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American Nations
- A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 12 hrs and 51 mins
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Publisher's summary
An illuminating history of North America's 11 rival cultural regions that explodes the red state/blue state myth.
North America was settled by people with distinct religious, political, and ethnographic characteristics, creating regional cultures that have been at odds with one another ever since. Subsequent immigrants didn't confront or assimilate into an "American" or "Canadian" culture, but rather into one of the 11 distinct regional ones that spread over the continent, each staking out mutually exclusive territory.
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. He illustrates and explains why "American" values vary sharply from one region to another.
Woodard reveals how intranational differences have played a pivotal role at every point in the continent's history, from the American Revolution and the Civil War to the tumultuous sixties and the "blue county/red county" maps of recent presidential elections. American Nations is a revolutionary and revelatory take on America's myriad identities and how the conflicts between them have shaped our past and are molding our future.
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T. R. Fehrenbach brilliantly delineates the contrasts and conflicts between the many Mexicos, unraveling the history while weaving a fascinating tapestry of beauty and brutality: the Amerindians, who wrought from the vulnerable land a great indigenous Meso-American civilization by the first millennium BC; the successive reigns of Olmec, Maya, Toltec, and Mexic masters, who ruled through an admirably efficient bureaucracy and the power of the priests, propitiating the capricious gods with human sacrifices; the Spanish conquistadors, and much more.
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Good book bad narration
- By M. A. Chris Raine on 03-23-19
By: T. R. Fehrenbach
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Lone Star
- A History of Texas and the Texans
- By: T. R. Fehrenbach
- Narrated by: John McLain
- Length: 39 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Here is a must-listen history of the Lone Star State, together with an insider's look at the people, politics, and events that have shaped Texas from the beginning right up to our days. Never before has the story been told with more vitality and immediacy. Fehrenbach re-creates the Texas saga from prehistory to the Spanish and French invasions to the heyday of the cotton and cattle empires. He dramatically describes the emergence of Texas as a republic, the vote for secession before the Civil War, and the state's readmission to the Union after the War.
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Top -10
- By JNW on 03-29-18
By: T. R. Fehrenbach
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Harvest of Empire
- A History of Latinos in America
- By: Juan Gonzalez
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 15 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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The first new edition in 10 years of this important study of Latinos in US history, Harvest of Empire spans five centuries - from the first New World colonies to the first decade of the new millennium. Latinos are now the largest minority group in the United States, and their impact on American popular culture - from food to entertainment to literature - is greater than ever.
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The real story behind Immigration
- By Amazon Customer on 11-12-17
By: Juan Gonzalez
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Gone to Texas
- A History of the Lone Star State
- By: Randolph B. Campbell
- Narrated by: Jacob Sommer
- Length: 28 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Gone to Texas engagingly tells the story of the Lone Star State, from the arrival of humans in the Panhandle more than 10,000 years ago to the opening of the 21st Century. Focusing on the state's successive waves of immigrants, the audiobook offers an inclusive view of the vast array of Texans who, often in conflict with each other and always in a struggle with the land, created a history and an idea of Texas.
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Good history from year zero through about 1962
- By Jim In Texas! on 03-24-14
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Conceived in Liberty
- By: Murray N. Rothbard
- Narrated by: Floy Lilley
- Length: 80 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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The new single-volume edition of Conceived in Liberty is here! After so many years of having to juggle four volumes, the Mises Institute has finally put it all together in a single book. This makes it easier to listen to and makes clearer just what a contribution this book is to the history of libertarian literature. There's never been a better time to remember the revolutionary and even libertarian roots of the American founding, and there's no better guide to what this means in the narrative of the colonial period than Murray Rothbard.
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Learned more here than 4 yrs of college
- By Scott Archer on 05-02-16
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A History of the American People
- By: Paul Johnson
- Narrated by: Nadia May
- Length: 48 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Johnson's monumental history of the United States, from the first settlers to the Clinton administration, covers every aspect of American culture: politics, business, art, literature, science, society and customs, complex traditions, and religious beliefs. The story is told in terms of the men and women who shaped and led the nation and the ordinary people who collectively created its unique character.
