Reddit Reddit reviews American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America

We found 16 Reddit comments about American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America
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16 Reddit comments about American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America:

u/InnerKookaburra · 23 pointsr/minnesota

First and foremost: the Scandinavian ancestry and cultural values that came with it.

Pretty much everything else people have listed flows from that: work ethic, practicality, emphasis on education, mix of capitalism can-do attitude and well funded social programs.

Scandinavian countries usually rank really highly worldwide in all of the things you mentioned. Minnesota is an extension of that.

It's a good reminder that "white" people in America are not homogenous. Check out the book American Nations by Colin Woodard. He doesn't go into Minnesota so specifically, as I recall, but he covers the vastly different histories and backgrounds of the people that regions of our country were populated by and how much those original values and principles still explain politics and such today.

American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America
https://www.amazon.com/American-Nations-History-Regional-Cultures-ebook/dp/B0052RDIZA

u/mistamo42 · 8 pointsr/AskAnAmerican

For a deeper look at how this came to be, and the more regional nuances than just north and south, I suggest reading American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America. It's a fascinating, easy, read.

u/BillyTenderness · 6 pointsr/minnesota

> It's a good reminder that "white" people in America are not homogenous. Check out the book American Nations by Colin Woodard. He doesn't go into Minnesota so specifically, as I recall, but he covers the vastly different histories and backgrounds of the people that regions of our country were populated by and how much those original values and principles still explain politics and such today.

> American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America https://www.amazon.com/American-Nations-History-Regional-Cultures-ebook/dp/B0052RDIZA

This was a really good read! It's an interesting perspective on North American history that makes the broad strokes fit together a lot better than my high school textbook ever did and focuses on what I think is the most interesting part of history: how it explains why things are the way they are today.

u/polarbeer · 5 pointsr/gunpolitics

Well, that depends on what part of America you're in.

Exhibit A: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0052RDIZA/

As a new American I could not figure out why my viewpoint was so different than folks from the coasts (born in the middle of Canada, brief fling with the coast then back to the big middle part and migrated south in the 90's). Then I saw an article about this book and things became clearer.

(that and following back my ancestry somewhat and finding out about things like the Highland Clearances)

u/veringer · 5 pointsr/Knoxville

Not to sound too nerdy about it, but this is interesting when put into the historical context of early American frontier migration patterns. Many Tennessean families started as Virginians then moved west (often to Texas). However, there were several competing cultures migrating at the time. Of relevance here, the southern planter elite rubbed up on and competed with the borderlander/Appalachians. You can almost draw a line straight west from Charleston South Carolina to the Mississippi river and have an approximate border between these groups. Without going into more detail, I think we can safely rely on caricatures of the rich southern gentleman in formal attire versus the back-country plain-speaking fella in deer skins. They weren't fond of each other.

Anyway, the map's mention of Virginia as "Family" and Texas as "My First Job" are exactly what you'd expect given Eastern Tennessee's place in the history. Then Kentucky is implied to be similar to Tennessee (just not as good), which is also entirely consistent. I suspect some of the modern antagonism between TN and AL is not 100% because of football. Perhaps old cultural tensions and the fact that AL was a battleground in this regard are deeper factors. Similar cultural contrasts can be seen between, say, Houston and Dallas--or so I've heard.

Someone else here even commented "I BELIEVE HILTON HEAD IS TOO RICH FOR OUR APPALACHIAN BLOOD". Ha!

Apologies for rambling. If anyone wants to learn more, here ya go:

u/IdahoDuncan · 5 pointsr/AskTrumpSupporters

Well, you ignored my other questions and you haven't really demonstrated any good knowledge of American culture. Anyone who thinks they can make blanket statements about the culture of a large heterogeneous country like the U.S. doesn't, in my opinion know what they are talking about.

You may want to read this :
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0052RDIZA/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

especially if you didn't grow up in the U.S.

u/disparityoutlook · 4 pointsr/FanFiction

This is undoubtedly far more wonky than you're looking for, but it's an interesting read and speaks in interesting generalities about various parts of the US: American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America.

There are definitely regional differences, but I think there are a lot of similarities as well, and you're probably not going to write the peculiarities of a place as well as someone who's lived there so agonizing over it will only bring you headache and frustration. Otherwise, I agree with someone else somewhere on this thread. Pick a town. You can wikipedia pretty much any town and find out its size, the primary thing it produces, geographic density, local flora/fauna, etc. You don't have to say you're writing that specific town. Just use it as a blueprint. You can google image it to get pictures of what the countryside looks like, and even describe interesting features about whatever town it is without embedding it too much in an actual town. Relying too much on stereotypes regarding the state or city might turn it into a caricature.

u/xach · 3 pointsr/Maine

American Nations by Mainer Colin Woodard might also help you make sense of cultural differences between the regions. It's a good read. Welcome to Yankeedom!

u/BlueLinchpin · 2 pointsr/Cascadia

First off, welcome! I have a book to recommend for you OP, American Nations, it provides some great perspective and history about the cultures in the US.

