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

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Reddit mentions: 57

We found 57 Reddit mentions of American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America. Here are the top ones.

American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America
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Found 57 comments on American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America:

u/Mswizzle23 · 24 pointsr/changemyview

Thomas Sowell and a number of others have argued African American hip hop culture is basically white redneck behavior, Sowell in "Black Rednecks And White Liberals" which I'm about to begin. Colin Woodward's "American Nation's" touches on this as well, as do other authors who've penned books on the topic, although his book is more about all of the regional cultures that make up our country dating back to the groups that founded those regions and how their beliefs are still resoundingly alive and well and how politicians actively exploit these differences we have between one another. There are other academics I've heard doing research like this but I'm having trouble recall their names, I heard about them in some podcasts. But, there's definitely more reading you can do to explore this idea more.

Amazon links to check out both titles I mentioned:

https://www.amazon.com/American-Nations-History-Regional-Cultures/dp/0143122029

https://www.amazon.com/Black-Rednecks-Liberals-Thomas-Sowell/dp/1594031436/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1502125308&sr=1-1&keywords=black+rednecks+and+white+liberals

u/Gardengran · 14 pointsr/canada

> "nation to nation" relationship

Warning - probably sounds pedantic. sorry.

'Nation' is often confused with 'state' - with states being legal, political entities with borders. ['Nations' being cultural, political entities, but no borders.] (https://www.amazon.com/American-Nations-History-Regional-Cultures/dp/0143122029)

Add to that and the our constitution recognizes that bands have legal standing equal to the federal government, and nation to nation makes sense.

(Provinces, unlike bands, have essentially delegated authority. Even though areas of authority - health, education, etc are delegated. Municipalities have an even lower level of authority. Only the Federal government has the 'authority' to negotiate with the bands, regardless of issue.)

Being a completely separate 'nation' within a state is pretty much normal for most of North America.

u/KaJashey · 13 pointsr/videos

There are a lot of regional cultures in the US. and they are somewhat distinct.

The Virginia Tidewater region that she talked about was very very English. Lots of second sons, lots of Episcopalians and high church english (crypto catholics), cavilers and people who sought to escape England's civil war. My family is this kind of Virginian. They are proud of a history that goes back to 1650 in the area and being related founding fathers like Washington and Jefferson. Total anglophiles as well. So they hold on to any connection to England and Wales.

There are isolated communities in the tidewater with accents that are supposed to go back to England. There are older people isolated in the backwoods I can not understand. Their accents so crazy we are not mutually intelligible.

Here is Tangier Island. An oddball even in the tidewater area. It's in no way received english like she did but it is some kind of english accent.

u/veringer · 10 pointsr/politics

This assumes America is or was one culture. Different historians classify people differently, but in the broadest sense there are at least:

  1. Yankee
  2. Southern (Dixie + Appalachian)
  3. Midland
  4. Western/Native/Frontier/Spanish

    Embedded in these groups is the idea of a founding culture (going back centuries) that informs attitudes and ideals. To your point regarding skepticism toward education, I think that's a feature primarily of the Appalachian group who were founded by one of the last waves of British immigrants. Glossing over a lot of history: they were poor, desperate, war-torn, and generally uneducated. Late to the party and culturally incompatible with many of the existing colonists, they headed for the hills and subsisted in a romantic but precarious manner. This is where we get the frontiersman and the rugged individualist myth. While tied to "southern" culture (for a number of interesting reasons that we will ignore for simplicity of this comment), they're really pretty distinct. For whatever reasons, this group has asserted itself and suggested their version of "American culture" is the correct one--and we've been living through this friction for a while.

    For a layperson, I suggest the following for further reading:

u/tombsheets · 9 pointsr/slatestarcodex

That was more likely to be in American Nations and not in Albion's Seed, which covers only British immigration and is, as I remember it, more anthropological than political.

From a summary by Woodard:

> NEW NETHERLAND. Established by the Dutch at a time when the Netherlands was the most sophisticated society in the Western world, New Netherland has always been a global commercial culture—materialistic, with a profound tolerance for ethnic and religious diversity and an unflinching commitment to the freedom of inquiry and conscience. Like seventeenth-century Amsterdam, it emerged as a center of publishing, trade, and finance, a magnet for immigrants, and a refuge for those persecuted by other regional cultures, from Sephardim in the seventeenth century to gays, feminists, and bohemians in the early twentieth. Unconcerned with great moral questions, it nonetheless has found itself in alliance with Yankeedom to defend public institutions and reject evangelical prescriptions for individual behavior.

