at odds with one another ever since. Subsequent immigrants didn't confront or assimilate into an "American" or "Canadian" culture, but rather into one of the eleven distinct regional ones that spread over the continent each staking out mutually exclusive territory. In American Nations, Colin Woodard leads us on a journey through the history of our fractured continent, and the rivalries and alliances between its component nations, which conform to neither state nor international boundaries. He illustrates and explains why "American" values vary sharply from one region to another. Woodard reveals how intranational differences have played a pivotal role at every point in the continent's history, from the American Revolution and the Civil War to the tumultuous sixties and the "blue county/red county" maps of recent presidential elections. American Nations is a revolutionary and revelatory take on America's myriad identities and how the conflicts between them have shaped our past and are molding our future.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member annbury

This is a valuable and provocative book, in the best sense, For me at least, it took some of my assumptions about the U.S, shook them up, and showed me some new and unexpected patterns -- patterns that make a lot of sense in terms of current political realities. The book, of course, has much in

common with Joel Garreau's 1981 "Nine Nations of North America" (also a book that I valued highly). The big difference, for me, is the more historical focus of Woodward's book. It makes sense to me that the town meetings of old New England have a lot to do with the community-orientation (blueness, if you will) of modern day Massachusetts, and the loneliness of the frontier with Rocky Mountain libertarianism. This is not to say that Woodward doesn't stretch some arguments awfully far, reaching conclusions that can seem formulaic, and with which I don't always agree. But the book is both informative and thought provoking, both very valuable things. I've recommended it to several friends, and recommend it to you!

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LibraryThing member tututhefirst

Colin Woodard has given us a thought-provoking, deeply researched, easy to read look at the various ethno-cultural groups making up the North American continent from Canada to Mexico, from the Native Americans who were subjugated by the Spanish (or annihilated by the Anglos) to the Inuits of Canada

who are enjoying a resurgence of their identity and culture.

He posits these 11 "nations" to be Yankeedom, New Netherlands, The Midlands, Tidewater, the Deep South, Greater Appalachia, New France, The First Nation, the Far West, El Norte, and the Left Coast. For each, he introduces us to the earliest members, traces their original settlement and the subsequent expansions to other areas of the continent, their expectations, educational levels, governing style, religious and cultural influences from the "Old Country", and analyzes their influence on key historical events of the North American development from elected officials, wars, and legislative achievements to looking at the current political gridlock occuring in the US.

His insights are exceptionally provacative and give the average reader pause to re-examine what we have been taught. For example ....

In the end, The U.S. Constitution was the product of a messy compromise among the rival nations. From the gentry of Tidewater and the Deep South, we received a strong president to be selected by an "electoral college" rather than elected by ordinary people. From New Netherland we received the Bill of Rights, a set of very Dutch guarantees that individuals would have freedom of conscience, speech, religion, and assembly. To the Midlands we owe the fact that we do not have a strong unitary state under a British-style national Parliament; they insisted on state sovereignty as insurance against Southern despots and Yankee meddling. The Yankees ensured that small states would have an equal say in the Senate, with even the very populous state of Massachusetts frustrating Tidewater and the Deep South's desire for proportional representation in that chamber; Yankees also forced a compromise whereby slave lords would be able to count only three-fifths of their slave population when tabulating how many congressmen they would receive. pg. 148

It's a profound book that is not a quick read; neither is it a plodding read. He often offers us "What ifs?" that introduce stunning possibilities e.g., if South Carolina hadn't fired on Ft Sumter, the Union might have been able to negotiate a settlement, and eventually the many nations would have re-aligned themselves into several --up to four--separate confederations, or ended forming a collaboration somewhat akin to today's European Union. To supplement several well-drawn and clearly notated maps, Woodard's style is enjoyable, clear and concise. He gives us an especially thoughtful look at the role the Canadians and northern Mexicans have played (and continue to play) in the culture and politics of the US. He poses questions, synthesizes the best of scholarship available at the moment to give us intelligent and interesting answers. Never did I feel I was reading a text book, although I'd certainly hope that all US history and political science majors will be required to read this. It is simply one of the most interesting and fascinating books I have read this year. It will certainly be on my Top Ten Non-Fiction list for 2011.

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LibraryThing member southernbooklady

The first thing you need to know about this book is that although the author's bio says that he is a native of Maine, he's really a native of Yankeedom. That is one of the eleven "nations" he has identified that have a quantifiable impact in the United States, and that continue to guide (or

bedevil) its course. A "nation" in Woodard's lexicon is a group defined by a cultural cohesion rather than by a geographical proximity or political boundary. The underlying idea...that our country is better understood in terms of cultural affiliations instead of political ones...is not new. It is the principle behind works like David Hackett Fischer's excellent Albion's Seed, which the author cites, and documented by statistical analysis...something every political campaign strategist worth his salt knows.

