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Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood
By the bestselling author of
American Nations,
the story of how the myth of U.S. national unity was created and fought over in the nineteenth century--a myth that continues to affect us today
Union tells the story of the struggle to create a national myth for the United States, one that could hold its rival regional cultures together and forge an American nationhood. On one hand, a small group of individuals--historians, political leaders, and novelists--fashioned and promoted the idea of America as nation that had a God-given mission to lead humanity toward freedom, equality, and self-government. But this emerging narrative was swiftly contested by another set of intellectuals and firebrands who argued that the United States was instead the homeland of the allegedly superior Anglo-Saxon race, upon whom divine and Darwinian favor shined.
Colin Woodard tells the story of the genesis and epic confrontations between these visions of our nation's path and purpose through the lives of the key figures who created them, a cast of characters whose personal quirks and virtues, gifts and demons shaped the destiny of millions.
Union tells the story of the struggle to create a national myth for the United States, one that could hold its rival regional cultures together and forge an American nationhood. On one hand, a small group of individuals--historians, political leaders, and novelists--fashioned and promoted the idea of America as nation that had a God-given mission to lead humanity toward freedom, equality, and self-government. But this emerging narrative was swiftly contested by another set of intellectuals and firebrands who argued that the United States was instead the homeland of the allegedly superior Anglo-Saxon race, upon whom divine and Darwinian favor shined.
Colin Woodard tells the story of the genesis and epic confrontations between these visions of our nation's path and purpose through the lives of the key figures who created them, a cast of characters whose personal quirks and virtues, gifts and demons shaped the destiny of millions.
432 pages, Hardcover
First published June 16, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 67 reviews
March 15, 2020
(Note: I received an advanced reader copy of this book courtesy of NetGalley)
In this work, Collin Woodard covers the history of the different national myths that have been competing throughout America’s history (to use an understatement) up through the present. His narrative is constructed through a focus on several particular originators and promoters of the dueling visions of the nation and includes both familiar faces like Frederick Douglass and Woodrow Wilson and lesser-known figures who have played surprisingly outsized roles, such as historian George Bancroft.
Between having never previously read any of Woodard’s other works, this book’s subject matter and the somewhat slow buildup at the start, I anticipated an informative, but ultimately dry read. What I experienced instead was an engrossing narrative about all of the battling strains of thought over what makes America a nation - America as a beacon of freedom for humanity, America as a divinely-sanctioned white ethnostate, America as a nation formed by the frontier, and of course, America as a hypocritical entity that claims to stand for the freedom and equality of man yet very actively oppresses all those within its borders who aren’t Anglo-Saxon and male. At different times it was eye-opening, thought-provoking, genuinely shocking and upsetting (these latter two especially as he charted the rise of and halcyon days of the racist ethnostate narrative), and at the end, a little hopeful. But after the beginning introductions, it was rarely ever dull. And although Wooded extensively details the lives of each and every one of his selected figures, his writing is so clear and accessible that at no point did I feel like I had lost track of what ultimately proved to be a very convincing big picture over which specific national myth was ascendant in any major point throughout the nation's past.
To any and all with an interest in American history, I definitely recommend this extremely readable and very compelling overview of the national identity conflict that has shaped the United States and continues to do so. Meanwhile, I personally look forward to exploring Woodard’s older works.
In this work, Collin Woodard covers the history of the different national myths that have been competing throughout America’s history (to use an understatement) up through the present. His narrative is constructed through a focus on several particular originators and promoters of the dueling visions of the nation and includes both familiar faces like Frederick Douglass and Woodrow Wilson and lesser-known figures who have played surprisingly outsized roles, such as historian George Bancroft.
Between having never previously read any of Woodard’s other works, this book’s subject matter and the somewhat slow buildup at the start, I anticipated an informative, but ultimately dry read. What I experienced instead was an engrossing narrative about all of the battling strains of thought over what makes America a nation - America as a beacon of freedom for humanity, America as a divinely-sanctioned white ethnostate, America as a nation formed by the frontier, and of course, America as a hypocritical entity that claims to stand for the freedom and equality of man yet very actively oppresses all those within its borders who aren’t Anglo-Saxon and male. At different times it was eye-opening, thought-provoking, genuinely shocking and upsetting (these latter two especially as he charted the rise of and halcyon days of the racist ethnostate narrative), and at the end, a little hopeful. But after the beginning introductions, it was rarely ever dull. And although Wooded extensively details the lives of each and every one of his selected figures, his writing is so clear and accessible that at no point did I feel like I had lost track of what ultimately proved to be a very convincing big picture over which specific national myth was ascendant in any major point throughout the nation's past.
