Reviewing Eric Posner's "The Demagogue's Playbook" in the Washington Post

                      

In today's Sunday Washington Post, I review University of Chicago Law School professor Eric Posner's new book on demagogues and the American presidency. For someone who studied international relations -- and, thus, demagogues, at Chicago in the mid-1990s, it's sobering to stop and realize that the same forces we once analyzed in the "backward East" of Europe and now being analyzed again because they are at work undermining democracy and rule of law in our own country, with horrific stakes.

The Demagogue's Playbook: The Battle for American Democracy from The Founders to Trump argues that only two true demagogues have reached the White House in the history of the United States: Andrew Jackson and Donald Trump. What's that mean and why should you care? Read on.

The last book I reviewed for the Post was Donald Kettl's new book on federalism, The Divided States of America.

David Blight reviews UNION in the Washington Post

If I were to have created a wish list of eminent people who might be assigned to review my new book, David W. Blight, dean of Frederick Douglass biographers and historian of the implications of Reconstruction's collapse, would have been at the top. So I'm extremely excited that his review of Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood appears in today's print edition of the Washington Post. 

Blight, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his biography, Frederick Douglass, writes Union makes "visions of history into a kind of human drama... with a storyteller’s pace and vividness." In conclusion:

"The subtext for this book, like so much else these days, is Woodard’s fear that the 19th-century belief in an American ethno-state (meaning white) not only survived into our own time but is reascendant in Trumpism’s assault on “liberal civic nationalism.” As Woodard warns, only fools or the ignorant will think this battle will ever really end, even when President Trump and his own profane myth are banished."

Also, on Friday I joined Jefferson Public Radio, which serves the abortive State of Jefferson in southern Oregon and northern California, to talk about the book. That interview is here.

And finally, thanks again to Politics & Prose and NPR's Tom Gjelten for holding an excellent and enjoyable virtual book event this afternoon. That interview-and-audience questions session is now up via YouTube.

Reviewing Donald Kettl's "Divided States of America" for the Washington Post

U.S. Federalism -- the division of powers between the federal and state governments -- has been a tricky thing since the outset, leading to a horrific Civil War, enormous disparities between states in terms of social outcomes, tax burdens, and the quality of services and -- we will sadly soon learn -- possibly even pandemic awareness and survival.

Readers of American Nations know the Founders didn't really have a chance in the matter. The regional cultures and the states they controlled were so different from one another -- a slaveholding oligarchy in the Deep South had completely different political and ideological goals than the descendants of the Puritans, with their fear of aristocracy and demand for hyper-local control -- that there would never have been a United States had they not created a very great compromise. But is it an institution that can still hold us together, or is it destined to drive us apart for good?

Donald Kettl, a political scientist at the University of Texas in Austin, has taken up these questions in his timely new book, The Divided States of America: Why Federalism Doesn't Work. I reviewed it for the Washington Post and you can read my thoughts on it there.

Why did Evangelicals support Trump?

One of the great mysteries of the 2016 presidential election is how it was that 80 percent of Evangelicals voted for Donald Trump, perhaps the most un-family values candidate ever to hold a major party nomination.

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Frances Fitzgerald has a whopping thick new history of the Evangelical movement out -- The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America -- and it's got a lot of clues to solving the problem. I outline them in my review of the book for the Washington Post. I think it runs in the Sunday print edition, but it's online now. [Update: 10/20/17: Sunday Outlook section, B6.)

Busy with the launch of my own book and a far-flung project for Politico, my last review for the Post was over a year ago: of Tim Marshall's book on geopolitics, Prisoners of Geography.

[Update: 10/20/17: For those in the Upper Hudson Valley, this review also ran in the Albany Times-Union today. And if you happen to live in the Brazilian state of Parana, I've got you covered in Gazeta do Povo (in Portuguese.)]

On Obama talking up his Scots-Irish heritage at the DNC

In his speech at the Democratic National Convention this week, President Obama spoke about his Scots-Irish roots and the values of that culture, which includes many on his mother's side. Why talk about the Scots-Irish in a major address in the midst of a critical election year? The Washington Post's Frances Stead Sellers is on it.

I spoke with Sellers yesterday about the Scots-Irish legacy, influence, and importance to our elections, and you can read the article that resulted here. (Thanks to the Post for including the American Nations map.)