But Woodard takes the concept to an entirely new level. "American Nations" is an interpretive history of the country from the perspective not of individual men, or states, or events, but of competing cultures. And while there is merit to the idea that "Yankee" (New England) culture is different from "Borderlander" (Appalachia) or "Tidewater" or "El Norte" (Northern Mexico, South West), or "New Netherlander" (New York City), or "New France" (New Orleans), Woodard's approach presumes a kind of inevitability of character. Just as people say we are what we eat, Woodard thinks we are where we grew up. Nurture trumps nature.

I found the premise both compelling and troubling. Compelling, because the cultural values he associates with "Yankeedom" -- my own nation of birth -- are unquestionably my own, and I have held them as foundational principles for all my life without ever feeling the need to challenge them or put them seriously to the test. Values like the importance of education, of personal responsibility and self-determination, of the idea that governments are an instrument to implement the common good. Of the importance of public service. These are all straight out of the Puritan play book, so to speak, and it was a little sobering to realize just how ingrained they are, even at this far remove from the days when people wanted to live in their "city on a hill," that a lefty radical feminist atheist like myself can still be so directed by them. "American Nations" has made me consider more deeply how my values differ in profound ways from those of my neighbors here in the nation of "Deep South" where I happen to live at the moment. How the importance of education in my value system weighs against the importance of family ties in theirs, as an example.

If nothing else Woodard gives the reader an appreciate for the depth and strength of the cultural prejudices we all carry. And it was not comfortable reading his account of how ruthless we are in defense of our own cultural values and priorities. His birds-eye-view of the history of American colonization is a description of unapologetic invasion, exploitation, and even rationalized genocide of nations that were not in accord with our own-- most obviously, the one nation that gets short shrift in Woodard's account--the "First Nation" -- meaning entirety of the native peoples on the continent.

That last statement provides a clue into one of the more serious flaws in the book -- he glosses over a couple nations. Native American tribes are mentioned only in so far as they are conquered, and the entire population of Africans slaves and their descendants is nowhere to be found on Woodard's map of American nations -- presumably because they have mostly been assimilated into the culture that brought them over in the the first place. (One of the characteristics of the "Deep South" nation is not just family loyalty, but the importance of social conformity, of caste). This has the odd effect of implying that the "First Nation" and the African-Americans are somehow culturally irrelevant.

Of course, Woodard does not want to imply any such thing, so it would be better to think of his book not as a history of how eleven different cultures shaped and continue to shape this country, but how eleven different cultures--ten of them European--did and continue to do so. And while the book is classified as "E98" by the Library of Congress (History -- United States), it might be better approached as sociology or political science by the reader, because one of the clear priorities of the author is to explain how and why Americans become polarized on current issues, and how we have a hope of coming to some kind of compromise if we cease thinking in terms of left/right, conservative/liberal, red/blue, win/lose...and choose to think instead in terms of alliances between cultures, between "nations," with similar values around whatever subject is in contention. Woodard, who does not strike me as especially afflicted with a rosy outlook, sees some hope of making headway against the epidemic of gun violence if we tackle this problem like UN trying to get every country represented at the table to sign an arms treaty.

Unfortunately there are two "super powers" among the American nations -- the Yankeedom and Deep South nations -- and it is pretty clear from Woodard's tone which one he thinks is on the side of the angels. And this brings up the other major flaw I saw in the book-- Woodard's own unacknowledged loyalty to his own nation. Like me, he's a member of Yankeedom. Like me, his natural affinity is for the cultural values he grew up with and absorbed as "ideal." This is not much of a hindrance when he is describing the founding of his various American nations in the distant pass, but his personal prejudices become more evident the closer he comes to contemporary times, until by the end of the book he is reduced to reciting a litany of political figures and initiatives, labeling them according to their "nation" like a baseball fan checking off a score card. Naturally the figures from the Deep South are pinned with every resistance to progress and progressivism, and figures from his own nation and the tiny but culturally vibrant nation of New Netherlands get the credit for every social advance. Woodard's list of politicians begins to sound less like evidence and more like an indictment.

The lack of objectivity that permeates the latter half of the book made me re-assess the author's over all premise, and I came to the conclusion that his approach to viewing history as a story of competing cultures was useful -- in the way any historical filter can be useful-- but ultimately not as radical as it first appeared. The book's great strength is in the way it will make the thoughtful reader assess his own cultural assumptions, and possibly even allow him to understand and empathize with the cultural values of other "nations." It may be a tool for change for some current social issues. But it is a little too in love with its own ideas, and there is a tendency to make the facts fit the theory, rather than the other way around. Whenever Woodard comes across a political figure who acts at odds with his (or her) "nation" he calls them "an anomaly." American Nations was published in 2011, so it would be interesting to see what the author had to say about the momentum of the movement towards same-sex marriage equality that has occurred since the book came out -- since that is an issue that received wide-spread popular support and was not among any of the founding values of the eleven American Nations.

Perhaps there is yet another "nation" out there, steadily pursuing change while the superpowers of Yankeedom and Deep South bicker at each other and bang their metaphorical shoes on their metaphorical desks. "Youth land" maybe?