From skimming this wiki page, it appears there were multiple rounds of immigration, and that the Dutch who live in Michigan moved 200 years after those who settled New Amsterdam.

u/mhornberger · 9 pointsr/history

It predates modern politics by quite a bit, at least in my understanding. I've read Albion's Seed and American Nations, and from my understanding Appalachia and the Scots-Irish culture, plus the Deep South, have always supported war. All of them. The South is also saddled with a culture of honor, and, having been raised in Texas, I can say you lose serious face walking away from a fight.

We like to attribute the contemptuousness towards education as an outgrowth of their poverty, but I think the reverse is true. And I think the contempt for education comes from all the admiration going to "men of action," soldiers, fighters, etc. If you have to distinguish yourself with books and fancy words, you probably can't fight. Or worse, you're afraid to.

u/matttk · 9 pointsr/europe

Read an interesting book about the different nations/cultures in America. I don't think it's so straightforward that Americans are all the same. People in Alabama, for example, want very different things out of life and see things very differently than people in NYC, for example.

u/vipergirl · 7 pointsr/ukpolitics

> The social, cultural and linguistic differences between Oregon and North Carolina are minuscule, even though they're thousands of miles apart.

Not true whatsoever.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/American-Nations-History-Regional-Cultures/dp/0143122029/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=K526VH57QKR69R5TXQ8F

u/antonivs · 6 pointsr/ShitAmericansSay

> Can you disagree?

Of course, because your position is false, not to mention ridiculous. The claim that the US has "yet to develop much of its own culture" is simple ignorance. I can only assume that you're merely doing what this sub criticizes Americans for doing, talking about something of which you have no direct experience or education.

> My point is that American refusal to just describe themselves as American, without all these ridiculous qualifiers, is part of why America continues to lack a distinct culture.

Your point is invalid in both premise and conclusion. You're taking anecdotes about silly behavior from a circlejerk sub, ignorantly extrapolating that to encompass an entire population of 320 million people consisting of probably hundreds of diverse cultures, to reach a conclusion that's every bit as silly as the silliest things Americans are made fun of for in this sub. Hence my original comment, this is just shityuropoorsay - you're the precise equivalent of what you're mocking.

There are many different cultures in the US, varying significantly by region. The book American Nations identifies 11 regional cultures in North America, and those are just broad regional divisions - there's significant variation within each of those. An example of an area where there's a great deal of local cultural variation is Louisiana, but there are many other similar regions throughout the US. The local culture in particular areas is often a variation of a larger regional culture, for example the Culture of Georgia is a variation of Southern US culture.

The US attitudes about ancestry and ethnicity have perfectly reasonable roots in the fact that many people in the US are in families that immigrated quite recently, often in living memory. For those families, their X-American identity is a real feeling that has to do with where they or their parents or grandparents came from, and the culture they brought with them and passed on, to some extent, to their children. It's not some sort of attempt to make themselves feel special, it's who they are.

Yes, you then also get people who try to turn their distant ancestry which is no longer actually remembered in the above sense into some sort of claim on the culture and identity of countries they've never visited. That's quite rightly made fun of here, because it's silly. But drawing broad conclusions from such behavior, while simultaneously lacking any real knowledge of what you're drawing conclusions about, leads to nonsense.

If you study cultures in the US, you'll find that the history of migration in a given area has a strong influence on the culture - the Louisiana example above is a good one. But the fact that these cultures are strongly influenced from the culture of earlier immigrants doesn't mean there's no unique local culture. Quite the opposite. When people live in a place for centuries, they develop a culture - that's just how human societies work. Your ignorance of those cultures doesn't mean they don't exist.

u/Funktapus · 5 pointsr/MapPorn

My misconception was that were common standards of decency. As in "universal". That isn't the case, and I acknowledge that now.

What Trump does is completely indecent according to myself and most people I've ever interacted with. I also find most of the behavior of Trump's supporters at his rallies, etc, to be indecent. Revolting, even.

Obviously, the communities who voted for Trump find him to be decent, and think its decent to behave as they did during and after the election.