To any and all with an interest in American history, I definitely recommend this extremely readable and very compelling overview of the national identity conflict that has shaped the United States and continues to do so. Meanwhile, I personally look forward to exploring Woodard’s older works.
August 26, 2020
This book attempts to plot the development of the notion of the United States across time by following notable advocates of different views of it ranging from a genteel southern planter class ruling their social inferiors to something more egalitarian.
The voices selected seems almost random and I can't imagine the full range of views were covered. This feels like an attempt to retread the arguments of the author's previous books using specific biographical examples. The narrative ends kind of suddenly with the death of Woodrow Wilson which leaves something like a century left after that.
I think the most interesting aspects were:
*Frederick Jackson Turner almost immediately turning
*The media blitz and social engineering surrounding Birth of a Nation
*Just how racist Woodrow Wilson was and how shitty an academic he was in terms of being able to do actual research
*The South's general belief that the North was backward for not recognizing the natural need for social segregation
Overall the book was interesting but using specific people as embodiments of ideas both involved not getting enough clarify details on their belief systems as well as being overburdened in terms of biographical detail. The author's skill is in explaining times and ideas not so much with people.
The voices selected seems almost random and I can't imagine the full range of views were covered. This feels like an attempt to retread the arguments of the author's previous books using specific biographical examples. The narrative ends kind of suddenly with the death of Woodrow Wilson which leaves something like a century left after that.
I think the most interesting aspects were:
*Frederick Jackson Turner almost immediately turning
*The media blitz and social engineering surrounding Birth of a Nation
*Just how racist Woodrow Wilson was and how shitty an academic he was in terms of being able to do actual research
*The South's general belief that the North was backward for not recognizing the natural need for social segregation
Overall the book was interesting but using specific people as embodiments of ideas both involved not getting enough clarify details on their belief systems as well as being overburdened in terms of biographical detail. The author's skill is in explaining times and ideas not so much with people.
June 12, 2022
Some quick thoughts. The book is well-written and reflects an impressive amount of research. I found it less directly about "the struggle to forge the story of United States nationhood" than an astute if peripatetic overview of the various powerful currents that defined America in the nineteenth century -- and indeed, that define us still, almost as if the intervening years never existed. Woodard focuses on figures well-known (Woodrow Wilson -- who comes off very, very badly -- Frederick Douglass, Frederick Jackson Turner, Andrew Jackson) and less known. Through them we see play out the arguments about race and power that have shaped our history. Woodard's got a very good ear for the telling anecdote or quote -- some of them resonate so powerfully, are so soul-shaking, that they force us to look at what we'd prefer to turn away from -- it's abundantly clear (if never expressly articulated) what concerns prompted him to write the book. As much as "Union" is a portrait of nineteenth century America, it is very much a mirror held up to us today.
"Union" is a very readable, insightful, and thought-provoking look at our country's history and present.
"Union" is a very readable, insightful, and thought-provoking look at our country's history and present.
July 12, 2020
I learned a great deal about Woodrow Wilson that I wish I had known earlier. I also learned more about Fredrick Douglass. Having said that, I don't think this is as good as American Character or American Nations.
July 4, 2020
What is American nationhood? What is an American? This is not a new question, but it is, in light of recent events, a very relevant one. When the US was founded, the former colonies that founded it had wildly different traditions, origin stories, political economies, etc., and the average "American" felt more loyalty to his own state than to a "United States". The struggle to form an unum out of this pluribus led to five different figures to show five different visions of American identity:
George Bancroft: Jacksonian, triumphalist, assimilationist
Willliam George Simms: Slavocratic, hierarchial, white supremacist
Fredrick Douglass: Abolitionist, egalitarian
Woodrow Wilson: Segregationist, ethnocentric, "herrenvolk democracy"
Frederick Jackson Turner: Frontiersman initially, but then regional in a manner similar to Woodard himself
The book ends on sort of a downer, as it appears that those who favor the more exclusionary, ethnostate version of nationhood seem to hold the levers of power at the moment, but as Woodard reminds the reader, the struggle to define American nationhood didn't stop with these men's deaths or with the Civil Rights revolution, and it will not stop now.