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LibraryThing member LancasterWays

American Nations, journalist Colin Woodward’s history of the rival “cultures” that comprise North America, might best be understood by aspiring writers as a cautionary tale about scope. It is one thing to write a convincing op-ed piece that makes the same arguments as Woodward’s book, but

it is another thing entirely to try to document the histories of eleven cultures over six centuries in a three hundred page book. Woodward tries. He fails.

Woodward’s failure is not, as many students of history might sneer, that journalists shouldn’t write history. Woodward simply takes on too much, as is evident from the subtitle: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America. That’s not what American Nations is really about, though. Woodward pays short shrift to Canada (although he does mention it, favorably, near the end of the book) and essentially ignores Mexico, with the exception of its northern states, which form the southern reaches of the culture dubbed “El Norte.” (Yes, Mexico is part of North America, even its south.) This book is not really about America the geographical entity, as in “the Americas,” but the USA.

Woodward is mainly concerned with the white cultures of the United States, which he terms Yankeedom, New Netherlands, Appalachia (or the Borderlands), the Midlands, the Tidewater, Deep South, the Far West, and the Left Coast. His history of these regions, at least through the Civil War and Reconstruction, seems sound, even if it is sparsely documented. There is something to be said for the arguments Woodward makes in the first half of the book. The Civil War, for instance, was obviously a regional conflict, but Woodward’s argument that it was also a cultural conflict between Yankeedom and the Deep South over control of the federal government sheds some light onto the hostilities and the subsequent political history of the country.

The second half of the book is less convincing. The tone is rushed. I imagine Woodward realized at this point the scope of his project and was eager to complete it. There are inconsistencies in Woodward’s arguments. If, for instance, New Netherlands (i.e., New York City) valued economic expediency even more than it did multiculturalism, why did its people consistently align themselves with Yankee policies over those of the Deep South? Yankees favored the progressive “perfection” of society, while the Southern oligarchs sought deregulation in order to enrich themselves and their brethren. One answer might be the presence of so many immigrants in NYC, but Woodward earlier dismisses immigrants as a cultural force: they were everywhere rapidly assimilated into the majority cultures in which they found themselves. (The descendants of certain immigrants might object to this statement!)

African-Americans, the minority that most shaped American history, are portrayed as victims of slavery and segregation. The cultural influence of blacks is limited, apparently, to barbecue and rock and roll. Not bad, but certainly African-Americans provided more to America than labor, foodways and music? Woodward mostly ignores the political influence of blacks, noting that they sided with Yankeedom in the wake of the Civil War. Blacks sided with the “Northern Alliance” (Yankeedom, the Midlands, New Netherlands and the Left Coast) when they regained voting rights beginning in the 1950s and ‘60s, but what about more recently? Presumably African-Americans mindlessly follow the lead of whatever culture is opposing the Deep South. Woodward, stressing the racist sentiments of the Deep South, Tidewater and the Borderlands, wholly ignores the extreme racism present throughout even the “tolerant” cultures of the North. (See James Loewen’s Sundown Towns for a horrifying description of Northern racism from the mid-nineteenth century through 2000.) It goes without saying that the indigenous peoples of the United States are wholly ignored, and Canada’s First People nearly so.

I don’t list all of these faults to pick on Woodward or to harp on how his thesis fails. I think there is something there. The first half of the book, in which Woodward discusses the histories of the cultures through the Civil War is especially strong, if one takes into account that Woodward is really limiting his attention to the white cultures that made up the United States. The second half of the book is rushed and overall less convincing. Woodward lists politicians and the cultures from which they originated, making slim connections between their platforms and their supposed cultural values. Cultures are, in the second half of the book, reduced to stereotypes. I’d certainly like to read a Southerner’s take on Woodward’s portrayal of the Deep South; I suspect it would be enlightening.

An interesting effort that falls short of its lofty goals.

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LibraryThing member brett_in_nyc

It is a great read to see the history of this country that certainly explains some of what we see going on here today in this difficult moment. I do question the history writing norms though that report on cultural details and symptoms of difference as if they alone are explanations for the way

history plays out. It is clear the youth movements of the Midlands, Yankeedom, and Left Coast had to be stopped. The progress they established laid the ground work for perhaps the most energetic, creative, and economically accomplished generation ever on earth. They created a lot of middle class wealth and middle class political power wherein lies the real reason behind the story here. Like the Moors and Jews of Spain in another golden age, or the Amsterdam middle class who came after them, with other enlightenment moments like Prague in Bohemia, they had to be stopped by a Reactionary Royalist Putsch! Elizabeth I of England is well documented for her plots to dampen the scary wealth and political power of her woollen makers by importing waves of French Huguenot linen-makers as competition from a civil war she actually funded. Using the ends against the center is perhaps one of the most masterful Machiavellian strategies. Pitting strategies are de rigeur in Oligarchy and Empire. That they go so undetected by history writers in 21st Century USA is just mah-veh-lous for the descendents of the Oligarchs!

The mysteries embedded in this book can be fun reading for hapless Americans with a lot of family history they never really knew. In the wrong hands it can be the playbook for divide-and-rule and the dismantling of the Republic, never a moment too late! The market for natural resources still buried under public and private lands here is just now hotting up for the century to come!