So we clearly disagree on what constitutes decency. There is no common standard of decency. There is no consensus on "American" values. We are (at least) two peoples, and we can either acknowledge that and start coming up with a federal system that respects that, or we can devolve into chaos. I don't think we need to split into two countries, but we need to start separating the culture wars from federal governance, and that likely means decentralizing certain legislative functions.

Great book on the subject, and there's a 2016 follow-up

u/InterPunct · 5 pointsr/MapPorn

Great map, one of the best I've seen.

You may enjoy this book: American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America

https://www.amazon.com/American-Nations-History-Regional-Cultures/dp/0143122029

I'll advocate for one small change to the map, New York City and the Hudson Valley should be its own thing. Call it New Amsterdam or New Netherlands. This would range from Brooklyn (excluding Long Island) and up the east side of the Hudson River to Albany.

u/MMurd0ck · 4 pointsr/brasil

Thanks for bring this.
This is actually a big and important point that our media didn't cover properly.

There is also an interesting theory that says America could be divided in 11 different nations. Which one with their own culture and identity.
https://www.amazon.com/American-Nations-History-Regional-Cultures/dp/0143122029?tag=bisafetynet-20

u/DocGrey187000 · 4 pointsr/JordanPeterson

This article is not written by Sowell. It's slyly written referencing Sowell ideas, by Prof. Richard Cocks (Cocks is white, so I think he [correctly?] believes that referencing the black Sowell gives him cover to express these ideas).


That being said----I think there are solid points here.

The idea that there are distinct cultures in the U.S. that bring baggage with them is interesting to me (see this book https://www.amazon.com/American-Nations-History-Regional-Cultures/dp/0143122029 ).


I think there's a lot of merit to it, and it does explain a lot of our race and culture war.


But ummmm..... a huge part of the collective culture is slavery and an extended apartheid, and it clearly kneecapped black attempts at success repeatedly. Not 200 years ago, not 100 years ago. Oprah Winfrey and Denzel Washington were born during Jim Crow. It had a real depressing effect on accumulating wealth, on strengthening inroads in various sectors, and of developing a culture that believed that effort would be fairly treated and compensated----I mean it really WAS crazy for a black person to believe they could go to medical school a few generations ago, or buy a home in any but a few segregated neighborhoods. That wasn't in their heads, they were openly excluded.


So I think these issues should be added, but not entirely take the place of, discrimination as an explanation for why black folks are struggling relative to whites in America.

u/novangla · 4 pointsr/AskAnAmerican

Different regions of America were settled by different groups with different values, and those haven't gone away. I highly recommend the book American Nations, which is an accessible overview of the differing histories of the 11 major cultural regions.

I study colonial history and even as early as the 1600s, New England cares about education and community welfare more than anywhere else, New York City is diverse and driven by finance, the Southern backcountry is violent and fiercely independent, and the Southern tidewater is driven by inequality and reputation/personal honor.

u/Asterion7 · 4 pointsr/himynameisjay

Just got the New Joe Abercrombie book, Short stories set as prequel to the First Law Trilogy. Pretty interesting. Also going to pick up that book I recommended in the Book Club thread yesterday about the history of american politics as different nations/tribes. (http://www.amazon.com/American-Nations-History-Regional-Cultures/dp/0143122029)

u/Pseudonymical · 4 pointsr/vexillology

You might be interested in the Shadowrun universe and how they dealt with a futuristic devolution of the US and Canada.
Theres also this book that might pique your interest.

u/EsquilaxHortensis · 3 pointsr/TrueReddit

For more, check out Woodard's American Nations, which expands the conversation to eleven regional cultures, including those mentioned in Albion's Seed, and fills in a lot of the gaps Scott Alexander wonders about.

u/w3woody · 3 pointsr/history

Honestly I would start with the U.S. Civil War.

Then work your way backwards in time from the Civil War, tracing the events (cultural and political) that led to the Civil War. This will eventually include the 3/5ths compromise in the Constitution, as well as a discussion of the cultural differences between the different original colonies, such as those outlined in Up in Arms, a review of American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America. Deep diving into the Antebellum period also will take you by the history of everything from how the US was formed, the revolutionary war (which slammed multiple very different cultures together against a common foe), to the impact of slavery, the economics of the North's industry and the South's plantations, and how things like the Cotton Gin gave southern slavery a second life.

Antebellum compromises even shaped the northern and southern borders of the United States. The South didn't want the North to push upwards into Canada (and add more free states, upsetting the balance between Free and Slave states), just as the North stopped a Southern push into Mexico and central America for the same reason.