George Bancroft: Jacksonian, triumphalist, assimilationist
Willliam George Simms: Slavocratic, hierarchial, white supremacist
Fredrick Douglass: Abolitionist, egalitarian
Woodrow Wilson: Segregationist, ethnocentric, "herrenvolk democracy"
Frederick Jackson Turner: Frontiersman initially, but then regional in a manner similar to Woodard himself
The book ends on sort of a downer, as it appears that those who favor the more exclusionary, ethnostate version of nationhood seem to hold the levers of power at the moment, but as Woodard reminds the reader, the struggle to define American nationhood didn't stop with these men's deaths or with the Civil Rights revolution, and it will not stop now.
November 22, 2020
Colin Woodard's latest book follows on from his earlier work on the nature of Americans, culturally and historically.
The use of "forge" in the title invites a number of interpretations, all of which are relevant and in many ways it describes the development of a mythos, in this case "who are Americans?"
"Who Australians are" is a relevant, perhaps overlapping project, particularly if the term "ethnonationalism" is applied to a similar period.
Woodard structures his book with brief, interweaving, biographical chapters about George Randolph, William Gilmore Simms, Frederick Douglass, Frederick Jackson Turner and Woodrow Wilson. I'd not heard of Simms and knew of the rest, although not it depth, perhaps Turner's frontier thesis more than anything else, which may be unfair to Douglass. I only knew of Wilson because of his "Fourteen Points"
These chapters are skilfully linked to various events and there are cameos by people like Lincoln and many others and they make for very interesting reading. Because the chapters can be 2 or 3 pages at times, it means that what's been read it can be left and returned.
"Ethnonationalism" of course is a way of labelling claims of racial supremacy, issues not simply confined to the United States of course, as you can find similar claims being made in Elizabethan England regarding the Irish, who are compared with Native Americans. In previous books Woodard had dealt with this background with knowledge.
All the people here are writers of some kind, Bancroft, Turner and Wilson as historians, a somewhat tenuous label for the first and the last if you think (as i do and have done) that actual historical research is important, not just grand theory, for want of a better term.
Bancroft and Wilson have an ideology to present about the superiority of people like them, not too dissimilar to Sims the novelist, who defends and extols a way of living that distinguishes between people on various biases, particularly colour. Some of the arguments against equality are based on a particular view of the Bible, others evolution or at least how one wishes to understand that.
I've never understood this perspective, which hasn't exactly been absent in my country. I didn't learn my perspective from my family, noted at one point by my mother several decades ago. I recommend Marilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds' "Drawing the Global Colour Line" if you want to understand the context around Wilson's time regarding immigration. My country still puts refugees in detention as though that time hasn't passed.
So this is unpleasant, if informative reading, if you take my perspective.
There are many highlights: Douglass' early struggles are gripping and the contrast between Lincoln at Gettysburg (I've been there) and Wilson's appearance decades later is instructive.
Wilson establishing segregation in Post Offices and elsewhere, when men, women of whatever colour had worked together for decades is simply a disgrace. He had a lot of support, it seems.
Turner's struggle when his initial model, based on geography (Woodard suggests culture as a better fit) doesn't really fit well elicits personal sympathy, but also a recognition that it's a good idea t look at facts and events without judgement, or at least to be prepared to change your mind, a faculty not possessed by Bancroft, Simms and Wilson, though successful writers all.
I suppose a point there is that a ripping yarn might be more convincing than actual truth, something to be aware of when watching costume dramas, or even some documentaries.
This is a well put together book which can be challenging and startling, as well as informative. It's genuinely shocked me at times with descriptions of particular events as well as many statements made by historical figures in the book.
Not everybody is the same; here we have examples of many who seek to denigrate and judge, rather than see that as a norm. Widard suggests there's a long way to go.
The use of "forge" in the title invites a number of interpretations, all of which are relevant and in many ways it describes the development of a mythos, in this case "who are Americans?"
"Who Australians are" is a relevant, perhaps overlapping project, particularly if the term "ethnonationalism" is applied to a similar period.
