American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America

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Penguin, Sep 29, 2011 - History - 400 pages
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 (author of American Character: A History of the Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Good)  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.

 

Contents

1590 to 1769
Founding El Norte
Founding New France
Founding Tidewater
Founding Yankeedom
Founding New Netherland
The Colonies First Revolt Chapter 7 Founding the Deep South
Founding the Midlands
First Secessionists
1816 to 1877
Yankeedom Spreads West
The Midlands Spread West Chapter 17 Appalachia Spreads West
The Deep South Spreads West Chapter 19 Conquering El Norte
Founding the Left Coast
War for the West
1878 to 2010

Founding Greater Appalachia
1770 to 1815
A Common Struggle
Six Wars of Liberation
Independence or Revolution?
Nations in the North
Founding the Far West
Immigration and Identity
Gods and Missions
War Empire and the Military
The Struggle for Power I The Blue Nations
Copyright

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About the author (2011)

Colin Woodard is a Maine native and the author of Ocean’s End: Travels Through Endangered Seas. He is a regular contributor to the Christian Science Monitor and the San Francisco Chronicle.

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