Also, working your way forward from the Civil War, you can trace the threads from a shortened southern Reconstruction period, as well as an increased impetus towards westward expansion driven by an economy left in ruins. (Interesting fact: in terms of absolute numbers more American died during the Civil War than in all other wars America was involved with, including World Wars I and II--combined.)

Tracing forward from the Civil War you can see the effects of a failed Reconstruction on racism, eventually leading to the Civil Rights Movement 100 years later, as well as subtexts of racism on everything from the how we handled the Great Depression to our involvement in World Wars I and II.

If you also look at the U.S.'s approach to military affairs, you can also see it sharply echoed in how we fought the Civil War. And that warrior culture has painted U.S. attitudes towards foreign wars and even underlies the irony of a population that, as soon as the shooting starts, becomes extremely patriotic.

tl;dr: I really think the U.S. Civil War is an extremely important event in U.S. history, and a lot of U.S. history prior to the Civil War and afterwards can be framed in terms of the Civil War itself.

Edit: stupid typos.

u/GeeJimmy · 3 pointsr/MapPorn

American Nations, by Colin Woodard. It's a good book, with a fascinating take on why, e.g., people in New England and the Pacific Northwest are liberal and why people in Appalachia hate the government. He basically boils it all down to the reasons why the white people who settled those places left their respective European homelands, and how those attitudes persist to this day.

u/bserum · 3 pointsr/imaginarymaps

If you're not already familiar with it, you might be interested in Colin Woodard's American Nations.

Here's his version of the map.

u/hammersklavier · 3 pointsr/geography

Check out Joel Garreau's Nine Nations of North America, Colin Woodward's American Nations, and Dante Chinni's Our Patchwork Nation -- these are excellent primary sources for such a project.

u/chinese___throwaway3 · 3 pointsr/aznidentity

Democrats vs Republicans is largely a conflict between liberal and conservative whites, who are very culturally different. They use minorities as a pawn. I read a book called American Nations that discussed this.

u/mystyc · 2 pointsr/TrueAtheism

I read an article recently about a book that remaps america (and part of canada and mexico) into 11 distinct cultural regions. Interestingly enough, the various cultural traditions in each region can be traced back to one of the original major colonies in that region.

If you think about it carefully, the religiosity of americans is not totally homogeneous in degree or even in the particular religious beliefs underline that religiosity. In other words, what you might be observing here, may have more to do with "regional american culture" rather than "religion" specifically. When thought of this way, it becomes possible to account for the pervasive puritan mentality and calvinistic traditions that appear even amongst secular americans.

u/this_shit · 2 pointsr/philadelphia

> Just because something is out of the mainstream doesn't make it bad

Agreed. But white nationalism is bad for the reason that it's an attempt to break apart the American national identity. It is also bad because it attracts and empowers white supremacist groups who are motivated by hate rather than national identity.

> Segregation wasn't always mainstream.

I'm not really clear what you mean by this? Segregation was mainstream in the pre-civil rights era, but is very much not mainstream now.

> I think a bunch of separate cultures staying separate and isolated

Oh, I think I follow. You're framing multiculturalism as a rejection of "melting-pot" theory. My understanding of multiculturalism differs in that I understand it to be a system that enables differences in culture united by law. I.e., you can worship whoever you like, as long as doing so doesn't violate other people's rights.

You should check out Colin Woodard's American Nations. His take is that "melting-pot" theory was the Puritan's approach, whereas "multiculturalism" stems from the Dutch colonies, and that these two theories of American nationalism have both existed and clashed over the last 300-odd-years. Great read.

Anyway, isn't "white nationalism" a greater threat to the american national identity than multiculturalism? It basically says that there can't be black Americans, or latino Americans. That they should go find their own national identity separate from white Americans.

u/lovesthebj · 2 pointsr/Ask_Politics

I found it, Colin Woodard's "American Nations".

"...pointing out that rebellion in the North American colonies against the rule of a distant king started not in the 1770s, but in the 1680s, and not “as a united force of Americans eager to create a new nation, but in a series of separate rebellions, each seeking to preserve a distinct regional culture, political system, and religious tradition threatened by the distant seat of empire.”

  • Daily Beast

    It's almost two books, with the first half describing how each of his eleven nations were settled and cultivated, then spending the second half discussing how those separate nations contribute to the current political climate.

