American nations
by Colin Woodard · first published 2011
76% recommend21% neutral3% critical
Why HN recommends it
Accessible history of how North America's eleven regional cultures trace to their original settlers, explaining regional politics, values, and differences. Suits readers seeking context for US divisions.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
The author describes eleven rival regional "nations" in the United States (Yankeedom, New Netherland, the Midlands, Tidewater, Greater Appalachia, the Deep South, New France, El Norte, the Left Coast, the Far West, and First Nation), and how these deep roots continue to influence our politics today.
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…Virginia, western Virginia) and the culture for both business and informal activities is vastly different than that of the Deep South, West Coast, Mid Atlantic, etc. See this book: http://www.amazon.com/American-Nations-History-Regional-Cult...
on “Stop Generalizing About Europe” ↗…Hamilton's vision Race is only useful in this sort of thing as a predictor of rough economic class, and even then it's less than useful. IOW, I don't think it's specifically race. A better resource is "American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America" http://www.amazon.com/American-Nations-History-Regional-Cult...
on “Where the Middle Class Is Shrinking” ↗…would be facile toignore this fact; economics isn't some indepedent objective force, but the product of social and structural factors that are ultimately arbitrary. I'm a big fan of Colin Woodard's book American Nations, which examines the very different social, economic and cultural assumptions of 11 different regions in the USA and goes a long way towards explaining the various frictions that arise from conflicting…
on “Young White America Is Haunted by a Crisis of Despair” ↗Then I think you would probably enjoy Colin Woodard’s “American Nations - A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America”
on “An Economic Geography of the United States: From Commutes to Megaregions (2016)” ↗…read novels, memoirs, self-help books, and of course the classics. There is no plausible political situation where you can't squeeze an hour a day off your Twitter feed in order to spend it reading, say, American Nations, or The Cooking Gene, and learn some of the historical roots behind the news that's ruining your blood pressure today. There's a real distinction between urgent and important. I can recommend multiple…
on “Why We Should Watch Less News” ↗…you can easily divide it into multiple regions that have their own unique culture, their own distinct histories, and different ways of speaking, sometimes dramatically different. Colin Woodard's book "American Nations" does a good job of explaining this [0], though at some point this book turns into a long rant about GWB and it's safe to put the book down at that point if you don't find that interesting. [0]: https://www.businessinsider.com/the-11-nations-of-the-united...
on “Silicon Valley exodus: Bay Area tech companies leaving for Texas” ↗…only along the coast, or did they never lay full claim to the land? Curious as to why it doesn't really show on this visualization. There's an excellent book about settlement patterns in the US called American Nations, by Colin Woodward. His theory is essentially that we don't pay nearly enough attention to the different influences of the competing original colonies, and that if you examine the history in this light…
on “The Invasion of America: New Visualizations of Native American Dispossession” ↗…is descended from that which informed the founding of the Carolina and West Indian slave colonies. [1] http://www.amazon.com/American-Character-History-Struggle-In... Colin Woodard's previous book, American Nations was the most interesting book I read last year.
on “Trump-Sanders Signal an Oligarchy on the Brink of Collapse” ↗Not just the Appalachians; any natural barrier between the coast/Piedmont and the place under test will work. But IMO, it's mostly about the settlement pattern in play. I've found Colin Woodard's "American Nations" to be a pretty good guide. I think this map comes from that: http://static.businessinsider.com/image/55b273a2371d2211008b...
on “Former Sequoia partners: The Midwest is the future of startups” ↗I recommend checking ou the book [American Nations](https://smile.amazon.com/American-Nations-History-Regional-C...)
on “Death to the Gerrymander” ↗Quite so. I recommend Colin Woodard's excellent book American Nations to anyone who wishes to understand the often-conflicting worldviews that shape the USA and which have come to transcend state borders.
on “During WWII, U.S. Saw Italian-Americans as a Threat to Homeland Security” ↗…USA, some of which have historically been violently opposed to each other. If you are interested in these social dynamics (and you probably should be at this point in history) then I strongly recommend American Nations by Colin Woodard as a guide for the perplexed.
on “Man Fined $500 for Crime of Writing 'I Am an Engineer' in an Email to the Gov't” ↗Because American society has been sorting itself into camps of radically different worldviews over the last several decades, as is easily observed in the decline of Congressional bipartisanship. American Nations by Colin woodard is the best history book I've read on the origins of these competing worldviews. Email me at gmail if you want links to unpublished and rather turgid but substantively fascinating research…
on “The Grim Biology of Being Poor” ↗American Nations by Colin Woodard and History of American Law by Lawrence Friedman are probably the best intellectual cocktail if you want to go on a serious historical bender.
on “How the Tension Between Mercy and Blame Shaped Our Legal Codes” ↗…they wanted to live somewhere whiter and more conservative, so there are pockets of very strong ideological opposition to any sort of public institutions. As a fellow Euro I really recommend the book American Nations by Colin Woodard (actually also from Oregon) if you want to understand the strange contradictions of US politics. One of the best history books I've read.
on “Where Anti-Tax Fervor Means ‘All Services Will Cease’” ↗