I've written on this theme in, of course, American Nations and American Character, but also for Washington Monthly, where I discussed Obama's "Greater Appalachia Problem" ahead of the last election.

Washington Post review of American Character

In this past week's Sunday Washington Post, Pulitzer Prize winning historian David Oshinsky gives a lengthy if qualified review of my new book, American Character, along with measured praise for its "quirky" predecessor, American Nations.

Oshinsky, a professor at New York University, doesn't think the two should have crossed paths in the new book which, of course, I think misses the key point of the American experience, its regional nature. I could go on, and will if Oshinsky visits, but suffice to say he hasn't read the first book, or he'd know the answer to the question he poses at the end: how his state wound up divided between three regional cultures.

Reviewing "Prisoners of Geography" at the Washington Post

Tim Marshall, veteran foreign correspondent for Britain's SkyNews, has a new book out on geopolitics. Prisoners of Geography argues the influence of geographic elements is under recognized in our contemporary foreign policy and historical discourse and aims to fix that.

He does so with mixed success, as I argue in my review in yesterday's Washington Post. Marshall is strong on Russia, weak on North America and the Pacific, and doesn't really make a case for a new (or even renewed) way of analyzing world events.

My last review for the Post was on Brand Luther, a new book on Martin Luther's game-changing effect on the greatest social media innovation of his time: the printed book.

How Martin Luther reinvented the book

Martin Luther didn't just spark the Reformation, he invented the modern book and the publishing industry. That's the intriguing story told on this, the eve of the 500th anniversary of his 95 theses, in Andrew Pettegree's new book Brand Luther: How an Unheralded Monk Turned His Small Town into a Center of Publishing, Made Himself the Most Famous Man in Europe, and Started the Protestant Reformation. 

I reviewed the book for tomorrow's Washington Post. Here's a taste:

When Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door in the Saxon backwater town of Wittenberg, moveable type was something like the computer in the 1960s, a useful and expensive tool used by academics and elite institutions....Luther realized the untapped potential of print as a mass medium and used it to broadcast his message to lay readers across the German states, bypassing the traditional gatekeepers via this new social media. 

My most recent review for the Post was of Tom Gjelten's Nation of Nations in October.

Reviewing Tom Gjelten's new book for the Washington Post

Fifty years ago, the United States liberalized its immigration regime, doing away with the racist reforms of 1924, which sought to prevent the country from becoming more diverse. Remarkably, neither proponents nor critics of the 1965 reforms sought to increase the country's racial and ethnic diversity; on the contrary, both camps argued the changes would not have this effect.

NPR correspondent Tom Gjelten's new book, A Nation of Nations, examines the consequences for the country in general and for Fairfax County, Virginia in particular. I review the book in today's Washington Post.

For readers of American Nations: Gjelten's detailed case study of Fairfax County provides ample evidence that at least this corner of Tidewater is likely transforming into something that looks and sounds an awful lot like the Midlands, and Fairfax's experience is likely replicated across much of fast-growing northern Virginia.

My last review for the Post was of former U.S. Ambassador to Hungary Eleni Kounalakis's memoir of her years in Budapest, watching Hungary fall under the shadow of its autocratic leader, Viktor Orban (who I wrote about for Politico here.)

[Update, 10/21/15: The Denver Post picked up the review in their Sunday edition this week.]

[Update, 10/22/15: Australia's Financial Review has also reprinted the review.]

[Update. 10/26/15: The Kansas City Star as well.]

Business Insider on American Nations....twice

American Nations is in the midst of its second episode of mysterious internet viral-ness, this time prompted by the organic growth of traffic to a 19-month old blog post on the concept at the Washington Post, pushing the story to #1 Most Read on their site Sunday.

Business Insider has pushed it along with not one but two articles this week. The first, based on a recent interview with one of their reporters, posted on Monday afternoon and has, in two days, racked up over 330,000 views. Here's an excerpt:

Woodard says that among these 11 nations, Yankeedom and the Deep South exert the most influence and are constantly competing with each other for the hearts and minds of the other nations. "We are trapped in brinkmanship because there is not a lot of wiggle room between Yankee and Southern Culture," Woodard says. "Those two nations would never see eye to eye on anything besides an external threat."