Woodard structures his book with brief, interweaving, biographical chapters about George Randolph, William Gilmore Simms, Frederick Douglass, Frederick Jackson Turner and Woodrow Wilson. I'd not heard of Simms and knew of the rest, although not it depth, perhaps Turner's frontier thesis more than anything else, which may be unfair to Douglass. I only knew of Wilson because of his "Fourteen Points"
These chapters are skilfully linked to various events and there are cameos by people like Lincoln and many others and they make for very interesting reading. Because the chapters can be 2 or 3 pages at times, it means that what's been read it can be left and returned.
"Ethnonationalism" of course is a way of labelling claims of racial supremacy, issues not simply confined to the United States of course, as you can find similar claims being made in Elizabethan England regarding the Irish, who are compared with Native Americans. In previous books Woodard had dealt with this background with knowledge.
All the people here are writers of some kind, Bancroft, Turner and Wilson as historians, a somewhat tenuous label for the first and the last if you think (as i do and have done) that actual historical research is important, not just grand theory, for want of a better term.
Bancroft and Wilson have an ideology to present about the superiority of people like them, not too dissimilar to Sims the novelist, who defends and extols a way of living that distinguishes between people on various biases, particularly colour. Some of the arguments against equality are based on a particular view of the Bible, others evolution or at least how one wishes to understand that.
I've never understood this perspective, which hasn't exactly been absent in my country. I didn't learn my perspective from my family, noted at one point by my mother several decades ago. I recommend Marilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds' "Drawing the Global Colour Line" if you want to understand the context around Wilson's time regarding immigration. My country still puts refugees in detention as though that time hasn't passed.
So this is unpleasant, if informative reading, if you take my perspective.
There are many highlights: Douglass' early struggles are gripping and the contrast between Lincoln at Gettysburg (I've been there) and Wilson's appearance decades later is instructive.
Wilson establishing segregation in Post Offices and elsewhere, when men, women of whatever colour had worked together for decades is simply a disgrace. He had a lot of support, it seems.
Turner's struggle when his initial model, based on geography (Woodard suggests culture as a better fit) doesn't really fit well elicits personal sympathy, but also a recognition that it's a good idea t look at facts and events without judgement, or at least to be prepared to change your mind, a faculty not possessed by Bancroft, Simms and Wilson, though successful writers all.
I suppose a point there is that a ripping yarn might be more convincing than actual truth, something to be aware of when watching costume dramas, or even some documentaries.
This is a well put together book which can be challenging and startling, as well as informative. It's genuinely shocked me at times with descriptions of particular events as well as many statements made by historical figures in the book.
Not everybody is the same; here we have examples of many who seek to denigrate and judge, rather than see that as a norm. Widard suggests there's a long way to go.
June 11, 2021
There has been so much in the news lately about Critical Race Theory being taught in schools, and it makes me think about how the traditional story of America's origins was arrived at in the first place. Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood directly addresses that question.
Woodard brings his previous ideas about America's regional cultures into his analysis, which I found very persuasive. He focuses on a handful of historians and writers who he identifies as having outsized influence on creating our national story: New Englander George Bancroft, Southern aristocrat William Gilmore Simms, escaped slave Frederick Douglass, white supremacist and eventual president Woodrow Wilson, and influential historian of the Frontier, Frederick Jackson Turner, I'm not sure how he decided that these men were the most influential; I do remember reading Turner in graduate school (for history), and of course know Douglass and Wilson, but Bancroft and Simms were less familiar to me. Anyway, Woodard shows the evolution of these thinkers' writings and teachings, and tries to show how they were propagated through universities and the country in general.
I really enjoyed the book and found the changing ideas of our nation's story fascinating, particularly in regards to the role of the South and the changing opinions of who was included in the country's aspirations for equality. After reading this, I believe more than ever that it is crucial Americans be taught not just a whitewashed version of history to make them patriotic, but a truer more complete version of the past that makes them good citizens and moral people. I don't know that Critical Race Theory is the answer, but there is no reason for this not to be introduced alongside a traditional approach. We should be using history to teach analytical skills, not just to make the majority race feel good about America.
4 stars.
