Nations Apart: How Clashing Regional Cultures Shattered America

"A world-class intellectual. . . . [Colin Woodard's] research can help Americans rediscover their common identity in spite of all the attempts to divide them." --Garry Kasparov

"A powerful paradigm for understanding the defining hot button issues of contemporary America and the action we can take to bridge our cultural divisions and save the republic." --The Next Big Idea Club

"A lucid exercise in political geography with tremendous--and disturbing--explanatory power." --Kirkus Reviews

The bestselling author of American Nations reveals how centuries-old regional differences have brought American democracy to the brink of collapse and presents a powerful story that can bridge our cultural divisions and save the republic

Our democracy has been purposefully dismantled, first in the states and now at the federal level. With groundbreaking original data and historical insights, Nations Apart is an essential guide to understanding why Americans are so divided on many hot button issues, creating geographic fissures that have been exploited by authoritarians. Colin Woodard shows how colonial era settlement patterns and the cultural geography they left behind are at the root of our political polarization, economic inequality, public health crises, and democratic collapse.

Drawing on quantitative research from Woodard's university-based think tank project, Nations Apart exposes the true ideological and cultural divides behind today's struggles over:

* Gun control
* Immigration
* Health policy
* Abortion
* Climate Change
* History
* Authoritarianism and Democracy

But there is a road map to right the country: a carefully researched, vigorously tested common story for the country built on the mission set forth for us in the document that first bound our regions together, the Declaration of Independence. Combining compelling storytelling with scholarly vigor, Nations Apart offers a blueprint for bridging the rifts that divide us and ensuring the American dream of democratic self-government will reach its 300th birthday.

Author: Colin Woodard
Publisher: Viking
Published: 11/04/2025
Pages: 368
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.15lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.10w x 1.70d
ISBN: 9780593833407


Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 09/15/2025
Booklist 11/01/2025

About the Author
Colin Woodard, a New York Times bestselling author, historian, and award-winning journalist, is director of Nationhood Lab at Salve Regina University's Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy. He is the author of seven books that have been translated into a dozen languages and have inspired an NBC television drama. A longtime foreign correspondent, he reported from more than fifty countries on seven continents and, as an investigative reporter at Maine's Portland Press Herald, won a 2012 George Polk Award and was a finalist for a 2016 Pulitzer Prize. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Politico, The Washington Post, The Economist, Smithsonian, and dozens of other major publications. A graduate of Tufts University and the University of Chicago, and a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, he lives in Maine.