I think anyone who is interested in the public life of North America needs to read this book. It is extremely well-written, engrossing, and important to public debate.
The first part traces the historical roots of the eleven nations of the northern 2/3 our continent. The argument is well-buttressed with historical observations, and ultimately is persuasive that there are indeed eleven nations within our country (12 if you count Miami, the capital of the Caribbean), it is persuasive about the characteristics of the nations and why they developed and spread the way they did. I accept pretty much everything in the first half of the book and consider it a great addition to my understanding of American history.
The second half of the book traces modern developments and looks a bit into the future. It less persuasive but still worth the read, as it applies the eleven-nation concept to more modern times.
Disclosure: I view myself as somewhat liberal in outlook with a somewhat libertarian flavor to it. I am an independent but I currently dislike the Republican party more than I dislike the Democratic party. I was born and raised in DC (which, as the author admits, is somewhat unique) and lived in the nation of Tidewater for 30 years. I moved to Pittsburgh in the nation of Midlands and have lived here for 30 years. Perhaps this explains the nagging feeling throughout the book that, despite the historical facts that buttress the arguments, there is a Yankee national bias to the book. Perhaps the frequent representation of the nation of Deep South as the fount of all evil tends to create this expression. Is there nothing about the Deep South that is good? I will leave that to others to answer. I will instead concentrate on some differences between Tidewater and Midlands that I have experienced, which makes me long for some aspects of Tidewater. Perhaps having attending the University of Virginia has warped my outlook, but so be it.
The highway departments in both Pennsylvania (mostly Midlands) and Virginia (mostly Tidewater) are both known for their past corruption (though things may be better now). In the Pittsburgh area, while I was living here, Route 51 was paved by a corrupt contractor who not only got the bid through fraud but also used substandard paving so that the entire highway had to be repaved a year or so later. I don't think this kind of corruption happens in Virginia. A different kind of corruption happens (or happened) there. Contracts were awarded to those who had connections, and perhaps offered certain inducements to officials of the highway department. But paving with substandard materials? Simply not done.
And, I remember once when I took a crew of folks visiting from Roanoke Virginia (in Tidewater) walking from the University of Pittsburgh to a restaurant in the student-slum area near the University. They were commenting on the amount of trash on the streets and sidewalks, and had to resist the urge to start picking it all up. Perhaps some of this is due to the Appalachian influence in Pittsburgh.
In Tidewater, as a middle class developed, some of the principles of the old aristocracy took hold with the middle and even the lower classes, and even regardless of race. Despite being seen by some as a Yankee virtue, neatness, pride in one's houses and village and cities, a sense of responsibility for the land and the people is a core value in Tidewater and indeed in some of the Deep South. It's a sense of noblesse oblige handed down from the originally English aristocracy who originally ruled the land -- people like James Madison, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson. If you hike the Appalachian Trail, you can see this in the care that goes into trail and shelter maintenance as you hike through Tidewater Virginia.
Given these sorts of observations, I wish the MR. Woodard had expanded the work a bit, dealing a bit more with counterexamples to his arguments, accepting some and dismissing others. It would ultimately have been a bit more persuasive and enlightening.
Regardless, is is a must-read. I will have my wife and 14-year-old daughter read it and then we will have a family book club discussing it.
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A very enjoyable read despite some generalizations
The book reads very well and is quite entertaining, but there a good degree of generalizations and some outright errors. For instance, King Charles I of England who was executed by the Puritans was not Roman Catholic but Anglican. Nevertheless if you appreciate the distinctions in the various US regions and wonder how they became the way they are this a highly readable introduction to the subject.At first I thought the thesis implausible regarding the eleven competing "nations" but Woodard's easy to read book is based on serious scholarly research of ethnoregional histories of the US like "Albion's Seed" by David Hackett Fischer. The basic premise is that the Yankee culture of New England with its Puritan roots spread to the northern Midwest and California by Yankee cultural "missionaries". The Midlands of Pennsylvania were dominated by English Quakers and German farmers who tend to be orderly, tolerant and pacifist; they are/were a blend of different nationalities and many different Protestant denominations. NYC became an isolated unit of commerce: multi-ethnic, extremely tolerant, not so religious, very materialistic but highly influential. English aristocrats who were related to the Cavaliers who fought against the Puritans in England founded the Tidewater culture of Virginia and Maryland and were unlikely bed fellows with their Yankee neighbors for the fight for "independence" from England. Most of the Tidewater gentry preferred to remain with England and considered themselves as aristocratic as anyone in their native England. Slave Lords of Barbados founded South Carolina and the Deep South culture while the belligerent Ulster Scots (Scotch Irish) settled Greater Appalachia, considering a neighbor 5 miles away too close. The descendants of the Ulster Scots were a raucous bunch that enjoyed leisure, whisky, Indian hunting and would fight anyone, anywhere at a moment's notice. To this day they are the first to enlist if they sense US "honor" slighted and Andrew Jackson, who initiated the Trail of Tears was their first President. The freedom-loving Ulster Scots surprisingly hated the Deep South slave lords more than they despised the intrusive Yankee cultural imperialists. In fact, most Scotch Irish Appalachian men fought for the Union or remained neutral, though their lands are in the South and they are the fount of the Country Music scene in Nashville. Why fight for the ilk that had oppressed you in Scotland and Ireland? The Utopian Yankees, the pacifist Midlanders, the gun touting Scotch Irish and the Slave Lords of the Deep South were all able to penetrate and colonize the interior of the continent and maintain or even expand their political power nationwide while NYC and the Virginia aristocrats remained landlocked - both regionally and politically. So much so that US history has been a political battle between the powerful Deep South and the moral crusading Yankees that replaced Puritanism with liberal values. Very often the Midlanders with their massive German population have ended up the "king makers," determining who becomes president of the USA and it was not until the Civil Rights Movement and LBJ that Greater Appalachia finally formed the "Dixie Coalition" with the Deep South. The map on the cover jacket breaks up the 11 regional "nations" and is not unlike a reflection of how the different areas vote.
Top reviews from other countries
- Amazon CustomerReviewed in Canada on September 17, 2024
Explains today's political scene
- Amazon CustomerReviewed in the Netherlands on October 13, 2024
Half-decent. Turns into anti-south, anti-Trump propaganda by the end.
- Andrey FedorovReviewed in the United Arab Emirates on June 22, 2024
Informative and insightful book