    Also from the book:

    “Since 1877, the driving force in American politics hasn’t primarily been a class struggle or tension between agrarian and commercial interests, or even between competing partisan ideologies, although each has played a role. Ultimately, the determinative political struggle has been a clash between shifting coalitions of ethnoregional nations, one invariably headed by the Deep South, the other by Yankeedom.”

  • Washington Post

    Edit: added references
u/Mynameis__--__ · 2 pointsr/Anarchism

American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America, by Colin Woodard. It is an excellent read.

Another book that is similar to this (but much longer) is Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America, by David Hackett Fischer

u/reluctantly_red · 2 pointsr/PurplePillDebate

The interesting part of the book is how it compares Canadian culture to that of various regions of the United States. Canadian culture turns out to be most like Massachusetts and least like the deep south. To make this comparison the author had to first describe the various regional cultures of the United States.

An American author did a similar examination with similar findings in this book https://www.amazon.com/American-Nations-History-Regional-Cultures/dp/0143122029

u/katie5000 · 2 pointsr/TrueAskReddit

Regarding competition, a lot of it is rooted in the types of people who settled the United States and the reasons why they came. Some of the people who came were religious or political dissenters trying to escape persecution, yes; but many, many of them were speculators here on behalf of some venture or company to see what they could discover/exploit the hell out of (and for how long) to get filthy rich and please the financial backers in the venture back home (some of whom were royal). That behavior was simply carried forward, both by Southern plantation owners and Northern industrialists: if you spend as little as possible running your venture, you'll have much greater profits in the end. And there is always somebody who will think they can do it more cheaply than you.

Here's an interesting book that might provide more insight: American Nations (Amazon)
An interesting article posted elsewhere on Reddit: NY Times article on American capitalism

Regarding college, there are many factors that have sort of dovetailed over the last 70 or so years to create the current situation. There's a big obsession ("madness") with attending college because the vast majority of employers now seemingly require college degrees for basic, halfway decent positions, and nobody wants to be left behind. This has led to a lot of bloat and the (unfortunate) de-valuing of the average degree. And this leads into why people are angry ("mad") about attaining/having college degrees: over that same period, college tuition has steadily gone up as costs have gone up. At the same time, wages have stagnated and subsidies (like for the public universities) have been slashed. Employers still want that degree, though, so many people take out loans to cover the difference in cost. And when they get to the end and get that job, they find out that they're going to be sorting garbage or filing widgets. And they still have to pay the loans back. You'll basically never get to use the university knowledge that you paid so much for, that the employer themselves required. So, yeah. Anger.

Of course, this doesn't explain why the US doesn't have a more robust (or publicized) vocational training system. Were I in office, I'd work to organize some kind of educational summit between industry and academia where they could hash all this out. What sort of knowledge does a university degree confer? Is it really necessary for most jobs? If you want your employees to have some kind of post-secondary training, what would be an acceptable alternative to university? Stuff like that. Then I'd work with the Department of Education to make it happen.

u/Roobomatic · 2 pointsr/AskSocialScience

Highly recommend this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Class-Through-American-Status-System/dp/0671792253

Class: A guide through the American Status System, by Paul Fussel. it was written in the mid 80s, but I think the information is still relevant and the writer basically spends the entirety of the book answering your question about social class signifiers (why do New England upperclass have an affinity for nautical decor? find out in chapter 3).

To the part of the question about regions, you might be interested in this book: http://www.amazon.com/American-Nations-History-Regional-Cultures/dp/0143122029

it is about the whys behind American regional political and class differences based on who immigrated to certain areas of the country, the values and ideals they brought with them and how it changed the American landscape and informs the current social and political climate. Interesting stuff.

u/locoluis · 2 pointsr/MapPorn

That book is from 2012. Chovanec's post is from 2009.

u/PaulWellstonesGhost · 2 pointsr/politics

If you are into non-fiction, I recommend American Nations by historian Colin Woodard. It will make our current political polarization make much more sense.

Here is a WaPo review of the book.

u/smcdow · 1 pointr/pics

It's not necessarily that the USA is too geographically large, but its history does mean that the US contains many rival cultures. The fault lines between these cultures are manifest and complex. And with the mobility inherent with being an American, the US is a mosaic with no clear geographic dividing lines as to where the nation could be split. Though there are lots of ideas about it.

