Mr. Woodard offers some provocative thoughts on how the crisis might be averted ... Quite aside from race and ethnicity, there is no room in this construction for any acknowledgment of what Samuel Huntington called America’s 'mainstream Anglo-Protestant culture' ... Mr. Woodard’s book is a brilliant contribution to this denigration effort. But his analysis is undermined by his alarmist hyperbole and his tendency to cast nearly all of his political antagonists as authoritarian villains bent on thrusting America back to the days of Jim Crow ... His book deserves attention. But the challenges buffeting America these days go beyond the author’s charged and sometimes blinkered framework.
This book has been released at a pivotal time in history, and it does an admirable job of providing empirical evidence on how the different regions of the country have developed ... Woodard presents a wealth of data on topics ranging from school violence to opinions on abortion and gun control, which can be overwhelming and somewhat disorienting. Still, he consistently brings the discussion back to explain how that data is relevant and how it is reflected in the culture. The book serves as a comprehensive history lesson, opening up avenues for further study and connecting with those who hail from any of the regions discussed ... A good addition to political and history displays and collections.