Yesterday, the site followed up with this short article on how American Nations explains regional variations in violence, a topic I treated in greater detail in a Tufts Magazine article which prompted the first viral episode in 2013.

I'll also be on John Gibson's Fox News Radio show at about 1:20 Eastern tomorrow to talk about the book

At Washington Post, 2 year old American Nations article hits #1 Most Read

Remember that time in late 2013 when my then-two year old book, American Nations, suddenly went viral on the Internet? It started with a story I did for Tufts Magazine explaining the profound regional differences in violence, gained steam organically (with the newly colorized map), and then went berserk when the Washington Post's Reid Wilson put up this post at the paper's GovBeat blog. It got millions of hits in the first week, prompting newspaper columns and national radio and television appearances, and pushing the book to #50 of all books sold on Amazon.

Well, that GovBeat post just won't quit. After "trending" for the past two weeks, yesterday the year-and-a-half old post surged to No. 1 on the Post's Most Read list and, as of this morning, is still at No. 3. The paper put this Facebook status update up last night, which generated over 900 shares and nearly 2000 likes in its first three hours alone.

Nutty.

So, for those of you who may have just discovered the American Nations Map and want to know more, read this for a cogent summary or, if you’re really in a hurry, go here.

My next open-to-the-public speaking appearance on the American Nations will be in Ames, Iowa October 6. Stay tuned for details.

Hungary's slide from democracy, Part II

For those not sure how to spend the rest of the spring solstice and Father's Day, let me suggest a review of the memoir of the former U.S. Ambassador to Hungary, Eleni Kounalakis.

Kounalakis served in Budapest for the first three years of Prime Minister Viktor Orban's rule, a period in which he's turned Hungary away from liberal democracy and towards something closer to Russia, Singapore and China. Her book is surprisingly frank and paints a disturbing picture of the direction of the Hungarian state.

The review, which appears in today's Sunday Washington Post, is my second piece this week on the situation back in Hungary, where I lived for more than four years between 1989 and 1996, and where I returned recently. The previous one -- on Orban's construction of what he calls the "illiberal state" -- appeared in Politico Magazine a few days ago.

My most recent review for the Post was of former Rep. Barney Frank's memoir.

Reviewing Barney Frank's memoir in the Washington Post

In today's Washington Post, I review former congressman Barney Frank's newly released memoir, Frank: A Life in Politics from the Great Society to Same Sex Marriage.

The book "relates his rise from pumping gas for his father’s northern New Jersey truck stop to Boston City Hall, the Massachusetts legislature and, ultimately, the upper echelons of congressional power. The central, ironic theme: As Frank’s influence grew — and anti-gay bigotry withered — the New Deal order to which he was devoted cracked, crumbled and was scattered before a libertarian wind"

Most political memoirs are safe, predictable and dull. This one isn't, which won't surprise anyone familiar with Frank (who now lives in southern Maine and even writes a column for the Maine Sunday Telegram.)

I've been busy writing my own book, so haven't reviewed one for the Post in a year. The last one was of Amy Chua's monstrosity, The Triple Package.

American Nations among dueling maps at Washington Post

There's been a lot of talk about what America's real political regions should be on the internet of late, with Nate Silver's 538 weighing in on the Midwest and South, and the Washington Post's The Fix taking on the continent. Needless to say, I joined the fray on Twitter to argue there's never been a Midwest or a single South, proffering the American Nations map.

I've been enjoying the ensuing discussion on Twitter this afternoon -- tune in to @WoodardColin to join in the debate. As so often happens these days, that discussion has now gone full circle, landing on the webpages of the Washington Post a short while ago with this piece on the dueling maps, including the American Nations one. It's good fun, so join the discussion there.

I made the point to Nate Silver early on in these discussions that the reason so many people disagree with him that Pennsylvania is in the Midwest is because there is no Midwest. The Keystone State is instead divided amongst three regional cultures -- the very cultures in fact that make up the "Midwest", but which have very little in common with one another. For more on Pennsylvania's regional divide, a heartily recommend this recent article on that state's linguistic divides over at Slate.

