Borrowing fruitful notions from Joel Garreau’s Nine Nations of North America (1981) and David Hackett Fischer’s Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in North America (1989), Woodard traces the differences in America’s regions to cultural, ethnic, religious and political differences among various strains of settlers, many of them long in play back in the British Isles. Elie Wiesel There are many perspectives taken by citizens, especially in the South, I find downright nutty. Title notwithstanding, this latest from the National Book Award–winning author is no guidebook to getting woke. Your Credible Source for National and International News, Breaking News, Latest News and Current News including U.S., Politics, World, Business, and Technology. HOLOCAUST | I am on the side of dated. A very enjoyable read despite some generalizations, Reviewed in the United States on April 21, 2017. Woodard’s American Nations is a revolutionary and revelatory take on America’s myriad identities, and how the conflicts between them have shaped our country’s past and mold its future.”. This low quality of the audio version is unacceptable. GENERAL HISTORY, by ‧ A lot happens in that jump and it's handled with broad brush strokes that somehow tries to illustrate how the south turned red and the north went blue in only 10 pages. The first part of the book was fascinating, as it provided information of the ideology, settlement, and customs of each nation. ), have little to do with those artificialities. ; There are many perspectives taken by citizens, especially in the South, I find downright nutty. American Factory review – a sobering documentary by the Obamas. The author of American Nations examines the history of and solutions to the key American question: how best to reconcile individual liberty with the maintenance of a free society AMERICAN CHARACTER A History of the Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Colin Woodard’s latest book, American Nations, reminds me of the comedian Mike Myers and his “Saturday Night Live” sketch Coffee Talk. I could list at least a half-dozen factual errors in his presentation concerning the practice and influence of Evangelical Christianity in the Bible Belt, for instance, but would rather not bog down this review with nit-picking. America isn’t race, and it’s not blood. It would make a great textbook for high school American history. As I struggled to fathom what has happened to the US in the past year, this book came along and has begun to inform my thinking about how our current governmental scenario has developed. It’s a promise that we’ve made to each other. The author connects these regional differences to deep divisions in American life, noting that the old struggle between those moderate forces has been supplanted by the rise of that Deep South, perfected in the 2000 election, when it “established simultaneous control over the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives for the first time in forty-six years.” UNITED STATES | The American Crisis review: an Atlantic SOS call from Trump's divided nation. Ibram X. Kendi Ibram X. Kendi. It describes the different groups that came to America for entirely different reasons and speaks to their varying attitudes and values. illustrated by The writer's hate towards blows hard against the American south. Longtime national affairs writer Woodard (American Nation: A History of Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America, 2011, etc.) ‧ Now streaming on: Powered by JustWatch. For instance, King Charles I of England who was executed by the Puritans was not Roman Catholic but Anglican. Some of the author's words are changed by the narrator. Then the author gets lazy, Reviewed in the United States on June 24, 2016. At this point, the author loses all objectivity and shows his clear northeastern bias against the south. Forget about the United States and Canada. GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children. I have demanded a refund but not counting on anything. Books About Racism Sell Out at Amazon, B&N, Antiracist Book Dethrones Hunger Games Prequel. HISTORY | All Rights Reserved. ; Toward the beginning of “This America: The Case for the Nation,” Jill Lepore, a professor of history at Harvard and a … There is, of course, nothing new in viewing American culture as a series of encounters between North and South. "American Nations" offers a history of the varied cultures of Greater Appalachia, the Midlands, the Deep South, New Netherland and the Germano-Scandinavian Midwest. When writing the last third, however, the author clearly lost his objective discipline. Rather, it is a combination memoir and extension of Atlantic columnist Kendi’s towering Stamped From the Beginning (2016) that leads readers through a taxonomy of racist thought to anti-racist action. I highly recommend this book, but I'm submitting a three-star review based on the book's very weak and undisciplined finish. Review. Whereas the first two-thirds were well-reasoned and well-supported, the last third devolved into stereotypes and generalities, and contained more than a few downright errors, particularly concerning the modern Deep South and Greater Appalachia. . Colin Woodard ... comes to New York to give a speech at the United Nations… This sequel to 2003's real … The American National A.M. Best rating is A, and the American National S&P Rating is A. ... Books in Review. It also analyzes reviews to verify trustworthiness. Jason Reynolds Mr. Woodard's 'American Nations' will help you see the forest for the trees. Regional cultures can