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A British conservative's view of American history.
- By Mike From Mesa on 06-17-09
By: Paul Johnson
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A Patriot’s History of the United States, Updated Edition
- From Columbus's Great Discovery to America's Age of Entitlement
- By: Larry Schweikart, Michael Allen
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 55 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Over the past decade, A Patriot's History of the United States has become the definitive conservative history of our country, correcting the biases of historians and other intellectuals who downplay the greatness of America's patriots. Professors Schweikart and Allen have now revised, updated, and expanded their book, which covers America's long history with an appreciation for the values that made this nation uniquely successful.
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A Fox News Version of American History
- By Stephen on 05-16-21
By: Larry Schweikart, and others
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American Heritage History of the United States
- By: Douglas Brinkley
- Narrated by: Eric Martin
- Length: 23 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Douglas Brinkley takes us on the incredible journey of the United States - a nation formed from a vast countryside on whose fringes 13 small British colonies fought for their freedom, then established a democratic nation that spanned the continent and went on to become a world power. This book will be treasured by anyone interested in the story of America.
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Highly recommended!
- By M. Hu on 08-04-17
By: Douglas Brinkley
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The Gates of Europe
- A History of Ukraine
- By: Serhii Plokhy
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 15 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Ukraine is currently embroiled in a tense fight with Russia to preserve its territorial integrity and political independence. But today's conflict is only the latest in a long history of battles over Ukraine's territory and its existence as a sovereign nation. As the award-winning historian Serhii Plokhy argues in The Gates of Europe, we must examine Ukraine's past in order to understand its present and future.
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An extraordinarily good book
- By Specs2789 on 03-01-23
By: Serhii Plokhy
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American Republics
- A Continental History of the United States 1783-1850
- By: Alan Taylor
- Narrated by: Graham Winton
- Length: 14 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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In this beautifully written history of America’s formative period, a preeminent historian upends the traditional story of a young nation confidently marching to its continent-spanning destiny.
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Helps the dots of history to today.
- By Tascha F. on 06-26-21
By: Alan Taylor
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Arguably the most important American lawyer of the 20th century, Thurgood Marshall was on the verge of bringing the landmark suit Brown v. Board of Education before the US Supreme Court when he became embroiled in a case that threatened to change the course of the civil rights movement and to cost him his life. In 1949, Florida's orange industry was booming, and citrus barons got rich on the backs of cheap Jim Crow labor with the help of Sheriff Willis V. McCall, who ruled Lake County with murderous resolve....
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the fight for civil rights
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Not Engaging or Very Interesting
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1491
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Traditionally, Americans learned in school that the ancestors of the people who inhabited the Western Hemisphere at the time of Columbus' landing had crossed the Bering Strait 12,000 years ago; existed mainly in small nomadic bands; and lived so lightly on the land that the Americas were, for all practical purposes, still a vast wilderness. But as Charles C. Mann now makes clear, archaeologists and anthropologists have spent the last 30 years proving these and many other long-held assumptions wrong.
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Exposes Non-Academic Audience to The Debate Between Ideas of Pre-Colombian America's
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What listeners say about American Nations
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Theo Horesh
- 02-28-13
One of a Kind Masterpiece
The thesis of American Nations is that America can best be understood as a series of eleven regional cultures. American history can thus be best understood as the outcomes of interactions amongst these several cultures. There is, of course, nothing new in viewing American culture as a series of encounters between North and South. And political analysts regularly take note of regional differences in voting patterns.
