American Nations

A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America

By: Colin Woodard

Narrated by: Walter Dixon

Length: 12 hrs and 51 mins

Publisher's summary

An illuminating history of North America's 11 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 11 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.

©2011 Colin Woodward (P)2011 Gildan Media Corp

Critic reviews

"Woodard offers a fascinating way to parse American (writ large) politics and history in this excellent book." ( Kirkus)

"Woodard explains away partisanship in American Nations... which makes the provocative claim that our culture wars are inevitable. North America was settled by groups with distinct political and religious value - and we haven't had a moment's peace since." ( Publishers Weekly)

great start, wonderful thought most, poor ending

the overall model is wonderful & I can see it happening

until

you get to the more modern times.

the author seems to not understand what is going on in the last 30 to 60 years in the southern part of the USA.

The negative & political shots near the end are all biased and misunderstanding of Greater Application.

in the end I recommend this book for the first roughly 2/3 of the book, with less validity the more modern he is talking.

the biggest miss was a logical explanation of why the Southern States use to vote Democratic Party and now Republican Party.

What if the Deep South were always Democratic & still are, but the infouance of the Deep South has gone away & Greater Application has replaced it?

How Regional Subcultures Explain the US

American Nations should be required reading for every political science major. Why do so many other Americans not get it when discussing public policy? Colin Woodard explains that the differences in political beliefs and voting preferences have cultural causes. According to Woodard, the US is actually made up of 11 distinct subcultures which are generally geographically defined. Due to their origins and unique histories, these subcultures have vastly different values and views of the American experiment. Woodard reveals the roots and origins of these different subcultures including when and why they migrated to the US. He discusses how major American events, like the American Civil War, impacted and shaped these distinct nations.

While Woodard may have drawn heavily from Joel Garreau, he puts a unique twist on the idea of North American subcultures.

After reading American Nations, you will have an increased understanding for why Americans vote the way we do, why the US political system is so divided, and why politicians use certain types of rhetoric. It's an eye opening book that is a must read for anyone seeking to understand American or Canadian politics.

Every student interested in political science should read this

Woodard explains how the history of America accounts for the voting patterns of people occupying the different regions of the United States. He distinguished States from the different “nations” that make up our country.

very enjoyable

very insightful and interesting, highly recommend for anyone interested in politics/US political history or why were so divided today

Pro-Yankee Bias and Historical Mistakes

Lincoln lied about sending relief ships to Fort Sumpter - those ships did in fact contain men and material. Lincoln also promised to vacate the Fort soon after the ships arrived. Another lie. The federals' garrison was increased by the ships, indicating their intention to stay. Lincoln did this to provoke the South into retaking the Fort as a pretext for starting the War.

The author defers to the characterization of the South's enemies, but rarely quotes the leaders of the South except to condemn them. The Yankees on the other hand are endlessly praised, despite the fact that the author notes, and never really analyzes, that everyone disliked the Yankees.

I come away from this book with a better understanding of our country, but not a better understanding of the people other than the slave holders of the Deep South and the Tidewater.

I expected better, and certainly a more even hand. Even 150 years later, Yankees still feel the need to demonize the South to justify their illegal war of conquest.

Anyway, interesting book, read with a big grain of salt.

Kudos. Eye opener beyond words, a must listen, many times over!

The in-depth factual historical perspective is what impressed me the most.

This was highly educational and gave me a basis upon which to understand future developments in our socio-political landscape.

Great, Until the End

What aspect of Walter Dixon’s performance would you have changed?

At times, Dixon was fairly monotone, but the performance was steady and still entertaining. Actually, it was humorous to hear him attempt some regional accents, which he didn't do particularly well.

Any additional comments?

The majority of the book, from the creation of the first settlements in North America through the end of the Civil War is terrific. Afterwards, the author begins to equate all things that most Americans currently find politically conservative or libertarian in aspect as a product of Deep Southern or "Borderlander" thought and is therefore lumped into the same categories as white supremacy and slavery. In fact, the author's fairly biased point of view becomes more pronounced as he attempts to stretch his thesis to current events, with multiple digs at institutions like the Tea Party and the present day incarnation of the Republican party, while professing a love of a strong centralized government as a means to unite all Americans and a need to put aside individual liberties for the sake of the nation and the "common good.: Garreau's Nine Nations of North America is a better book on the fractured cultural history of the United States without many of the biases that Woodard seems to harbor, but that's not available yet on Audible.

Fascinating and Highly Recommended

I am always hesitant about historical perspectives that attempt to fit people and the times they lived in into neat boxes. Whether you are classifying people by their religious beliefs, their ethnic background or their purpose at the time, there are always people and times that don't fit neatly into the box. When you label an historical event or time period as a "class struggle", a "religious conflict" or a "race war", your label may encompass 80% of the problems and issues, but it ignores entirely the other 20% of what was going on at the time. And sometimes that other 20% is the critical piece that explains the whole. Not every early immigrant came to the new world seeking religious freedom. The American Civil War wasn't just about slavery.

This book attempts to categorize the people that settled the United States and the regions they settled into eleven neat boxes that explain why the country acts and reacts the way it does on social, moral, political and traditional issues. If a person lives in a certain section of the country, we should be able to infer from that how they feel and react to all of the major issues of the day. Based on this premise, I should dislike this book.

And yet I didn't. I found it informative and fascinating. It shed light on our historical response to several issues that I have never understood. And it clearly expressed thoughts I have always struggled with expressing myself. I didn't finish the book thinking that I agreed 100% with everything in it. But I did finish it thinking it expanded my understanding, clarified some muddy thoughts and reinforced some long-held beliefs. It is such a large book that presents so many large ideas that it can't be explained or defined in a short review.
My primary takeaways were:

While the people who inhabit a region do mold and affect the character, belief system and structure of a region, conversely the region molds and affects the character and belief system of the people who inhabit a region. When individuals or groups of people migrate from one region to another, they tend to adapt to the region, more than the region adapts to them.

State borders are as artificial and unimportant in the big scheme of things, as I have long thought they were. Trying to understand why two states with a long contiguous border react so differently to political and religious issues is futile. But if you pull back and look at the larger regions each state inhabits, their actions make much more sense.

There are cities and counties that seem to react completely differently than the areas surrounding them. These are often "border" areas, where multiple regions intersect and struggle. These areas seem to be the big "unknowns" in many of the critical points of our history.

It is evidently going to take more than 400 years for the personalities, belief systems, priorities and thought processes of our original founders to work through our systems and no longer affect us. We still react to many issues and problems the way our fore bearers who first settled this nation did. While some of these inherited beliefs and responses still serve us well, others have far outlived their usefulness and now cause more harm than good.

I don't know if I agree with the author's premise that at some point in the next 150 years or so, some or all of these regions may break away from the three countries that currently compose North America. But after reading this book, I am far less skeptical about this than I was before I read it. And I am no longer certain that would necessarily be a bad thing.

Makes a very compelling case

If you have ever wondered why Americans seem destined to argue past each other on all matters politics, this book provides a plausible explanation. Sorry, those that disagree with you are not idiots, but were likely raised in a different "national" culture. Woodard presents American history and current political loggerheads through the lens of the cultures of the different groups who colonized and now populate North America.

Why are we so divided?

This book answers the question. In light of the recent election, this book should be read by both sides of the political aisle.