Categories: influencers in the know since 1933. by The thesis of American Nations is that America can best be understood as a series of eleven regional cultures. GENERAL HISTORY | We’re glad you found a book that interests you! The writer does not try to hide his prejudice against the American south. A very enjoyable read despite some generalizations, Reviewed in the United States on April 21, 2017. 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 … Jason Reynolds America isn’t race, and it’s not blood. Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children. Leading conservative magazine and website covering news, politics, current events, and culture with detailed analysis and commentary. It is the revelation that all of us are created equal. First two-thirds are excellent and well-balanced, the last third sadly not so, Reviewed in the United States on October 13, 2015. Some of the … In fact, the word “woke” appears nowhere within its pages. Colin Woodard, by ‧ Mr. Woodard's 'American Nations' will help you see the forest for the trees. “Internalized racism,” he writes, “is the real Black on Black Crime.” Kendi methodically examines racism through numerous lenses: power, biology, ethnicity, body, culture, and so forth, all the way to the intersectional constructs of gender racism and queer racism (the only section of the book that feels rushed). 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. The book reads very well and is quite entertaining, but there a good degree of generalizations and some outright errors. Reviewed in the United States on January 8, 2018. RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006. 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. Retrieve credentials. For instance, King Charles I of England who was executed by the Puritans was not Roman Catholic but Anglican. GENERAL HISTORY, by illustrated by Then the author gets lazy, and we magically jump 100 years into the future. ... comes to New York to give a speech at the United Nations… Pre-publication book reviews and features keeping readers and industry Books About Racism Sell Out at Amazon, B&N, Antiracist Book Dethrones Hunger Games Prequel. His generalizations about the south aren’t based on any objective data, but on personal prejudices from his perspective. HISTORY, by Elie Wiesel “One of the most original books I read in the last year. Colin Woodard’s latest book, American Nations, reminds me of the comedian Mike Myers and his “Saturday Night Live” sketch Coffee Talk. 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. American Spy examines the intersections between spycraft and living in America as a black person. 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. It describes the different groups that came to America for entirely different reasons and speaks to their varying attitudes and values. Some are omitted, while occasionally some are added. ’American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America’ by Colin Woodard (Viking) The Deep South stretches to East Texas, long in … © Copyright 2020 Kirkus Media LLC. . ETHNICITY & RACE, by Magazine Subscribers (How to Find Your Reader Number). Elie Wiesel 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 … 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. Ibram X. Kendi 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. illustrated by Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. By the way, I join those reviewers who praise the first 2/3 of this book, but I certainly urge others to purchase a text version. Ashley Lukashevsky, by When writing the last third, however, the author clearly lost his objective discipline. translated by Behold, then, the South, both the aristocratic piedmont of Virginia and North Carolina and the hardscrabble, God-haunted, fearful Deep South. 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. There are many perspectives taken by citizens, especially in the South, I find downright nutty. It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds! Immigration Nation (Review) The Netflix documentary adopts the dangerous viewpoint of ICE agents, portraying immigration raids and deportation proceedings as banal, bureaucratic procedures. It would make a great textbook for high school American history. The book goes well beyond the pilgrim and Thanksgiving myths that create a unified and hugely simplified view of our country's founding. I was leaning toward giving this a 4-star rating until I hit about Chapter 24. Some of the author's words are changed by the narrator. The true nations of North America, writes historian and Christian Science Monitor foreign correspondent Woodard (The Republic of Pirates, 2007, etc. The mind-shifting I got from this book is the only thing that keeps me sane when I read the news. Woodard offers a fascinating way to parse American (writ large) politics and history in this excellent book. 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. Toward the beginning of “This America: The Case for the Nation,” Jill Lepore, a professor of history at Harvard and a … & Elie Wiesel I read dozens of new books a year. —MaineBusiness.com. I found myself cringing more than a few times at the outright inaccuracies contained in his presentation of the modern South. 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. Marion Wiesel 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.”. ... Books in Review. Ibram X. Kendi, by ), have little to do with those artificialities. I am on the side of dated. All Rights Reserved. The true nations of North America, writes historian and Christian Science Monitor foreign correspondent Woodard (The Republic of Pirates, 2007, etc. "American Nations" offers a history of the varied cultures of Greater Appalachia, the Midlands, the Deep South, New Netherland and the Germano-Scandinavian Midwest. 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. & Mr. Woodard's very convincing argument shows that our nation's tensions have been consistently about cultural clashes between eleven areas. During a recent visit to Saugatuck, Michigan, I struck up a socially distanced chat with a tourist who vocally refused to wear a mask. I great big brushstrokes picture of American Geo-Ethnic History. 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.” Such a presentation would truly be worthy of five stars. 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. With Kevin Costner, Gregory Harrison, Eric Schweig, Gordon Tootoosis. That part was an interesting read. How Colin Woodard’s ‘American Nations’ explains the 2016 presidential election. He illustrates and explains why "American" values vary … CURRENT EVENTS & SOCIAL ISSUES | The first part of the book was fascinating, as it provided information of the ideology, settlement, and customs of each nation. This one stood out among all of the others. I have demanded a refund but not counting on anything. It’s a promise that we’ve made to each other. 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. THIS AMERICA The Case for the Nation By Jill Lepore. Review: In debut ‘NewsNation’ on WGN America promises balance, delivers convention » Instead, Donlon at one point called Trump “the most … Reviewed in the United States on July 19, 2019. RELEASE DATE: Oct. 3, 2011. This low quality of the audio version is unacceptable. It also analyzes reviews to verify trustworthiness. Mark Podwal, by Reviewed in the United States on December 3, 2017. . 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