American Nations

Colin Woodard’s “American Nations” is an illuminating chronicle of the eleven rival cultural regions that make up North America, which explodes the red state/blue state myth. Each region has a distinct religious, political, and ethnographic character, creating cultural traditions that have been at odds with one another ever since. Subsequent immigrants to North America didn’t confront or assimilate into American culture or Canadian culture; rather they settled into one of the eleven distinct regional cultures that spread over the continent. The rift between the regions can be seen in sharp contrast in their values, which take on neither national nor international connotations but remain fixed in their own territories.