help explain president-elect Donald Trump's victory in November. The company culture is unlike any other as employees are valued and acknowledged as a key component in American National's foundation of success. Was this review helpful? There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions. The family who owns the bank was very active in referring business and showing care about the employees. Marion Wiesel These regions are the historical purview of, respectively, the Quakers of the English Midlands and the Puritans of England’s eastern coast, with their distinct views of human nature and how government had to be organized to respond to it. © Copyright 2020 Kirkus Media LLC. Some of the … . This book should be required reading for all Americans. Mr. Woodard's 'American Nations' will help you see the forest for the trees. There are a good number of downright incorrect statements that were derogatory toward the southern part of the country, which were really disappointing. Some words are mispronounced. American National is a small family owned community bank which created a very team-like work environment. RELEASE DATE: Aug. 13, 2019. I found myself cringing more than a few times at the outright inaccuracies contained in his presentation of the modern South. Pre-publication book reviews and features keeping readers and industry He illustrates and explains why "American" values vary … To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. The book goes well beyond the pilgrim and Thanksgiving myths that create a unified and hugely simplified view of our country's founding. It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds! translated by I prefer Colin Woodard's American Nations, because it delved into the why and how with a good historical analysis. GENERAL CURRENT EVENTS & SOCIAL ISSUES | RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006. Elie Wiesel After listening to about six chapters, I decided to buy the Kindle version so that I could understand what the author had actually written. I am an unapologetic Left Coaster with clear leanings toward activist Yankeeism, but even I was able to see Mr. Woodard's clear bias in the last third of the book. Basically, the premise of the book is that various regions of the USA have their own cultural legacy (see Malcolm Gladwell "Outliers"), which determine their politics and … In American Nations, Colin Woodard leads us on a journey through the history of our fractured continent, and the rivalries and alliances between its component nations, which conform to neither state nor international boundaries. Categories: When he began college, “anti-Black racist ideas covered my freshman eyes like my orange contacts.” This unsparing honesty helps readers, both white and people of color, navigate this difficult intellectual territory. This one stood out among all of the others. It's now 7/25/20 and... nothing. It was truly enlightening, even for an historian like myself. Mr. Woodard's very convincing argument shows that our nation's tensions have been consistently about cultural clashes between eleven areas. We are brothers and sisters, one nation, one tribe. Decent thesis that plays out pretty well. translated by Some words are misread in ways that either alter the entire meaning of the sentence or leave the listener wondering what in the world the sentence was supposed to mean. The true nations of North America, writes historian and Christian Science Monitor foreign correspondent Woodard (The Republic of Pirates, 2007, etc. I thought the first two-thirds of the book provided a well-documented and well-thought-out presentation of America's regional differences and the history behind those differences. Truly a company that invests in the development of it's people. It fit to a tee. Trouble signing in? American history can thus be best understood as the outcomes of interactions amongst these several cultures. illustrated by © 1996-2020, Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates, Select a location to see product availability, 1,964 global ratings | 1,220 global reviews, Reviewed in the United States on November 7, 2019. influencers in the know since 1933. by I was leaning toward giving this a 4-star rating until I hit about Chapter 24. 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. American Selfie inevitably feels a bit scattershot at times, no doubt due to the vagaries of Pelosi's travel schedule and her guerilla shooting approach. How Colin Woodard’s ‘American Nations’ explains the 2016 presidential election. Marion Wiesel, by GENERAL CURRENT EVENTS & SOCIAL ISSUES | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | I then read the text as I listened to the audio version, a process which showed me just how many substantial errors the narrator was making. “One of the most original books I read in the last year. With "American Selfie: One Nation Shoots Itself," documentary filmmaker Alexandra Pelosi holds a mirror up to her country, and the reflection is a sobering one. American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America is an American non-fiction book written by Colin Woodard and published in 2011. In American Nations he takes readers on a journey through the history of our fractured continent, offering a revolutionary and revelatory take on American identity, and how the conflicts between them have shaped our past and continue to mold … With Kevin Costner, Gregory Harrison, Eric Schweig, Gordon Tootoosis. American Conquest: Divided Nation is a game that should appeal to Civil War buffs everywhere, not to mention Texans. What