But Woodard goes deeper, exploring the history that shaped not just North and South and West. Woodard includes the French culture of Louisiana and Quebec and the culture of El Norte, which spans not just large swathes of the Southwest United States but also much of northern Mexico. He also divides the South into the Deep South, the Tidewater of Virginia, and Appalachia. He notes differences between Yankee New Englanders and the diverse Dutch culture of New York (this is only confusing because of the name of a baseball team). He differentiates the Left Coast from the more libertarian western rockies region. The nuances strengthen the thesis, because they make regional explanations work better.
Woodard delves deeply into the original groups of settlers that laid down the patterns of these regional cultures. He then demonstrates how these cultures attracted other like-minded cultures. For instance, the non-violent Quakers of Pennsylvania attracted German farmers, who then pushed into the Midwest. This shared culture, in turn, attracted the highly cooperative Scandinavians. Over time, they moderated between the Yankees of New England and the Deep South.
Woodard traces the patterns of migrations that took say the Scotch-Irish from upstate New York south along the Appalachians. He traces patterns of voting behavior, patterns of regional alignment, and the sources of power in American politics. All of this holds extraordinary explanatory value. And it makes for a very interesting and entertaining listen.
However, it is not altogether clear what Woodard thinks holds these cultures together over time. To believe his thesis, we would need to negate environmental, economic, and political explanations of behavior. Somehow, we would have to account for how in moving from agricultural to industrial to post-industrial society, these cultural difference have somehow held. Altogether, these concerns suggest the thesis is overstated, that understanding these regional sub-cultures is merely one important strand in understanding what makes America work.
But as we become an increasingly diverse culture, it is heartening to look back upon our shared history not as some ever shifting monolith, but rather as a series of conflicts and compromises amongst quite different sub-cultures. For recognizing how our institutions have already accommodated so much difference, of not just immigrants but of the most deeply American patriots, suggests that we have more resources for integrating diversity than we might believe.
The book made me look at our nation differently. It laid down a paradigm through which I viewed the next couple of dozen American history books I read after it. It is hard to ask more of a history book. Certainly it holds more explanatory power than much longer books like Paul Johnson's "History of the American People." If you choose to read American Nations and you like it, check out, "Bound Away: Virginia and the Westward Movement," by David Hackett Fischer. It is at one and the same time more specific and more academic and also a great listen. Hope you enjoy them as much as I did.
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181 people found this helpful
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- Phoenician
- 02-02-14
Great, Until the End
What aspect of Walter Dixon’s performance would you have changed?
At times, Dixon was fairly monotone, but the performance was steady and still entertaining. Actually, it was humorous to hear him attempt some regional accents, which he didn't do particularly well.
Any additional comments?
The majority of the book, from the creation of the first settlements in North America through the end of the Civil War is terrific. Afterwards, the author begins to equate all things that most Americans currently find politically conservative or libertarian in aspect as a product of Deep Southern or "Borderlander" thought and is therefore lumped into the same categories as white supremacy and slavery. In fact, the author's fairly biased point of view becomes more pronounced as he attempts to stretch his thesis to current events, with multiple digs at institutions like the Tea Party and the present day incarnation of the Republican party, while professing a love of a strong centralized government as a means to unite all Americans and a need to put aside individual liberties for the sake of the nation and the "common good.: Garreau's Nine Nations of North America is a better book on the fractured cultural history of the United States without many of the biases that Woodard seems to harbor, but that's not available yet on Audible.
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101 people found this helpful
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- Lucy
- 03-28-13
An Easy History For The Mildly Interested
I enjoyed this book. The author makes no secret of his yankee leanings, and is clearly anti-dixie. That being said, I still enjoyed the analysis; especially the speculation about possible futures in the last quarter of the book. I'm not a huge reader of history for fun. This was an excellent blend of history and supposition. It was light enough to interest any reader, and yet insightful/researched enough to keep history buffs engaged. All in all a good read.
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- WhittlessB
- 09-14-15
Good book, but ends in a questionable rant
What would have made American Nations better?