These details can also explain the very explicit efforts to engineer culture war in this country since the 1970s. Ralph Reed admits his goals of divide-and-rule using conservative Christianity in the Appalachia/Midlander/Deep South/Far West nations. He details the techniques he used for his bosses to get Roman Catholic blue collar workers throughout the Midlander region to vote with the Plutocrats as if they suddenly shared some profound common interests.

These efforts are explicit. They are no accident. They are real tools of war. Scholars write about these things including how NATO uses them on enemy populations to topple enemy Plutocrats. Mr. Woodard doesn't mention any of this at all, but instead seems to suggest a foregone conclusion that culture war would naturally arise here simply because the people were different. If there weren't economic shortages of work and inadequate resources for decent life and retirement caused by legalized hoarding in the first instance, there would be no reason for culture war to erupt between these nations. The Robert Morris tricks with money are great. But, the remaining tricks over the last century with money to trigger all this stuff like what is going on here today remain hardly mentioned, and certainly not as root causes of simmering tensions.

Mr. Woodard clearly shows that the Aristocratic Authoritarian South has spread its influence over the rest of the country. Plutos everywhere beyond the South must recognize the usefulness of these methods, once they too got hands on astronomical fortunes to protect from the "mob". It is clear some Michigan, Ohio, Omaha, Southwestern PA, CT, TX, etc., along with Wall Street (New Netherland) Plutocrats of course, now all recognize the usefulness of these Deep South strategies. The Courts went along with it too approving such game changing legislation as FEC 1974, and rulings like Buckley vs Valeo and now Citizens United.

This knowledge in the wrong hands can also perhaps explain the combination of international and local home grown (made here) capital backing media enterprises operating in the central regions like News Corporation, Clearchannel, or Community First Newspapers Holdings, Inc. who purvey dubious media and news products for certain ends. Culture war is right up there with disinformation and misdirection in the list of NATO approved and used information warfare practices. It looks like these techniques have been waged right here on us to exploit long understood from the very beginning differences Mr. Woodard so carefully now elucidates for us.

He cites the Southern Planters using religion and denial of schools to control poor whites throughout the region, but doesn't take it a step further to the current times. I wonder why this is. Aristocrats in Europe always used religion, denying education, and even degrading economic and social life to pit against each other, control and manipulate their subject peoples. Bismarck waged "kulturkampf" against Catholic small holding village based farm communities to drive them off the land and into city slums for factory work in the "industrial miracle". This is the same thing happening to villagers in Africa today driving them off ancestral lands into new Chinese and Western financed mining enterprises. The same things are happening here now, and they are not happening simply because cultural differences exist. They are actively exploited. Woodard mentions the front of camera preachers Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and Jimmy Bakker et al, but not Lewis Powell, nor the money funds that made those TV networks and continue to do so in other incarnations.

It is clear Aristocratic methods emanating from the Authoritarian South are achieving similar social engineering against us today. Richmond VA lawyer Lewis Powell's famous memo reflects this insidious plot to take control over many institutions including education and publishing. The Supreme Court enabled it all of course agreeing every step of the way. The scary thing is that British money has always been a big player in natural resources in this country, along with Saudi money. While BP is clearly an international Anglo-American owned affair, the impunity they've enjoyed from their Gulf Spill shows what they've together achieved in the US over the last 30 years exploiting regional differences here just like their great-grandfathers did everywhere else in the world their money once dominated.

Perhaps Mr Woodard's most revealing remark was the one about the Southern Authoritarians accepting universal suffrage when it finally happened to them. "They didn't mind poor whites voting as long as they voted for who they were supposed to." This kind of explains the two-party system we have here today where private business interests fund both party committees more or less equally. It is funny though that Mr. Woodard suggests that one day "the nation's leaders will betray their oath to uphold the US Constitution". Most critics of the US today at home and around the world contend that the constitution has not been upheld for quite some time! That is if representative government as a basic right really is part of the constitution. FEC 1974 certainly seemed like the beginning of a long slide into this Authoritarian abyss. And, "the incarceration of the Supreme Court justices" hardly seems necessary when they have complied with the needs of Authoritarian Aristocrats from home and abroad throughout this long slide.

The part about "inviting meddling from imperial powers overseas" also seems funny considering the capital structure of News Corporation, and now SuperPACs flooding our elections with legal foreign corporate money for attack ads carefully constructed to play off these regional cultural differences, that goes without saying, that is what Machiavellianism is, but also even deeper psychological patterns in individuals.

I do recommend the book. It is very insightful about our culture and full of useful history for any of us with deep roots in this country. However, US history writers had better change their norms and report what manipulation is really going on behind the symptoms. Machiavelli wrote the textbook to exploit cultural differences. The Southern Aristocrats already knew that with their Jim Crow culture they maintained for so long. The British Aristocrats knew how to play it for 300 years around the world to their advantage. The little border disputes between CT and PA, and VA and PA, and VA and MD are also evidence they knew what they were doing with their latitude based land grants. That the rest of them now know it and remain free to practice it on us is the real story here.