Also, the political process required for making such a split happen in a lawful way is very involved. It would require a Constitutional amendment, which is a very rare occurrence even under the best of circumstances.

u/TheVeryMask · 1 pointr/LearnUselessTalents

According to this guy.

Might be a mobile link, I'm in a hurry.

u/HolySmocks · 1 pointr/MapPorn

Colin Woodard did this, then wrote a book on the whole thing. It's called American Nations and it's a very good read.

u/Forty-Eighter · 1 pointr/worldbuilding

You may dig this book, American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America by Colin Woodard. In it he breaks America down into 11 distinct nations, analyzes their individual history and looks at how they've interacted with one another and shaped the country as a whole.

From Amazon:
>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. 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 our future. From the Deep South to the Far West, to Yankeedom to El Norte, Woodard (author of American Character: A History of the Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Good) reveals how each region continues to uphold its distinguishing ideals and identities today...

Here an article from the Washington Post that breaks it down into childish pseudo-news but at least gives you an idea of Woodard's concept. Which of the 11 American Nations Do You Live In?

u/ElectronGuru · 1 pointr/coolguides

See also

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

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0143122029/

u/PressEveryButton · 1 pointr/Trumpgret

In addition to Albion's Seed mentioned above, "American Nations" is a broader overview of the various regional groups that settled the US, which includes both the Anglo-Scottish and Puritan-Quaker cultures.

u/TaylorS1986 · 1 pointr/AskAnAmerican

Not foreign, no, but there are enough cultural differences between different parts of the US for there to be some culture shock.

A good book on this if you are interested is American Nations by historian Colin Woodard. As somebody from the cultural zone Woodard calls "Yankeedom" it really opened my eyes and made me realize that beliefs, ideals, and social norms that I subscribe to and that I believed were "American" and actually just typically "Yankee".

u/DoughnutHolstein · 1 pointr/neoliberal

There's an actual book that this is all based on, I was just interested in people's take on it.

https://www.amazon.com/American-Nations-History-Regional-Cultures/dp/0143122029?tag=bisafetynet2-20

u/lgoldfein21 · 1 pointr/AskAnAmerican

https://www.amazon.com/American-Nations-History-Regional-Cultures/dp/0143122029

Really interesting book if you want to learn more about this

u/Zola_Rose · 1 pointr/AskAnAmerican

This book is a good one on the subject, it's called American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America by Colin Woodard. It's about the distinct regions of the US, and the differences between them in terms of culture, identity, and to some extent, values. Some are more liberal, others more conservative. Some are more dominated by religion, others are more of a melting pot of different views. Some areas are "white utopias" and others are culturally diverse.

It obviously varies by individual, but in terms of media, it is usually an amplified reflection of the setting, if the writers are good and depending on the genre.

u/allahu_adamsmith · 1 pointr/TooAfraidToAsk

America was founded by several groups, each with different backgrounds, lifestyles, and values. One of these groups were slave owners, who created their region of America in the tradition of a slave society, in which armed free rich whites controlled illiterate, bound black slaves. This is one of the regional models on which America was founded. Other groups, such as Quakers, Puritans, and Catholics, had a more egalitarian, race-neutral vision. But the idea of a society based on a racial hierarchy, with whites at the top and blacks on the bottom, is one of the founding models of the U.S.


https://www.businessinsider.com/the-11-nations-of-the-united-states-2015-7


https://www.amazon.com/American-Nations-History-Regional-Cultures/dp/0143122029


https://www.npr.org/2013/11/11/244527860/forget-the-50-states-u-s-is-really-11-nations-says-author

u/Bmyrab · 1 pointr/ColinsLastStand

That sounds super interesting. Do you think it sticks to bogus official stories (history written by the victors--like a typical US textbook)? Or does it go deeper? (I realize this is subjective, and I probably didn't word it well.)