The book appeared to be well researched and was compelling until the end. The final section was a rant against white America, Christians, and traditional values and how this was ruining our ability to have a cohesive nation. The summation boiled down to if only we could only be more like Canada, Native Americans, or the French, we'd be better off. The book was much better when the author stuck to reporting facts and not opinion. Instead of letting the reader make decisions based on the presented facts, the book became a socialist diatribe.
What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?
The lesser known history and influences based on regions and cultures in the continents evolution were extremely interesting. This was a basis to rethink events in out history and how they played out. I did feel the author repeated certain facts too much. Perhaps this was for emphasis, but it droned on at time.
What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?
The performance was good overall. I had read reviews critical of the attempts at accents and dialects. I see the validity of this criticism but overall thought is was not that distracting and added to the narrative.
You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?
My only issue was when the author converted to opinion. My thought is, if you are aligned with his politics, you will like it, otherwise, probably not. I fold the arguments be be a bit shallow and off base.
Any additional comments?
Definitely worth the read. It has made me look at some our historical evolution in a different light.
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- Shaun
- 05-09-12
Masterful work. A must listen.
I stumbled into this book at a Barnes and Noble, and while I did not buy it, I made a mental note to listen to it on here. Extremely glad I did.
Woodward essentially builds off of earlier works to spell out eleven regional cultures that he argues make up the US (minus Polynesian Hawaii and Latin-Caribbean south Florida), Canada, and northern Mexico. Here's a few of them.
First Nations: Encompassing Northern Canada, Greenland, much of the Yukon and Alaska. The "First Nations" of course refers to areas where Native Americans (and their values) still are predominant.
El Norte; The first non-native regional culture to develop. Essentially a pioneer Latino psyche, born on the fringes of Mexico, and what would become the Southwestern US after 1848.
Tidewater: The region including North Carolina, some of Maryland, Virginia proper, and Delaware. Centered on the Chesapeake, this was the first region inhabited by English-speaking colonists.
Interestingly, Woodward includes the greater New York City Metro Area as it's own culture, and makes an excellent case for it. He argues that "New Netherland" is not much different from its early Dutch roots today.
Yankeedom, is essentially New England and its most direct diaspora, stretching West bordering Canada over to the easternmost counties of the Dakotas. Yankeedom also includes New Brunswick and Nova Scotia in Canada. Yankeedom was founded by the Puritans...the Pilgrims...who first set foot in the region in 1620.
Woodward argues that most political issues in US history were in fact motivated by regional differences and rivalries. While Woodward shows his own colors at the very end of the book he is very unbiased throughout the rest; hard-right Conservatives may hate the idea that their modern ideas on economic deregulation, cheap labor, and a powerful 1% is largely born of Deep South influence. Very cosmopolitan, secular, Progressives may cringe to learn that their beliefs owe a lot to the plain, very religious, paternalistic Puritans.
If you're interested in American politics this is a must-listen.
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- Pam
- 05-05-14
Must-Listen Before the 2016 Election
I started reading this book because I wanted to understand why my home state of Ohio is so important in American elections. As it turns out, Ohio mixes three distinct "nations": Midland, Appalachia, and Yankee, which accounts for the wildly diverging politics of different parts of the state. In that sense, Ohio really is a microcosm of a large swath of the United States.
Thanks to this book, I have a much better grasp of the foundations of the Republican and Democratic parties. Certain contradictions in behavior now make much more sense.
The latter portion of the book serves as an excellent primer for the political forces that will shape the 2016 presidential election. It also suggests why American politics is currently stagnating.
For that reason, I would call it a good companion book to "Maxwell's Demon and the Golden Apple" by Randall L. Schweller, which discusses the importance of chaos in energizing a political system (but is not yet available in audio).
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- E.J.
- 02-06-14
Fascinating audio turns into Obama info-mercial
What disappointed you about American Nations?
