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Our Patchwork Nation: The Surprising Truth About the "Real" America [Paperback]

Dante Chinni , James Gimpel
4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)

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Book Description

October 4, 2011

A provocative counterargument to the blue/red divide that illuminates our country's multidimensional political spectrum.

In a climate of culture wars and economic uncertainty, the media have often reduced America to a simplistic schism between red and blue states. In response to that oversimplification, journalist Dante Chinni teamed up with political geographer James Gimpel, using on-the-ground reporting and statistical analysis to get past generalizations and probe American communities in depth.

Looking at the data, they recognized that the country breaks into twelve distinct types of communities, whose differences and specific concerns shed light on the subtle distinctions in how Americans vote, shop, and otherwise behave. Showcasing personal interviews, combined with facts and statistics, Our Patchwork Nation offers a brilliant new way to examine the issues that matter most to our communities, and to our nation.


Frequently Bought Together

Our Patchwork Nation: The Surprising Truth About the "Real" America + American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America + The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart
Price for all three: $37.16

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Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

The astounding diversity among the 300 million citizens of the U.S. defies easy labels of red and blue states, Republicans or Democrats. Journalist Chinni and scholar Gimpel draw on two years of research and interviews to offer regional portraits of the U.S. that drill down to a deeper look at political, social, economic, and cultural perspectives than the red and blue labels. Using data from the nation’s 3,141 counties to get a flavor of local perspectives, they looked at typical demographics of race, education, income, religion, and politics and identified 12 different community types based on “common experiences and shared realities.” Their categories: boomtowns, campus and careers, emptying nests, Evangelical epicenters, immigration nation, industrial metropolis, military bastions, minority central, monied burbs, Mormon outposts, service-worker centers, and tractor country. The first part of the book examines the characteristics of each type of county, while the second compares the types and how their characteristics drive economics, politics, and culture. The authors’ data is almost as fascinating as their conversations with people living within the defined regions. --Vanessa Bush --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"Brings a fascinating insight into what makes Americans different these days."
(-The Miami Herald )

Product Details

  • Paperback: 336 pages
  • Publisher: Gotham (October 4, 2011)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 159240670X
  • ISBN-13: 978-1592406708
  • Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #157,039 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Dante Chinni is the director of the Patchwork Nation project, a Knight Foundation-funded journalism collaboration that studies politics, socio-economics and culture in a time of change. Chinni's first book "Our Patchwork Nation" from Gotham, an imprint of Penguin, was published October 1, 2010.

Based in Washington, D.C., Chinni has been covering politics and the media for more than a decade. He has worked as senior associate at the Project for Excellence in Journalism and has written for publications including The Economist, Columbia Journalism Review, and The Washington Post Magazine. A native of Detroit and a graduate of Michigan State University, he lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife, Christina, and their two children.

Customer Reviews

Good perspectives and historical data. Ricardo Alonso Jr.  |  4 reviewers made a similar statement
So, I highly recommend it as an introduction that hopefully would lead to further reading. Benjamin D. Steele  |  1 reviewer made a similar statement
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
35 of 42 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Compromised by printing defects October 10, 2010
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
This terrific work is compromised by the lack of maps ... the lack of maps in sufficient size to be readable ... and the lack of maps in color. Contrary to the book jacket, the internal county-by-county maps are reduced in size and printed in varying shades of black-and-white, making them almost illegible to the reader. Trying to depict data graphically on 5,000+ counties is a challenge anyway; reducing maps to half-page size in various gray halftones is frustrating to the reader. The cheap paper stock used in the production of this book further compromises the already-muddy look of the various maps, charts, and graphs. This is an example of a fine work compromised by poor design.
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars A Course on 'Our Patchwork Nation' March 26, 2011
Format:Hardcover
Our Patchwork Nation: The Surprising Truth About the "Real" America, by Dante Chinni and James Gimpel, is a book that reminds me why I got into the social science game to begin with. If I were still teaching sociology (and I miss teaching!), the next course I designed would be totally around Patchwork Nation.