he calls The Midlands, for instance, extends from the central Atlantic Seaboard deep into the Great Plains, encircling “Yankeedom” by taking in the southern tier of east-central Canada. AMERICAN NATIONS is a revolutionary and revelatory take on America’s myriad identities, and how the conflicts between them have shaped our past and mold our future. ETHNICITY & RACE, by Ibram X. Kendi Woodard offers a fascinating way to parse American (writ large) politics and history in this excellent book. Retrieve credentials. Just a word of warning about the Audible edition: there are far too many inaccuracies in the recorded version, inaccuracies which should have been corrected by re-recording. ; 438 reviews for American AF, 4.3 stars: 'Order placed 6/20/20. The book reads very well and is quite entertaining, but there a good degree of generalizations and some outright errors. Elie Wiesel Forget about the United States and Canada. & There isn’t and never has been one America, Colin Woodard argues, but rather We’re glad you found a book that interests you! Reviewed in the United States on November 24, 2017. Reviews American Selfie: One Nation Shoots Itself Matt Fagerholm October 23, 2020. Review A professional critic ... Four Presidents and the Creation of the American Nation,” the one-dollar Founding Father is repeatedly “driven by … A few reviews I've seen say it remains timely after 37 years, others have complained about how dated it is. I read dozens of new books a year. MHQ Reviews: Colin Woodard’s American Nations MHQ Home Page In his new book, American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America (Viking, 2011), Colin Woodard casts a new light on the rift in American discourse, a split often couched in terms of conservative and liberal, of red states versus blue. American Spy examines the intersections between spycraft and living in America as a black person. GENERAL HISTORY | The true nations of North America, writes historian and Christian Science Monitor foreign correspondent Woodard (The Republic of Pirates, 2007, etc. Reviewed in the United States on August 21, 2019, so disappointed, instead of an entertaining, informative book, I get a massive dose of liberal, leftist, political correctness, Decent thesis that plays out pretty well. Some of his “eleven stateless nations of North America” descend from these two regions, representing the old divide between moderate conservatism, with its “middle-class ethos and considerable respect for intellectual achievement,” and moderate liberalism, with its view that “society should be organized to benefit ordinary people.” Other regions, though, are the product of an English elite that mistrusted any government that presumed to tell them what to do, even though they descended from feudalism. The book lends considerable insight to the regional and political differences that persist today. CURRENT EVENTS & SOCIAL ISSUES | ETHNICITY & RACE | American National is an amazing company to be a part of. ‧ Review: In debut ‘NewsNation’ on WGN America promises balance, delivers convention » Instead, Donlon at one point called Trump “the most … According to award-winning journalist and historian Colin Woodard, North America is made up of eleven distinct nations, each with its own unique historical roots. Ashley Lukashevsky, by Categories: It would be great if Mr. Woodard could write a revised edition where he would exercise the same historical discipline in the last third of the book that he did for the first two-thirds. In fact, the word “woke” appears nowhere within its pages. Reviewed in the United States on February 21, 2017. His generalizations about the south aren’t based on any objective data, but on personal prejudices from his perspective. Magazine Subscribers (How to Find Your Reader Number). Michael Barone reviews… Elie Wiesel. American Nations. RELEASE DATE: Oct. 3, 2011. I still feel that this book is very much worth reading, but readers should approach the last third with a skeptical eye. The author then reframes those received ideas with inexorable logic: “Either racist policy or Black inferiority explains why White people are wealthier, healthier, and more powerful than Black people today.” If Kendi is justifiably hard on America, he’s just as hard on himself. Then the author gets lazy, and we magically jump 100 years into the future. An exploration of the various Native American nations and their fall to the European conquerors. He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. Behold, then, the South, both the aristocratic piedmont of Virginia and North Carolina and the hardscrabble, God-haunted, fearful Deep South. Never wavering from the thesis introduced in his previous book, that “racism is a powerful collection of racist policies that lead to racial inequity and are substantiated by racist ideas,” the author posits a seemingly simple binary: “Antiracism is a powerful collection of antiracist policies that lead to racial equity and are substantiated by antiracist ideas.” The author, founding director of American University’s Antiracist Research and Policy Center, chronicles how he grew from a childhood steeped in black liberation Christianity to his doctoral studies, identifying and dispelling the layers of racist thought under which he had operated. , politics, current events, and culture with detailed analysis and commentary cringing more than a few i! Enjoyable read despite some generalizations, reviewed in the South aren ’ t a... Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought item! 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