And as to what region in Delaware should be in -- the question that kicked off much of this debate -- the answer is: if it must be in just one, the Midlands has the population advantage, much as it does in Maryland, so if you must use state boundaries, both states would land in that sloppy category called the "Mid-Atlantic." (That's shorthand for "States Dominated By the Midlands or New Netherland or a Combination Thereof That Happen To Lie On The Eastern Seaboard.")

Ancestral geography and American Nations at the Washington Post

Flying back from Washington, D.C. this afternoon, I was pleased to see Reid Wilson's piece over at the Washington Post featuring the U.S. Census Bureau's map of dominant reported ancestry by county and, yes, the American Nations map. As Wilson points out, there are a number of continuities.

For those unfamiliar with American Nations, note a critical difference at the outset. The map from my book is tied to initial settlement patterns, showing which of North America's disparate Euro-American colonizing cultures first settled which parts of the continent, laying down the institutions, expectations, and societal norms -- the "cultural DNA" as it were -- that later (and, often, much larger) immigrants had to deal with. Thus (largely English) Yankees may have guided and dominated settlement of the Western Reserve of Ohio or Michigan, but that doesn't mean they are a majority today -- or even a century ago.

That said, some remarkable continuities in patterns will likely strike you. First, as the book itself remarks about this census map, the people of Greater Appalachia are the ones calling themselves "Americans" when asked their ethnicity. (As former Sen. Jim Webb points out in Born Fighting, this is probably because many are not properly aware of their Scots-Irish ancestry.) Much of the Deep South has African-American pluralities and -- not surprisingly -- El Norte has Mexican or Hispano/Spanish pluralities (the latter, as discussed in the book, being the descendants of the early Spanish settlers of New Mexico.) Also: see that big blot of "English" dominance in Utah and surrounding states? Those are the descendants of the Mormon Migration -- overwhelmingly Yankees. Indeed, Utah regularly surpasses rivals Maine and Vermont as the "most English" states in the federation.

For fun, consider this map from the Canadian census, where Eastern Canadians of European background almost universally identify as "Canadian" (rather than "French/Quebecois" or "English" or "Irish") and those in Central and Western Canada never do. First nations people of course dominate First Nation (though in some of these sparsely populated areas, the map needs municipal-level data to draw the boundaries between Far West and First Nation.)

Finally, thanks to the Governing Institute for having me as their luncheon keynote at their Governing Maryland Leadership Forum in College Park yesterday; I enjoyed meeting and talking to many of that very sectionalized state's leaders. Also to the members of the Serious Book Club for a stimulating discussion of the book on the Virginia side of the Potomac last night; pleased the book has so many thoughtful followers in the Tidewater.

Giving Amy "Tiger Mom" Chua's new book an F in the Washington Post

My review of a new book by Amy "Tiger Mom" Chua and her husband, Jed Rubenfeld, is in today's Washington Post. It's not a glowing assessment:

Some of the techniques Chua used with her daughters — referring to them as “garbage” or refusing to accept the 4-year-old’s hand-drawn birthday card because “I deserve better than this” — led not a few to denounce Chua as a monster....Reading their new title, “The Triple Package,” many will wonder why the couple didn’t take their parenting advice to heart: Readers deserve a better book than this.

No doubt it will sell a lot of copies, however, as television and radio networks can't resist the story, which may have been the couple's idea all along.

For those looking for something else to read, my most recent book review for the Post was of Dan Jones's The Plantagenets back in August.

A nice honor from the Washington Post

Thanks to the Washington Post's GovBeat for including me in this morning's feature, "The Best State Capitol Reporters in America." I joined a Maine delegation that included my Portland Press Herald colleague, Steve Mistler, and Christopher Cousins, who covers the State House for our primary in-state rival, the Bangor Daily News.

GovBeat also played a role in American Nations -- my most recent book -- going viral on the internet in November, for which I'm also grateful. (For those interested: I'll be speaking about the book at the Hausenstein Center for Presidential Studies at Grand Valley State University in western Michigan next week, as well as at the Gleason Library in Carlisle, Massachusetts -- which chose the title for their "one book, one town" event this year -- next weekend. On February 4, I'll be speaking at the Governing Institute's Outlook on State and Local Government conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.)