The book mentions something really interesting--the US isn't becoming more homogenous, it's instead becoming more divided as people move to areas with cultures they identify with. We're 'self-sorting'.

Anyway, I'm with a lot of others here. The government doesn't really represent anyone but the wealthy and powerful. From what I understand, BC is underrepresented in it's government.

The US government is not only violating our rights (NSA etc) but is either unwilling or unable to deal with environmental and social problems. We're looking at a future with increased automation (where are the jobs going to come from), climate change disasters, sustainability problems, oil reliance, etc. As I see it the government is paralyzed because of how the current system works. The country is too big, too divided, and too reliant on lobbyists. I don't think change has much of a chance that way.

Also, the Cascadia movement isn't just about independence. A lot of folks don't care about independence. The Cascadia movement is also about recognizing our shared culture and working together in this region. I'm a huge fan of this idea--we have to work together to deal with climate change and to deal with future natural disasters.

Edit: I want to add, I think it's easier to take risks and try new things when you're smaller and more localized. As a California transplant, I feel like the culture up here is more accepting of trying out new ideas.

u/quentin-coldwater · 2 pointsr/nba

> Name me two countries on Earth that have cultures more similar than the US and Canada

Uh... Russia and Ukraine/Belarus? Austria and Germany? Australia and New Zealand? Rwanda and Burundi? You could even make a case that Canada is more similar culturally to the UK than to the US.

There's literally a book written on the subject of American regional culture

I mean, hell, using the phrase "northern states" to refer to places as culturally different as Ohio and Montana and New York and Vermont is hilarious. Let alone that you're claiming that Canada has a lot in common with the parts of the US that are not the south where a majority of black Americans live.

> People in the North and South also have vastly different experiences with Spavery, reconstruction, and segregation. Are you going to argue that only one of those groups can understand black culture?

Yeah, I think it's pretty well-accepted among Americans that people from different areas of the US have a different and incomplete understanding of American culture. But hear comes Johnny Canada to tell us about how listening to Eminem makes him understand American culture.

u/TK-XD-M8 · 2 pointsr/AskAnAmerican
u/Martingale-G · 2 pointsr/AskAnAmerican

This is a huge question, if I were you, I would do a combination of reading the book "American Nations"

And to get a better political understanding(which does in general inform culture quite a bit), read this report https://hiddentribes.us/

It's well regarded, long, but very very good. I think the report is fascinating.

u/brasslizzard · 1 pointr/collapse
u/matttk · 1 pointr/europe

I found American Nations by Colin Woodward to make a lot of sense with respect to Canadian and American cultural overlaps.

u/freediverx01 · 1 pointr/worldnews

> Trumps level of popular support is not surprising at all

Some of the reasons why Trump supporters are angry are understandable. The fact that they believe anything he says, think he gives a shit about them, or will in any way make their lives better is asinine.

> The idea being that whether the founding fathers were libertarian in their ideals is actually quite debatable

You could make the argument that some founding fathers (using the broadest possible definition of that term) may have held some points of view that square with modern libertarian thought. Hell, I share some views with libertarians as well, with respect to personal and civil liberties, for example.

But it's a ridiculous leap to declare that they were united in their belief in libertarianism and a weak central government, or that the country was founded on those principles.

When people speak of the founding fathers they're generally referring to the authors of the Constitution (mainly Madison and Jefferson), and other highly influential characters that included George Washington, Ben Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Payne. It's amusing to hear conservatives using these historical figures to support their positions considering they all held many political views that were in stark contrast to those held by today's Republicans or Libertarians.

There were many other signatories to the Constitution, some of which you might find more ideologically compatible with your beliefs, but those folks were on the margins and cannot claim the title of architects of the Constitution or intellectual founders of the nation.

The quotes I cited, not to mention the extensive historical literature available on the topic, make it clear that the country was founded by people with widely varying and often bitterly conflicting points of view and ideologies, and were united only by their determination to gain independence from England.

Suggested reading:

American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America

https://www.amazon.com/American-Nations-History-Regional-Cultures-ebook/dp/B0052RDIZA/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=#nav-subnav

u/DaSaw · 1 pointr/AskHistory

And though some ethnogeographers posit the existence of specific nations within the USA, Canada, and Mexico (Colin Woodard identified eleven he associated with the US, Canada, and to a lesser extent Mexico) none of the federal and few of the internal borders actually correspond with any of those nations.