The concept of multiple nations within North America overlaying the boundaries of states was interesting and well told. I would have given this audio book about 4 stars if I had stopped before the last quarter of the book. At this point Woodard turned his narrative into an info-mercial for the hard-left. "Republicans are aligned with the Deep South nation (the nation with the most lethal, violent, and egregious slavery practices and the most stratified social structure). They (Republican) are racists and seek to deny health care and hot meals to poor children. Their agenda is to maximize tax breaks to the wealthy and deny services to the 99%." I paraphrase, but you get the idea. If I want to read or listen to this drivel, I can get it for free on the Huffington Post or MSNBC. What a shame, because the first 75% was so good.
What was most disappointing about Colin Woodard’s story?
Water carrying for the hard-left. Slandering of the right.
Have you listened to any of Walter Dixon’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
No.
What character would you cut from American Nations?
The Obama sock puppet.
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- P Willis
- 10-07-17
interesting but cherry-picks to make a point
This is a very interesting book about the different cultures Within North America. I would love to give it a five star; however, the book devolves into opinion, and he cherry-picks data to prove his point. the first half of the book is excellent. The second half is mediocre and biased.
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- Carolyn
- 05-01-14
Thought-Provoking Point of View
This is a fascinating and accessible book about the different cultural nations of northern North America. It contains very well-balanced historical information as well as accurate generalizations about modern political affairs. I really enjoyed it.
The author's thesis is that the eleven cultural nations that make up northern North America (Canada, the United States, and northern Mexico) provide a better way of understanding the history of the area and the modern challenges in political life that the countries are experiencing. Although the book is very US-centric, as a Canadian with a strong background in Canadian history I found the parts about my own country to be fairly accurate, if superficial. Not being an American, I found the US parts to be enlightening about why different states vote the way they do and why their government is set up the way it is. It is a very general way of looking at political issues, but the author does not claim that it is accurate for every person nor does he claim that his theory can explain everything. However, I believe he does a good job of supporting his thesis that looking at cultural nations is better than trying to understand history or politics on this continent by looking at political boundaries.
The most interesting part of the book was the history. I knew very little about the methods the Spanish used during their imperial period, so that section was eye-opening. Not being an American, yet having heard a lot of American historical mythology, meant that I appreciated getting a more accurate and balanced view of events such as the US Revolutionary War and the US Civil War as well. I also feel like I am going away from this book with a lot to think about and a new way of framing historical and political issues, especially in the US. Framing the political struggles in the US as culture clashes about what the one and only "American identity" is makes for an interesting hypothesis.
Although this book presents a lot of historical information, it is accessible and easy to follow. It would benefit from a PDF of a map showing where the different nations can be found because it's not easy to keep track in your head while listening, but otherwise it is something that a person without too much background in the subjects could enjoy.
The narration was good, on the whole. There were some places where the sound quality would change slightly and it was a little distracting - it almost sounded as if a new person was reading - but that is a minor complaint. On a personal level, I know that in English it's acceptable to pronounce "Quebec" "kwuh-bek", but it's much more accurate to pronounce it "kuh-bek" - even most English speakers use the latter in my part of Canada and the former makes it obvious that the narrator does not actually understand French phonetics.
Overall, I found the book very interesting and I've already recommended it to others. It's a comfortable length and it does not overreach to try to explain everything with one theory. That said, I have come to agree with the author that it does provide a better explanation for a lot of "big questions", like, "Why is Canada different from the United States?" "Why are some US states 'swing states' and some are not?" "Why do poor people in red states still often support politicians and policies that appear counter to their interests?" etc. For that reason, I found it thought-provoking and fascinating to listen to.
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- Nicholas R. Henderson
- 02-27-14
Starts well, goes commie later
What would have made American Nations better?
I thought it started out as an interesting idea. The author was doing pretty well early in the book, but when he got to the South, he started the typical socialistic bull and slimed us pretty thoroughly. NICE! So, if you are a liberal from Yankee land or a left coaster, read on, you'll love it. If you are a Southern Conservative, give it a pass.
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