American Nations goes viral

Over the past four days, I've had the novel and enjoyable experience of having my work go, as they say, "viral" on the interwebs. Between Thursday morning and this (Sunday) evening, the map and ideas laid out in my most recent book, American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America, shot first around the country, and then the world, initially building speed organically on social media, then getting the attention of first the "new media," then a prominent blog at a major newspaper. Next thing I know I'm being interviewed by the BBC World Service's Newshour, pretty much the coolest place ever for a former foreign correspondent to find himself.

Here, as far as I can put together, is the anatomy of my viral experience.

I wrote the cover story of the new issue of Tufts Magazine, the alumni publication of the university I attended, on the regional differences in violence, as clarified through American Nations. As hoped, it generated a lot of discussion -- some angry responses, a lot of positive ones -- and I plugged the piece last week over at Washington Monthly, where I post regularly on the paradigm and its implications in current events, like this week's election in Virginia. Things carried on quietly enough for a week and -- apart from some nice praise from the alumni magazine media critics at UMagazinology -- nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

But by Thursday morning, something was clearly brewing. Facebook friends were having the piece posted on their timelines by people outside my network from all over the country. Strangers started tweeting about it. Its sales rank on Amazon -- "crack for authors", my agent calls it -- started surging. In mid-morning, the web 'zine-cum-group blog Boing Boing posted this short plug for not only the Tufts article and the book, but for Republic of Pirates as well. (Thanks, guys!) I started getting e-mails from radio stations requesting interviews.Prominent figures were Tweeting the article.

Then, early Friday afternoon, the Washington Post's widely-read GovBeat blog piled on with this piece, which soon seemed to be absolutely everywhere. The Post's The Fix, New York Times columnist Charles Blow, and Der Spiegel tweeted my AmNat map to their combined half million followers. On Saturday, National Public Radio emailed about an interview. By this afternoon I was  on the BBC World Service's Newshour (0:49) whilst the London Daily Mail and Mexico's El Diario were posting articles based on the Post piece. My e-mail inbox runneth over.

As for the book, Amazon ran out of paperbacks earlier today and looks on the verge of selling out on hardcovers as well. If something of the sort is happening at bricks-and-mortar stores, it would seem the book has found some new audiences. And I'll never again doubt the power of digital social networks to disseminate ideas. If only one could figure out how to predict what makes one go viral.

[Update, 11/11/13: The American Conservative's Rod Dreher writes this afternoon: "I’ve received that map, and the accompanying story, about fifty billion times in the past week."]

[Update, 11/12/13: An update on the continuing media frenzy here.]

Reviewing "The Plantagenets" in the Washington Post

In the Washington Post this weekend, you'll find my review of Dan Jones' new book, The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England.'  

It's an excellent book on a compelling, if disturbed, set of subjects. Here's an excerpt from the review:

"Those depressed about the state of 21st-century American politics take solace: Governance really has advanced since the late Middle Ages, when any lout, psychopath or 10-year-old might wind up as your chief executive, triggering a family feud, uprising, civil war or, as often as not, a combination of the three. The Plantagenets’ dysfunction surpasses anything on reality television in that the actors lead armies against one another."

Enjoy.

For those looking for more literary criticism, my most recent review for the Post was of Olympia Snowe's new memoir/call to action, Fighting for Common Ground, published in June, and before that of a boisterous, flawed attack on the late Christopher Hitchens.

Reviewing Olympia Snowe's new book in the Washington Post

My review of former Sen. Olympia Snowe's new book, Fighting for Common Ground, is in this Sunday's Washington Post, but it's already available online for those who can't wait that long.

Snowe, you'll recall, surprised most everyone last year by stepping down late in the Senate primary season, and there's been speculation as to why she did so. She's also set up an organization to support moderates, Olympia's List, which recently gave a $10,000 donation to Snowe's former Senate colleague, Susan Collins. Previously, the political action committee that became Olympia's List gave to a long list of Maine Republicans, including non-moderates like Gov. Paul LePage and state Rep. Amy Volk.

Snowe's husband, former Gov. John McKernan, was in the news last week, after a federal judge allowed three of six counts against for-profit college operator Education Management Corporation to move forward. McKernan was CEO when the alleged legal violations took place before becoming board chairman, a position he stepped down from last August. The firm faces a second whistleblower suit which is expected to also move forward.