On edit: Wow the reviews are great--

https://www.amazon.com/American-Nations-History-Regional-Cultures/dp/0143122029/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1501434602&sr=1-1&keywords=Colin+Woodard

On edit: I'd be interested in hearing your opinion on the last portion of the book, which a lot of readers mention is weaker.

u/IdahoDuncan · 1 pointr/PoliticalDiscussion

For a different way of looking at it check out American Nations

Theorizes that the make up of the electorate is still heavily influenced by the culture of the populations that originally populated the U.S

u/tuna_HP · 1 pointr/urbanplanning

I think that there is a cultural explanation beyond the automobile explanation. There is this great book called American Nations which argues that remnants of the historical cultures of the various peoples that populated different regions of the country of the US, are still relevant to this day. The people that originally immigrated to the deep south were of scots-irish hill people background and supposedly they were always very prickly and territorial. It makes sense that culturally they are more amenable to large lot sizes and being separated more from their neighbors, than having dense walkable cities where they would have to share multiunit buildings with other families.

u/ATRIOHEAD · 1 pointr/imaginarymaps

look to American Nations for further reference on the original settlements --> colonies, etc, and how that culture has continued. i like your modern touches out west along the pacific.

u/rhcpman1993 · 1 pointr/history

http://www.amazon.com/American-Nations-History-Regional-Cultures/dp/0143122029/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1370907077&sr=8-1&keywords=american+nations

You seem to be asking for something that is larger in scope than the topics that this book covers, but it's an interesting history of the American political system. It discusses why certain states and regions vote the way they do, going back to colonial allegiances and the national origins of the original settlers.

u/TehGinjaNinja · 1 pointr/PurplePillDebate

>Thank you for that article, it did clarify your argument about cultural communities in America immensely.

I recommend picking up a copy of American Nations for yourself; it's quite illuminating. Our Patchwork Nation (book & website) and The Nine Nations of North America are also worth a look, but they are a bit ahistorical and place too much emphasis on economics rather than culture.

> I have to ask what the intentions are behind rejecting science...

With "science" lets be specific, as people (conservative or otherwise) tend to accept and promote scientific findings which confirm their biases. When people complain about conservative opposition to "science" they typically mean the following:

Rejection of Evolution

This position is assumed by many Evangelical Christians who embrace Biblical Litteralism. It is an article of their faith that the Bible, which states humanity was created in it's current form, is the true and inerrant word of God.

I think it's noteworthy that this issue has become more controversial, not less, over time; i.e. there are more people in America today rejecting evolution than there were in the 80s and 90s. I believe that for many Evangelicals rejecting evolution has become a necessary affirmation of their faith as part of the broader fight against Liberal cultural imperialism, which tends to be secular.

Rejection of Climate Change

The environmental movement in America is largely based in the liberal cultures of the Left Coast and Yankeedom (digression: I hate that name and tend to think of Woodard's "Yankeedom" as 'Greater New England'). In fact, the Left Coast was dubbed "Ecotopia" in The Nine Nations of North America, because of the importance of the environment to that culture.

This means that the primary proponents of climate science are the cultural enemies of America's Conservative cultures. By itself that would make the science suspect to those cultures.

Addressing the issues raised by climate change will require even more use of the federal government to enforce a cultural value of the aforementioned liberal cultures (specifically, environmentalism). It should come as no surprise that Conservatives increasingly suspect it's simply all propaganda meant to justify ever more cultural imperialism by the left.

Rejection of "Social Science"

On this front I have a lot of agreement with Conservatives. Much of "Social Science" seems, at best, to be a pseudo-science, heavily influenced by the biases and assumptions of its practitioners. Much of it also emerges from Universities based in liberal cultural regions, which explains why conservatives reject it.

Put simply, when it comes to the conservative "rejection" of science, what they are really rejecting is the arguments of Liberal Cultures, even when those arguments are right. The sad truth is, it doesn't matter if you've got the facts on your side, when the people you need to persuade can't trust you.

Scenario: two people come to you, asking you to choose a side in their argument. One is a trusted community leader or the representative of an industry that provides something you value and employs thousands of people. The other is someone who holds your beliefs in contempt and who promotes values you find offensive. Who would you believe?

Rejection of Healthcare

The great irony of the current health care debate is that the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare) was based off a plan from the Heritage Foundation (a conservative think tank). So why are Conservatives so adamant in rejecting it?

Again, it's a matter of trust. All they can see is an effort to bring healthcare under the control of the federal government, and thus under the control of the liberal cultures.

If a conservative President had proposed the plan they would have supported it. Instead they are opposing it, because they don't trust the intentions of the people pushing it.

Rejection of Education

I actually went to the trouble to look up the Common Core standards which conservatives are up in arms about. Frankly, I found them so vague and innocuous that I suspect they were only passed as a "feel good" measure to make it look like the administration was taking education seriously.

Nothing in them innately challenges conservative cultural values, so again I believe it's simply a matter of trust. It looks to them like Liberals using the federal government to indoctrinate their children, so they are fighting it tooth and nail.