Woodard brings his previous ideas about America's regional cultures into his analysis, which I found very persuasive. He focuses on a handful of historians and writers who he identifies as having outsized influence on creating our national story: New Englander George Bancroft, Southern aristocrat William Gilmore Simms, escaped slave Frederick Douglass, white supremacist and eventual president Woodrow Wilson, and influential historian of the Frontier, Frederick Jackson Turner, I'm not sure how he decided that these men were the most influential; I do remember reading Turner in graduate school (for history), and of course know Douglass and Wilson, but Bancroft and Simms were less familiar to me. Anyway, Woodard shows the evolution of these thinkers' writings and teachings, and tries to show how they were propagated through universities and the country in general.
I really enjoyed the book and found the changing ideas of our nation's story fascinating, particularly in regards to the role of the South and the changing opinions of who was included in the country's aspirations for equality. After reading this, I believe more than ever that it is crucial Americans be taught not just a whitewashed version of history to make them patriotic, but a truer more complete version of the past that makes them good citizens and moral people. I don't know that Critical Race Theory is the answer, but there is no reason for this not to be introduced alongside a traditional approach. We should be using history to teach analytical skills, not just to make the majority race feel good about America.
4 stars.
April 17, 2026
When I started this book, I expected a mass survey of American myth making à la Jill Lepore. This book is not that. To start, it was super fascinating. The book focuses on the 1800s up until the end of WWI. Focusing on a select few characters, the book shows how various narratives compete for light among massive cultural upheaval in the US.
The narratives seem to be shaped around periods of mass conflict: The Revolution, The Civil War, and WWI. While all carry their own sense of place and regionality, it is notable that all most narratives have a through line of white nationalism. The inclusion of Frederick Douglass’s story serves as a rebuttal to this, and I find it used effectively. What I really enjoyed about this book is that I learned more about how this particular period shaped the American story and how it continues to. How this period changed history in a pedagogical sense is super fascinating.
What was lost for me in the book was sometimes it felt like we spent too much time on biographical information and less on the actual narrative and their impacts. Every few chapters would be more explicitly dedicated to this, and there sometimes felt information that was just fluff. Additionally, the author crams everything after WWI in a 6 page epilogue, that while interesting, feels rushed.
Overall, a good book but sometimes felt a bit long winded.
The narratives seem to be shaped around periods of mass conflict: The Revolution, The Civil War, and WWI. While all carry their own sense of place and regionality, it is notable that all most narratives have a through line of white nationalism. The inclusion of Frederick Douglass’s story serves as a rebuttal to this, and I find it used effectively. What I really enjoyed about this book is that I learned more about how this particular period shaped the American story and how it continues to. How this period changed history in a pedagogical sense is super fascinating.
What was lost for me in the book was sometimes it felt like we spent too much time on biographical information and less on the actual narrative and their impacts. Every few chapters would be more explicitly dedicated to this, and there sometimes felt information that was just fluff. Additionally, the author crams everything after WWI in a 6 page epilogue, that while interesting, feels rushed.
Overall, a good book but sometimes felt a bit long winded.
February 12, 2026
I have just finished reading Union: The Struggle to Form the Story of United States Nationhood by Colin Woodard. It is the sequel to his American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America. Union was a remarkable book. My eyes were opened to see so much which has always lain hidden just beneath our national character and discourse. To be honest, I kind of wish they were still closed. There is more bliss in ignorance than in knowledge sometimes, until what you are ignorant of destroys everyone and everything you love. In Union, Woodard introduces us to the different visions of America championed by some of the 19th centuries most influential leaders and thinkers; George Bancroft, William Gilmore Simms, Frederck Douglas, Frederick Jackson Turner, and Woodrow Wilson. Bancroft believed in a righteous, manifest American destiny, Simms and Wilson in an ethnonationalist America of white supremacy, Douglas in a society of true equality for all, and Turner in a single nation of diverse sub-nations held together by shared American citizenship. I’ll be honest with you. Reading this book was emotionally upsetting. America has always believed many dark lies. They were there at the beginning. They are still with us.
January 30, 2021
I'm glad to have read this book, for it illustrated so clearly to me the few forward steps, and the many, many backwards steps, this country made in dealing with Black-White issues. For example, I knew little about Woodrow Wilson other than his attempts to form a League of Nations. Now I understand how his presidency was one to set many more impediments into civil rights efforts. I enjoyed learning more about the early life of Frederick Douglass. Woodard carries the reader through the times, the writings and the thoughts of many 19th and 20th century scholars and politicians, often baring their extreme prejudices.