This book and most others like it have a long way to go in explaining cause and effect. I agree that the place could fall into violence between all these peoples described in this book. But, that will get funded to be a coverup for what really happened here!

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LibraryThing member Stbalbach

America, like Europe, China, India and elsewhere is a complex patchwork of cultures. Homogenizing elements like McDonalds, television and nationalistic patriotism can make it seem like a "melting pot", but that is a naive and idealistic view. Traditionally the North/South divide was the standard

view of America's differences, but in the 20th century the Red State / Blue State narrative has arisen. But America is more than two teams. Colin Woodard proposes there are 11 archetypal "nations" in North America, as seen in this map. Ever since the founding of the United States, these 11 cultures fought over the ultimate prize: control of the institutions of the Federal government, namely the Congress, Military, Supreme Court and Presidency. Some of the cultures are well known: Yankees of New England, the Deep South and the French of New Orleans and Quebec. Others are more novel, such as my own home state of Maryland which is in the "Midlands"; and the "Borderlands" at the heart of America but named after the border regions of Scotland, Ireland and Wales were its people and culture originated.

This is a very revealing book. It will provide a useful lens to view politics in America, Canada and Mexico. Now that I understand the 11 distinct nations, some things start to make more sense. For example in the news today, aging rocker Ted Nugent told an National Rifle Association assembly that they should fight back against a totalitarian Government and act more like Braveheart. I didn't get mad at his seeming stupidity, like I normally would, rather I understood he is a Borderlander speaking romantically to his "nation" with images they understand - a nation very distinct from others. In the end, America could fall apart if the differences between nations become too pronounced (there is evidence this trend is worsening), but what will hold it together is a common bond of self interest and a strong federal government that is not dominated by any one nation or coalition of nations.

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LibraryThing member kday_working

In the 1970s there was a book called "The Nine Nations of North America" - this is a more recent version of it. Highly recommended if you want to understand the interplay of cultures and regions in American politics -- and how the American history of immigration is revealed in contemporary life.

LibraryThing member ehousewright

I kept starting and stopping this book, but was determined to get it off my "currently reading" shelf one way or the other so made one more attempt. (It's in good company, the other book I tried to read for several years before finishing was A Tale of Two Cities.)
I haven't taken an American

History class in a very long time, so this was a good review in addition to being very thought provoking. I grew up in Yankee nation and I can see how that colors my approach to many things-- one of the things I am most sure about in life is that education is the key to a better life. This book helped me clarify that a bit-- education when it causes thinking and true assessment is what I mean, not necessarily social indoctrination, although I can see how those would be hard to separate.
I had not previously thought much about how the United States would progress into the future-- this book shows you that there might be several possible tomorrows. What I need to do next is figure out how to apply this type of thinking to decisions I need to make now (elections, volunteer causes, etc.) so that the future is one I'd like to see happen.

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LibraryThing member uptownbookwormnyc

The best! telling of the story of the history of the United States. Also concise, very informative & very readable.

LibraryThing member Lucifey

I enjoyed this book. The author makes no secret of his yankee leanings, and is clearly anti-dixie. That being said, I still enjoyed the analysis; especially the speculation about possible futures in the last quarter of the book. I'm not a huge reader of history for fun. This was an excellent blend

of history and supposition. It was light enough to interest any reader, and yet insightful/researched enough to keep history buffs engaged. All in all a good read.

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LibraryThing member bohannon

I finished this over the summer of 2015, and it has quickly become the second book* I recommend to anyone wishing to have a better structural understanding of the US. The author takes an approach more common in other regional histories, but unusual in studies of North America, to first

differentiate "peoples" (or cultures) from their governmental units, and then identifiy several different such peoples within the scope of our continent spanning Federal Republic. It has provided a valuable thread in understanding many of the historical and current "domestic" conflicts in the US.

*Note: the first is The Fourth Turning by Strauss and Howe)

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LibraryThing member Vicki_Weisfeld

By Colin Woodard – This 2011 book—a pick of my book club—is a thought-provoking analysis of the different cultural strains, mostly organized along geographic lines, that make up what author Sarah Vowell calls “the (somewhat) United States.” Woodard’s subtitle is “a history of the