The idea of Patchwork Nation came out of Chinni's and Gimpel's frustration with the Red State / Blue State media divide. They thought that there had to be a more nuanced and accurate framework to understand elections, politics, economics and culture. Using a variety of data sources, they came up with a framework that includes 12 types of communities (with the county as the unit of analysis):

Boom Towns
Campus and Careers
Emptying Nests
Evangelical Epicenters
Immigration Nation
Industrial Metropolis
Military Bastions
Minority Central
Monied 'Burbs
Mormon Outposts
Service Worker Centers
Tractor Country

You can check out what community type you live in at the Patchwork Nation website. [...] Where do you live? Does the description on the site (or in the book) of your county ring true to your experience?

It would be interesting to filter IHE readers through this framework.

Not surprisingly, I live in a "Campus and Careers" county , defined as "...cities and towns with young, educated populations; more secular and Democratic than other American communities". The representative community for Campus and Careers is Ann Arbor, MI.

The combination of the book and the website provides all the material necessary for a great class. I think that the authors are willing to make part of the data they used to construct their analysis available to other researchers (and students) to analyze.

Think about how much richer the Patchwork Nation framework would be if student researchers contributed new forms of analysis to the public educational commons.

What are you reading?
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24 of 28 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Beyond red and blue...finally. October 5, 2010
By TCA
Format:Hardcover
Given the current political climate - where pundits and cultural forecasters are spending much of their time attempting to read the unreadable tea leaves - Our Patchwork Nation is a welcome and wholly inventive piece of work. Chinni's opening concept is simple. The U.S. is far too complicated to be reduced to red states and blue states (with apologies to all those cable news stations who have already invested in their markers for the next election round).

But don't confuse Our Patchwork Nation with a dull treatise or dry bit of academic analysis - Chinni is a fantastic writer with a gift for narrative. The 12 community types developed by the project are introduced with the kind of illustrative, long-form journalism we don't see enough of anymore. More than that, there are no heroes or villains offered in the book, no easy answers or clean solutions. Our Patchwork Nation isn't out to tell us what to think...it just asks that we do.

It's found a welcome place on my bookshelf.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars Good reference book
My wife keeps referring to the types of community that surround us plus all the cities and towns we visit. Good perspectives and historical data. Read more
Published 5 days ago by Ricardo Alonso Jr.
4.0 out of 5 stars Very interesting demographic data
If you were someone who was actually interested in the 2010 census and how the migration patterns of our country have changed you will enjoy this book. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Aaron M. Willard
5.0 out of 5 stars Fun & insightful for fans of demographics, politics, etc.
If you find any of several topics fascinating, including demographics, politics, and searching for the utopian community given your predispositions, to be fun, this is a must read.
Published 7 months ago by miss-match
3.0 out of 5 stars Counting the Counties
Books such as "Our Patchwork Nation" delve into more detailed information about the diversity of US Americans and why they do what they do. Read more
Published 9 months ago by George F. Simons
5.0 out of 5 stars Solid 4.5 Stars
This is an excellent book. The authors present a unique analysis of data. I would lower the rating slightly just because it could have been even greater if they had widened the... Read more
Published 9 months ago by Benjamin D. Steele
4.0 out of 5 stars Valuable Data But Still More Work To Be Done
The authors did an exceedingly good job of presenting the data and community-type anecdotes in a way that convinces the reader of their central point: America is a much more... Read more
Published 11 months ago by Samuel J. Sharp
2.0 out of 5 stars Beating a Dead Horse and the Reader's Brain Into Submission
This book is one long fact sheet filled with interesting data that all Americans would be benefit from understanding, but the authors fail to provide the reader with an answer to... Read more
Published 14 months ago by Mike D.
5.0 out of 5 stars A great read
A great approach and step in the right direction of addressing a gap in how we vote and thus divide our nation.
Published 21 months ago by T. R. Farley
4.0 out of 5 stars Good Read, Good Research
The authors use a large amount of county-level data to create 12 community types. They make the interesting argument that people living in varying communities across the US... Read more
Published on March 3, 2011 by T. Dumas
5.0 out of 5 stars blue, red ... orange, purple, yellow, green ...
This book goes beyond the tired blue and red map of our country and introduces some other colors - represented by areas such as tractor country, military bastions, Mormon outposts,... Read more
Published on January 2, 2011 by C. P. Anderson
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