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

While the United States is often described as a melting pot, Woodard writes that this idea is false, as is the idea that we have always been a unified country that has only recently been deeply divided. He writes that instead, we are 11 nations within one, each with its own culture and politics. Immigrants to the US do not lose their identities in the great American melting pot but instead largely acquire the characteristics of the region of the United States in which they settle.

Woodard writes that the idea of the American melting pot has been false from the beginning. Even during periods of apparent unity, such as the American Revolution, the different regions of the nation had their own agendas. Only Yankeedom, with its emphasis on equality and self-government, was supportive of the revolution, while the other nations were ambivalent and went along for their own reasons. For example, the Deep South was afraid that the British arrival would result in large-scale slave revolts. In each phase of the nation’s history, we have been several nations experiencing this phase in different ways.