eleven rival regional cultures of North America.” Many of those rivalries, which date to our earliest history, well before the Revolutionary War, have been amplified, not erased, by subsequent events, and help to explain some of the political schisms we see today.
The answer to a frustrated electorate’s “Why can’t our politicians (and voters) ever agree on anything?” is partly that they never did. Of course, aggregate data hide a lot of individual differences, and none of the characterizations Woodward has developed for his eleven regions describe every individual living there, just the region’s general cultural tendencies. Some of his regions cross over into Canada and Mexico too.
The regions, which he says “have been hiding in plain sight throughout our history,” are:
• Yankeedom began as a “religious utopia in the New England wilderness.” Those early colonies emphasized education, local political control, and efforts aimed at the greater good of the community.
• New Netherland laid down the cultural underpinnings of greater New York City; a trading society that was multi-ethnic, multi-religious, and committed to freedom of inquiry. Its precepts were memorialized in the Bill of Rights.
• The Midlands, founded by English Quakers and organized around the middle class people predominantly of German background and moderate political opinions who don’t welcome government intrusion.
• Tidewater catered to conservative aristocratic elites who were gentleman farmers, strong on respect for authority and dependent on slave labor. It was dominant during the colonial period, but lost its standing by dint of its culture’s inability to expand beyond coastal areas.
• Greater Appalachia was founded by “wave upon wave of rough, bellicose settlers from the war-ravaged borderlands of Northern Ireland, northern England, and the Scottish lowlands” who in their native lands formed a strong independent spirit, suspicious of aristocratic overlords and social reformers alike (think Mel Gibson in Braveheart).
• The Deep South, founded by Barbados slave lords, became the bastion of white supremacy and aristocratic privilege. It is the least democratic of the 11 regions while being “the wellspring of African American culture.”
• New France is an amalgam of the Canadian Province of Québec and some other areas of far eastern Canada as well as the Acadian (“Cajun”) territories of southern Louisiana.
• El Norte dates to the late 16th century, when the Spanish empire founded missions north into California. It includes Arizona, New Mexico, and parts of Colorado and Texas, as well as northern Mexican states that, Woodard says, are more oriented toward the United States than Mexico City.
• The Left Coast is a narrow strip from Monterey, California, to Juneau, Alaska, and includes San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver. The cities were originally developed by Yankee traders who came by ship and the countryside by overland arrivals from the Appalachian region and the culture today is an amalgam of Yankee idealism and Appalachian independence.
• The Far West is the only area “where environmental factors truly trumped ethnic ones.” The region is unsuited for traditional farming, but its resources have been exploited by companies headquartered in distant cities and they and the federal government own vast tracts of land. Locals largely oppose federal interference (just in the news again lately), even as they depend on federal dollars.
• First Nation he defines as a large region in the far north, where the indigenous population has never given up its lands and still employs traditional cultural practices.
Like any analysis intended to look at history through a single lens, Woodard may tailor his arguments to support his approach. Nevertheless, he presents an intriguing hypothesis that carries the ring of truth. In this political season, many of the old antagonisms and patterns he describes are newly visible and, frankly, any cogent explanation of why Americans do some of the things we do is welcome!

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LibraryThing member cbl_tn

Woodard suggests that the United States has never been a single nation. Rather, it’s comprised of eleven regional cultures that aren’t confined to political boundaries. According to Woodard, the Yankee and Deep Southern cultures have always been opposed to each other, and the other cultures

have aligned themselves with one or the other at various points in U.S. history. I didn’t find a lot of new insight here, perhaps because I’ve read many of the books he recommends for further reading. It’s not possible to address eleven cultures in depth in such a short book, so this is largely generalizations about the cultures. The author provides examples to support his thesis, but he doesn’t discuss points that might contradict his thesis. For example, he doesn’t address potential homogenizing effects of mass media and globalization.

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LibraryThing member MalGormley

The concept behind this book struck me the same way the theory of Continental Drift did--it's so freaking obvious we should have sen this before. It certainly makes it easier to comprehend the history of North America.

LibraryThing member grandpahobo

This is an excellent exposition of how the multiple "cultures" in the US developed from the time the first settlers arrived from Europe. This aspect of US history is far more illuminating and valuable to understanding how we got to where we are today as well as our likely future.

The book is dense

and requires quite a bit of concentration by the reader, but its well worth it.

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LibraryThing member EllenH

This started out with such an interesting premise, but as I went into it further, I became uncomfortable with the author's bias (my perception). I probably won't finish it, but his descriptions of the different cultures will be with me. Best to try to understand where others come from I guess.

LibraryThing member snash

A fine tuning and expansion of [Albion's Seed] about the 11 cultural nations created upon their inception and holding firm through time, expansion of influence, and immigrant influxes. A very fascinating and revealing way to understand the hegemony of the Americas.

LibraryThing member Tatoosh

Woodward’s thesis is that the various geographic regions of the present-day United States were originally populated (i.e., conquered) by western European groups that differed in religious, social and political values. These values, in turn, were associated with different goals that became the

prevailing characteristics of the area. Although some of the founding groups were quite small (e.g., New Netherlands; New York City), subsequent immigrants that settled in the various areas were assimilated into the prevailing local culture. Consequently, the regional differences evident in the United States, Canada, and Northern Mexico are a modern manifestation of the original settlers.

