American Nations: A History Of The Eleven Regional Cultures Of North America, by Colin Woodard

My roommate for the Feast of Tabernacles this year bought me this book, which comes in at a very readable 326 pages of reading text (outside of the indices and the like), and it was a wise purchase. As a person who enjoys engaging in “type watching,” and someone with a strong interest in ethnogenesis, I found this book to be a gripping read, one I had trouble putting down. To make it better, this book explained a great deal of my own “borderlands” political ideology and my deep ambivalence toward both Yankees and people from the Deep South when it comes to culture and politics. The book even makes a plug for an independent Greenland at the end, as Greenland is part of the often neglected “First Nation” of Arctic and Sub-Arctic North America [1].

The book is organized thematically in a generally chronological order. It looks at the eleven nations of North America, which are the following: First Nation, New France, Yankeedom, The Midlands, New Netherlands, Tidewater, Greater Appalachia, Deep South, El Norte, The Far West, and The Left Coast. Together, these nations include most of North America (aside from Southern Florida and Hawaii), all of Canada, and northern Mexico. Each of these nations has a unique ethnic and cultural history that gives it a distinct ideology as well as approach, along with a set of natural allies and rivals. Obviously, the existence of these many nations gives the lie to claims of a unique American (or Canadian) nation, and also provides considerable risk to the survival of both Canada and the United States for the long-term, unless some kind of peaceful coexistence between mutually hostile cultures (The Far West and New France, or Yankeedom/The Left Coast and the Deep South) can be found. The author does not appear very sanguine about these prospects.

What makes this book particularly gripping is how it demonstrates the oversize importance of original settlers and colonists in different areas and the political culture of those regions, as well as the fragility of the coalitions that are used by the dominant cultures in gaining power and influence on a national level. Also of immense value is the way that the author uses a variety of different sources, as diverse as enduring voting patterns on the county-by-county level, migration patterns, farming, political and even musical culture, and physical geography to paint a coherent story of rival nations expanding across the nation and dealing with their rivals and enemies in complicated and fascinating ways. Whether one is more interested in examining colonial history and its enduring importance on American history, American political history, or the relationship of politics, culture, and geography, this book is of immense value, and it includes some sources in its bibliography that I will definitely look at for future reading. And ultimately, a book that is easy to read, full of great research, and one that encourages thought and follow-up research is a book that deserves to be on many libraries, especially given its combination of stellar ethnic history as well as cautious prophecy. What’s not to like about that?

[1] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/12/26/would-an-independent-greenland-be-welcome-in-nafta/