March 20, 2024
should be assigned reading for anyone who has ever defended woodrow wilson in any capacity (myself included)! hands down one of the worst presidents to ever claim the title 👍👍👍
April 3, 2021
This is an interesting hopscotch through American history. He picks some key people and periods and fleshes out some important perspectives and themes. My only quibble is that it never really seemed to live up to the subtitle. I mean sure ... the topic comes up now and then, but it felt more like he wanted to hit on specific topics than weave a narrative about nationhood.
The first half focuses on Simms, Douglass, and Bancroft, three men with very different views of slavery. There's the pro-slavery southerner employing rhetoric and supremacist philosophy to perpetuate oppression, the freed slave turned viral speaker shining a light on its horrors, and the head-in-the-clouds historian praising liberty for all while hiding behind his rose-colored glasses, absolving everyone of any responsibility for the oppression happening right in front of him.
The book is most effective at exposing the long deep roots of white supremacy in our history. The parts that will stick with me the longest are the deep dive into post-civil war backsliding into segregation and oppression under Andrew Johnson, and Woodrow Wilson's blatant and shameless actions to oppress blacks and foster white supremacy. These were both BIG gaps in my history background. It was also interesting to learn that a lot of the racial violence during reconstruction was cynically and politically-motivated to frighten African-Americans out of voting and running for office so white elected officials could essentially reimpose slavery. And that the first real feature-length blockbuster movie was a homage to the KKK and white supremacy, which was supported by the President, the Supreme Court, and most of the elected Congress.
p. 116 "Comparing the black experience in the United States with that in the United Kingdom, Douglass would later refelct on an irony Bancroft would not: 'The republic meant slavery and the monarcyh freedom.'"
p. 129 "On July 5, 1982 Douglass delivered one of the greatest speeches in American history. ... he asked what the Fourth of July meant to a slave, a question that led him to consider what the signers of the Declaration of Independence had pledged to seventy-six years earlier: the promise of universal human equality. ... He warned, 'From the round top of your ship of state, dark and threatening clouds may be seen.' ... Slavery violated all those principlesand thus'brands your republicanism as a sham, your humanity as a base pretense, and your Christiany as a lie.'"
p. 198 "Slavery had been defeated and the Union restored, but by the onset of the first postwar winter it appeared that LIncoln's dream to found a liberal democratic republic might have died with him. ... over the second half of 1865, President Johnson let the defeated states set about re-enslaving the freed people in everything but name."
p. 212 "The reign of terror against the black population accelerated during the 1870 and 1872 election cycles, with the Klan assassinating elected officials and beating and terrorizing would-be Republican voters regardless of race. ... Congressional investigators found that in the nine months after the 1870 vote, thirty-eight South Carolina blacks were murdered by masked vigilantes, and hundreds more were beaten, shot, whipped, or disfigured by having their ears cut off. That winter thousands slept in the woods to avoid being dragged from their beds and beaten or killed by these terrorists."
p. 217 "Douglass questioned why Confederate soldiers were being venerated at all. 'We are sometimes asked in the name of patriotism to forget the merits of this fearful struggle, and to mremeber with equal admiration those who struck at the nation's life, and those who struck to save it - those who fought for slavery and those who fought for liberty and justice.'"
p. 226 "Voting irregularities threw the South Carolina, Louisiana, and Florida results into dispute, leaving the Democratic candidate - white supremacist Samual Tilden of New York - with 184 electoral votes, one short of an Electoral College victory. ... The election was thrown to Congress to resolve. ... In the end the parties made a deal: Hayes would become president, but white Southerners would rule at home. Federal troops withdrew from their posts prtecting the state houses in Columbia and Baton Rouge. Democratic 'Redeemer' governments took power, rolling back civil rights protections and public school spending while reintroducing many of the Black Codes. The Supreme Court issued an 1876 decision that effectively annulled the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments by ruling their protections applied only to the actions of state governments, not individuals."
p.256 Turner's famous essay. "History 'is more than past literature, more than past politics,more than past economics. ... It is the self-consciousness of humanity -- humanity's effort to understand itself through the study of its past. ... The story of the peopling of America has not yet been written. We do not understand ourselves.'"