American Nations is organized into four parts. Part one covers the early settlement of the northern Mexico/ southern United States, eastern United States and Canada from 1590-1769. Seven “nations” are introduced; El Norte (northern Mexico and modern day southern California and southern Texas), New France (eastern Canada and subsequently, part of Louisiana), Tidewater (Virginia and Maryland), Yankeedom (present day New England) , New Netherlands (New York City) , the Deep South (the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and eastern Texas), the Midlands (eastern Pennsylvania), and Greater Appalachia (western Pennsylvania and south). Woodward’s arguments in part one are articulately argued and convincing. He explains clearly how the attitudes, beliefs, and values of the original invaders shaped the prevailing and are still evident today. His analysis of the revolutionary war paints a different picture of the nation than the common depiction of a united effort to throw off the tyranny of the United Kingdom. For example, Philadelphia, widely regarded as a cradle of democracy, was a center of loyalists who supported the UK during the American revolution. The reality is more the survival of a splintered nation pursuing multiple and, in many instances, conflicting agendas.

Part Two covers the development of the nation from 1770 to 1815. I found this to be the least coherent part of the book, perhaps, in part, because of the somewhat chaotic efforts of the various areas of the nation to advance their own political agendas. This view will not be completely surprising to those who have read Ron Chernow’s accounting of the efforts of Tidewater and the deep South to hamstring the federal government and sabotage Alexander Hamilton’s efforts to create the necessary components of government. Another factor is Woodward’s use labels (Tidewater, Greater Appalachia, Yankeedom) that do not map uniquely on modern states. That necessitated a frequent search back into earlier chapters to determine who was undertaking various actions and the defining attributes of that group. Another challenge is that the expansion of the original areas to not encompass entire states. Tidewater, the Midlands, the Deep South, and Greater Appalachia are all the dominant influence in portions of modern states but not in the entire state in most instance.

Part Three from 1816 to 1877 covers the civil war and the spread of the population westward. With the exception of the left coast (western California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia), it is the story of the westward expansion of the already established “nations.” Woodward’s explanation of the relative similarity between the left coast and Yankeedom makes good sense; the latter was founded by settlers from Yankeedom. His coverage of the civil war challenges the prevailing story of a war of the North vs. the South. Instead, it depicts a splintered nation that, if it had somehow managed to avoid the war, would have separated into four or so separate nations much like modern day Europe. The precipitating cause of the civil war was not the issue of slavery nor of succession. States in the Deep South succeeded some time before the war began. It was only their decision to attack Fort Sumpter, and the perception that it was an attack on the United Sates, that united the factions.

The final section covers the period from 1878 to 2010 and the founding of the Far West (the western Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma west to the area occupied by the left coast. Most of the section, however, is devoted to the themes that separate the nations today: the role of a strong central government vs. states’ rights; differing views of the worth of human beings and the superiority of the elite; tolerance of human diversity; the relative place of government and religion in society; popular culture; and war as a means of settling disputes and securing political ascendency.

On a practical note, I found the font in the print edition to be too small and the paragraphs too long paragraphs (25 lines in some instances) to be read comfortably. I switched to a digital copy which turned out to be the superior option in this instance. The book also would have been improved by the use of additional maps and diagrams. In an epilogue Woodward sketches several possible alternative futures for the United States. I did not find any to be particularly plausible. I imagine readers will have varied reactions.

The scope of American Nations is daunting, and Woodward’s effort is credible but not altogether convincing in every aspect. Nevertheless, American Nations is a thoughtful analysis that will provide most readers with new perspectives on the development of North America. The themes that seem to emerge generically from the narrative nicely capture many of the differences that divide the United States today.

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LibraryThing member dhmontgomery

An intriguing but flawed book. Woodard's thesis — that America is best understood not as a single culture, or a handful, or a multiplicity, but a discrete 11, whose different values have shaped the country's history — draws on good scholarship and is compelling. The execution is highly uneven,

however. Much of the book seems too polemical, as Woodard's contemporary liberalism colors his takes on the virtues and vices of the various cultures. Moreover, the book is most interesting in the distant American past, until the Civil War. As he nears closer to modern times Woodard annoyingly abandons his thesis altogether, condensing the 11 rival cultures into two warring alliances (reflecting, generally speaking, the Democratic and Republican parties) and those caught in between. There's about half of a great book here, and half a shoddy mess. I'd like to see another author take up the idea in a more diligent manner.

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LibraryThing member froxgirl

Do you marvel and despair at this fractured country? Author Colin Woodard claims that It's not really conservative vs liberal. Instead, it is basically Yankeedom (with its desire for the collective good) vs the Deep South (with its defense of slavery). He covers the development of each "nation":

the additional nine being New Netherland (NY, NJ), Tidewater (MD,VA), Midlands (PA and the Midwest) , Greater Appalachia (WV, the Carolinas, GA, Tenn, KY, Missouri) , El Norte (Texas, Southern CA, AZ, NM, Colorado). New France (LA), First Nation (Alaska and western Canada), Far West (MN, Idaho, the Dakotas, Utah, NV) and Left Coast (CA, OR, WA). The alliances within the nations - French immigrants and First Nation/Native Americans and the subsequent exile to New France; the Deep South with the miserable slave masters of Barbados; and the desire of the Tidewater elite to emulate the cavaliers and monarchists of England; and the ongoing resentment of Greater Appalachians for their English oppressors in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales causing their desire to live "beyond the effective reach of government". The book remarkably accurately predicts the current day divisions and alliances and how the earliest settlers brought their conflicts with them and their chickens home to roost.

