American Nation Chapter Summaries

In his historical novel, “American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America” (2012), Colin Woodard asserts the idea that upon its discovery and subsequent colonization, North America has been composed of eleven distinct regional nations that each have their own historical roots and cultural identities that have both shaped their past, and continue to shape their futures. Woodard defends his argument by describing the overall histories of each of the eleven nations, detailing how they were founded and analyzing how their unique cultural personalities have developed and clashed over time. He goes into great detail characterizing each region presented, so that he may emphasize just how different and unique

Following their victory over the French in the Seven Years War, the British empire began to become more imperialistic and controlling over the American colonies (increasing their military presence and raising taxes), much to the disdain of some of the colonists, who felt that their way of life was at stake. The first nation to truly take action against the British was that of Yankeedom, who felt that their New England principles were in danger, and protested the British by uniformly boycotting and essentially ignoring their rule. Similarly, the nation of Tidewater (which was led by a minority sect of leaders living in the Piedmont) looked to rebel, and even though many of the traditional Tidewater aristocrats were against defying the British and going to war, the Piedmont-Tidewater leaders wished to fight in order to protect their personal liberties and privileges. Unlike Yankeedom and Tidewater, the nation of Greater Appalachia wanted to fight simply to fight, and even though the nation was heavily divided between patriots and loyalists, Greater Appalachia wanted to go to war, regardless of what side they were on. Much like the Tidewater aristocrats, the nation of the Deep South was

Following the events of the Revolutionary War, each nation felt that their loose political alliance, the Continental Congress, needed to be strengthened in order to keep the nations united and prevent any sort of secession movements. In order to strengthen the Continental Congress during the war, delegates from each colony drafted the highly debated Articles of Confederation, which essentially made the colonies a voluntary alliance of sovereign states that would give up some of their powers to a common administrative body. Also during this time period, a movement amongst the common people calling for increased democracy with elected officials began to spread all throughout the nation created great tension throughout the colonies, and after a rebellion occurred in Massachusetts, the leaders of the young United State felt that they needed strengthen their ties. At the Constitutional Convention of 1789, delegates from nearly every colony gathered together to revise their system government, and despite the cultural and ideological divisions that divided each colony, a compromise was reached and the new Constitution of the United States, inspired by the combined the ideas of the colonies, was