>there are instances in which the conflicting values of a larger nation must be resolved

Very true, but unless you are going to use force, such resolutions require compromise and compromise requires trust. The cultural imperialism of America's liberal cultures, their open contempt for conservative values and their willingness to use the federal government to enforce their values on conservative communities, has destroyed any hope of establishing such trust.

>The fight for Civil Rights was an extremely controversial movement at the time, and many communities rejected it as progressive imperialism, which it certainly was. It was also the minority demanding change from the majority. If you look at it like that, making many people change for few might seem unfair but that is an extremely limited way of seeing. First of all, what exactly did the majority have to give up?

What the majority had to lose, was exactly what it did lose: the national consensus. In the wake of the Great Depression the Democratic party forged a political consensus between Americas various cultures, which allowed the nation to progress economically and stand united in the face of foreign threats.

That consensus, which prevailed into the early 1960s, saw America rise to the status of a global super power, entailed the strongest sustained economic expansion in our nation's history (before and since), and vastly expanded the middle class. That consensus was based on a social contract which entailed the liberal cultures ignoring the racist policies of the south.

Look at where we are today: declining global influence, rising economic inequality, and extreme political dysfunction. We have arrived at this situation precisely because the national consensus was sacrificed on the altar of liberal cultural imperialism.

That being said, it wasn't the passage of the Civil Rights Act which dealt the fatal blow. That act was, in many ways, simply an evolution of the national consensus. It was the product of a democratic process; passed by an elected congress and signed into law by an elected president.

The legalization of abortion, deregulation of contraception, and abolition of school prayer, were qualitatively different. They were forced on the nation by un-elected judges. These decisions were not the product of a national search for consensus and they galvanized the formation of the religious right, without which the Republican party would not have an effective electoral coalition.


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> It is infinitely less expensive to fund contraceptive services than to pay for pregnancy and childbirth

This is actually a very short sighted view. Since the wide spread adoption of contraception ,western nations have seen a marked demographic decline. If it weren't for immigration the U.S. population would be declining. Nations with aging and shrinking populations face stagnant or negative economic growth (see Japan).

Unfortunately, importing relatively uneducated workers from the third world to replace highly educated and productive first world workers who refuse to reproduce, is not a viable long term solution. Western nations might soon have to consider banning contraception in order to ensure their long term viability.

>insurance companies already "subsidize" men's sex lives, by covering erectile dysfunction drugs like Viagra. That insurance companies were already covering those drugs was part of the reason why the Employment Equal Opportunity Commission ruled in 2000 that insurance companies providing prescription coverage could not exempt birth control.

That's a specious comparison. Erectile dysfunction is a medical problem requiring treatment. Fertility is not a disease, it is in fact a sign of health in premenopausal women. Comparing one to the other is like comparing reconstructive surgery with purely cosmetic surgery.

It's worth noting that the EEOC is an appointed body, not an elected one. Their rulings are not the product of a national debate in search of a consensus.

>Actually all the Planned Parenthoods in my area provide a big bag of free condoms to any person who asks for them.

Bully for them, but are they being required to by federal law? It's fine for an institution to promote your values in your culture. It's not alright for the federal government to coerce institutions in other cultures to enforce values which conflict with their own.

>>Men pay 70% of the taxes in this country

>And I'm gonna need sauce on this please.

Good catch. This figure is repeated often in the manosphere, so I cited it without confirmation. I think it emerged from this British report, but I can't find comparable numbers for the U.S. Given the disparity between male and female income in the U.S. it's likely men are paying more in taxes than women, but I can't find any hard numbers.

u/tinyj316 · 1 pointr/MapPorn

I highly encourage anyone who sees this to read "The Nine Nations of North America" by Joel Garreau. Its a bit dated now (35 years old), but its a fascinating look at the differences that have shaped our regional cultures.

A more modern take on this would be "American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America" by Colin Woodard. I haven't actually read this one yet, but it seems to be the progression of the work that Garreau laid out.

u/dmanww · 1 pointr/MapPorn

You should read [American Nations] (https://www.amazon.com/American-Nations-History-Regional-Cultures/dp/0143122029), it covers the background of this

u/rmdflows · -2 pointsr/urbanplanning

It's not simply urban versus rural. Black and white thinking, nice try. https://www.amazon.com/American-Nations-History-Regional-Cultures/dp/0143122029