Quote: “They “freed” an oppressed people – the region’s enslaved Blacks – but failed to provide the security or economic environment in which they might thrive.”

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LibraryThing member willszal

Colin Woodard is a demographer historian. This book traces the inception and evolution of eleven distinct North American nations over the past five hundred years.

The book's foundational premise: that the United States has never been and will never be a unified nation.

There are many fascinating

tidbits in the book:

- Did you know that the Civil War had four sides (not two)?
- Or that, if immigration to the US stopped in 1790, that we would still have half of our current population levels?
- Or that Quakers were the radical pacifist settlers of Philadelphia, but that their pacifism limited their conquest?

Although this is a book that talks primarily about the European inhabitants of North America (as they represent a majority of the population today), it does talk at length about indigenous interaction and influence. For example, did you know that New France had a strategy of alliance and commerce with the Native Americans as opposed to genocide?

Sometimes it feels like politics is civil war. This books helps explain why.

Much of the narrative of the book revolves around the competing values that have informed our democracy. To take two examples: Yankeedom was founded on the German value of freedom—that every human has basic rights. Tidewater was founded on the value of liberty—that rights are awarded to the elite few, and it is the obligation of the impoverished masses to serve those with liberty.

Reading this book leaves me excited to read more of Woodard's work. Apparently he has another book called "The Lobster Coast" looking at the same trends in more detail in New England, which sounds fascinating.

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LibraryThing member PattyLee

The subject matter for this book is fascinating. I’ve taken tons of history courses, but after reading certain key books, including this one, it is clear we teach mythology rather than history in U.S. schools. Take this book, Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, and Ronald

Takaki’s A Different Mirror and you would have the basis for an honest, clear-eyed history of the U.S.

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LibraryThing member Dirt006

I listened to this as an audiobook, which was definitely the right way to go as most of the book is a dry recounting of historical events in the context of the cultural nations. The actual book might have had some illustrations or maps to help visualize things (outside of the cover image there's

really no way to keep the geographic location of some of these nations straight). The idea of the cultural nations gave an interesting way to think about history. There is virtually no discussion of the Indian populations and their culture, but the author explains his reasoning for leaving them out until the very end. There was also surprisingly little time spent on the US Civil War, but the motivating factors for the war were very clear given the time spent with each cultural nation in the 200 years prior.

I felt that the differences between cultural nations started to fall apart after 1900 and especially after 1950. Maybe improved travel and communication blurred the lines between the cultural nations and created new subcultures, or maybe everything from 1950s onward is still too recent to be able to see patterns that are not yet fully formed.

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LibraryThing member Fiddleback_

Crucial perspective on US politics.

LibraryThing member Narshkite

This was super interesting, and for the first 2/3rds I was thinking this would be a 4 or 5 star. Woodard takes an interesting, and from what I saw a thoroughly supportable approach to identifying the "nations" within the US and how immigration patterns and other things from the moment Europeans

arrived here to the early 20th century created the blue red and purple country in which we live.

The closer we got to modern times (and that happened kind of early because Woodard goes from possibly overly granular time frames for analysis to covering 1878-2010 in a single section) the more editorial everything becomes. It was somewhat editorial before that, but pretty much from WWI on we get the MSNBC anthropological history of America broken down by region. I was probably still at a 4-star until I got to the epilogue which almost pushed this to a 2-star. To say Woodard tortures reason and logic to find that we should be a matriarchal Socialist society profoundly understates the case. Here is the analysis, That is how it is in Iceland. Women lead and no one owns land because Iceland threw off Norse colonizers after about 50 years (I think mostly because the Norse colonizers realized there was nothing there they wanted.) Because the colonizers were there only briefly (I think in the 10th century, but don't quote me) Iceland went back to the mores and practices of the indigenous culture and those mores and practices remained the dominant force even as some Europeans started moving there. I am not a Socialist (except in the eyes of the Proud Boys and their ilk.) I am not anti-matriarchal, but my goal is to eliminate gender based oppression and to be equal, not to turn the oppressors into the oppressed. Accordingly, Iceland is not my personal Shangri-La, but sure Colin, let it be yours. The promlem is that Colin presents the matriarchal socialist state as an objective Shangri-La, and to insinuate that the cultural maturation of a country with about 40,000 square miles and (currently) about 375,000 inhabitants that was not colonized would look at all the same as the maturation of a country with about 400,000,000 square miles and (currently) about 332,000,000 inhabitants had it not been colonized is, well, ridiculous. I settled on a 3 star review because there was a lot of challenging and fascinating information here,l and a lot of it really enlightening and important, I better understand now why Indiana is essentially Mississippi with snow and why Utah is filled with true believers who walk in lockstep and don't question the rules made by those above them and yet it is surrounded by states filled with rugged individualists who generally don't give a damn about rules set down by anyone who lives more than 40 miles from them.

Overall, flawed, but still worth the read. (You may want to skip the epilogue.)

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