A review by mattmcgillvray
Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood by Colin Woodard

5.0

Feels almost like a prequel for American Nations and American Character. By that I mean that there are a number of people in the book who struggle to come up with a unifying story as to American history and what holds us together. That story is one of the European-based and centered American ethnostate, a story that historically never seems to be able to hold water. It even ends with Fredrick Jackson Turner struggling to compose his own version that couldn't come together.

Why couldn't many historians compose a unified history of the American nation? Read Woodard's American Nations for the answer: there is more than one "nation" in the United States and they are based on very different cultures.

This book is for anyone who is interested in American history, but especially for anyone who has read his American Nations and American Character. This book is very good, give it a read.