Nations apart How clashing regional cultures shattered America

Journalist, historian, and Nationhood Lab director at the Pell Center, Woodard (Union, 2020) takes an in-depth, nuanced look at the regional differences that influence values and belief systems within large geographical swaths of the U.S. He posits that the roots of unique regional idealogies often date back centuries and exert considerable influence over contemporary attitudes regarding contentious social issues. Relying on multiple data points, he identifies and briefly summarizes 13 multistate regions (e.g., Yankeedom, El Norte, New France) then considers how local tenets and credos are translated into current politics and voting trends across five topics: abortion, gun rights, immigration, climate change, and medical care. His in-depth but accessible arguments bring in elements of history, religion, philosophy, economics, international comparisons, and predictions for the future, all fully supported by data. He reiterates two overarching messages: one, that "hiding or lying about our fractured, complicated past doesn't foster American unity. It helps destroy it," and two, while the American democractic system may be collapsing, it can still be saved. He suggests a return to our founding document, the Declaration of Independence; his research indicates that most U.S. citizens still hold true to the ideals that all individuals have inherent, unalienable rights. Considerable food for thought.

A study that explores our polarized politics as a reflection of polarized geographies. The idea that the United States is a congeries of very different countries isn't new. Woodard's welcome twist on the thesis is that the country's "awkward federation of distinct regional cultures" has led to very different ideas of political organization, an insight he and his research associates back with hard numbers and reams of data. The current turn toward authoritarianism, for instance, is rooted in the Deep South, founded and settled by aristocrats served by enslaved people and underlings, resulting today in "the least democratically minded of the regions, with a history of authoritarian, one‑party rule, and the suppression of dissent." What Woodard calls New France, embracing southern Louisiana, "has become the most conservative and authoritarian of all the continent's culture regions, transforming Louisiana from a swing state to a bastion of Trumpism and ethnonationalist sentiment." Against this are the community-minded, liberal states of the Northeast and the Pacific coast, whose egalitarian traditions extend outward to Hawaii and America's island empire. Those traditions have interesting sequelae: In terms of gun violence, Hawaii and Greater Polynesia are "the safest culture region of the country," while the homicide rate of the Deep South is quadruple the rate of New York. Indeed, Woodard adds, "New Netherland is far and away the safest of the large regions, and often safer even than Hawaii, despite being the most densely populated part of our continent." Oddly, while the Far West is thought of as being Trump country, it is "inhospitable turf for right-wing authoritarians," as is much of the country. Still, Woodard warns, we need a refreshed civic story of American democracy, "vital not only because democracy really is better than fascism, but also because the consolidation of an ethnonationalist authoritarian regime would almost certainly trigger the physical collapse of this federation." A lucid exercise in political geography with tremendous--and disturbing--explanatory power. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.