words in scarlet ink

American Character is the second book I’ve read by Colin Woodard, with American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America being the first. You don’t need to read American Nations to understand American Character, but it does help – Woodard advances the argument in American Nations that the United States is one large country actually made up of eleven smaller regional ‘nations’ – that is, geographic areas that are culturally entirely different from each other. (FWIW, American Nations was one of the best books on this I ever read/listened to. It was everything you already subconsciously knew put forward in such a way that you kick yourself for not fully realizing it sooner).

American Character takes this idea a step further – the American republic has always been built on argument. That’s the point and – hundreds of years later – is still the most brilliant thing about our Constitution. There’s not usually a ‘right’ answer. The argument is meant to be reframed and changed over and over again as the people living under the Constitution change with it. Freedom is change – always changing for the better idea. The trouble is, each ‘nation’ has a different idea of what the better idea is.

Individual rights vs. the common good has been a central argument for as long as we’ve been around. Woodard follows both these philosophies through from when we but thirteen humble colonies (lol) to today, guiding us through four hundred years of social experiments. Who doesn’t love a good social experiment?

I did like this book. Woodard’s historical examples are pertinent and I enjoy his skill in building a narrative. The book is well researched and it follows the arguments laid out in American Nations to their next logical steps. I found his suggestions for maintaining balance between individual liberties while benefitting the collective pragmatic and attainable as long as we want to attain them.

Woodard has put out a third book in 2020 that ties into his ‘American Nations’ trilogy, called Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood. It’s already on my TBR pile.