p. 278 Douglass "There is no negro problem. The problem is whether the American people have honesty enough, loyalty enough, honor enough, patriotism enough to live up to their own constitution."
p. 310 "Wilson's personal position finally became clear to all. ...WIlson retorted sharply that if blacks didn't approve of his policies, they should vote for someone else in 1916. ... Segregation prevented 'friction' between the races and, thus, improved the administrative efficiency of government. Blacks were being too sensitive, and their opposition to Jim Cros would only make things worse. Trotter pushed back, arguing 'We are not here as wards .. we are here as full-fledged American citizens, vouchsafed equality of citizenshipby the federal Constitution."
p. 312 Gettysburg anniversary ceremony in 1913. "Tens of thousands of men who'd fought on that very battlefield fifty years before sat in the stands, some in blue uniform, some in gray, their faces creased, their chests covered in medals and service ribbons. Nine Confederate generals had recently led their former soldiers in a rousing rebel yell in that tent, an act that would have been unthinkable at Gettysburg just three or four decades earlier. General Bennett Young, grand commander of the United ConfederateVeterans, declared that what made the gathering remarkable was that his men had 'come as Confederates' with 'no explanations sought or expected.' Judge Alfred Beers, commander in chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, saluted theSouthern veterans on behalf of those of the North, happy that a 'war waged by men of the same race, men of the same bravery' had ended in this 'meeting of brothers.'"
p. 342 The Zimmerman telegram was sent from the US Embassy (!) because Germany's cables had been cut at the beginning of the war.
p. 342 "'The world must be made safe for democracy,' Wilson proclaimed in his war message to Congress on April 2. 'Its peace must be planted upon the foundations of political liberty.' He then proceeded to destroy those very foundations at home. At his insistence, Congress passed a raft of authoritarian legislation: The Sedition Act, the Espionage Act, andthe Trading with the Enemy Act. Together these acts criminalized criticizing or disagreeing with either the war effort or the government. ... Opponents of the war, including Socialist presidential candidate Eugene Debs, were given long prison terms simply for speaking against the conflict."
p. 348 "African Americans greatest ally in Paris turned out to be the Japanese delegation. Its members arrived proposing a fifteenth point that Wilson could never countenance: that the principle of racial equality would be incorporated into the Covenant of the League of Nations, including a guarantee that citizens of all member states could travel within the others without discrimination. ...When the Japanese forced a vote on their measure by the League of Nations Commission, it passed 11-5, with the United States and the British Empire among those opposed. Wilson, who chaired the meeting, arbitrarily announced that the measure had failed for lack of unanimity. The commissioners were outraged, as two previous decisions ... had both passed with opposition."
p. 357 "The national consensus that America was effectively an Anglo-Saxon-led ethnostate outlasted Wilson's presidency by more than three decades. From 'Dick and Jane' to 'Leave it To Beaver', from Barbie dolls to 'flesh'-colored crayons, children were tuaght that they lived in a Euro-Americansociety. In the South a racial apartheid system was extended, to include everything from public parks to graveyards. In the North administrative discrimination frequently confined nonwhite people to certain neighborhoods based on their race by not granting them mortgages or insurance policies in any other areas. ... The federal government actively resisted making diversity an official part of American life. ... Domestic white supramcy was also exposing the gap between professed American ideals and the reality on the ground."
The first half focuses on Simms, Douglass, and Bancroft, three men with very different views of slavery. There's the pro-slavery southerner employing rhetoric and supremacist philosophy to perpetuate oppression, the freed slave turned viral speaker shining a light on its horrors, and the head-in-the-clouds historian praising liberty for all while hiding behind his rose-colored glasses, absolving everyone of any responsibility for the oppression happening right in front of him.
The book is most effective at exposing the long deep roots of white supremacy in our history. The parts that will stick with me the longest are the deep dive into post-civil war backsliding into segregation and oppression under Andrew Johnson, and Woodrow Wilson's blatant and shameless actions to oppress blacks and foster white supremacy. These were both BIG gaps in my history background. It was also interesting to learn that a lot of the racial violence during reconstruction was cynically and politically-motivated to frighten African-Americans out of voting and running for office so white elected officials could essentially reimpose slavery. And that the first real feature-length blockbuster movie was a homage to the KKK and white supremacy, which was supported by the President, the Supreme Court, and most of the elected Congress.
p. 116 "Comparing the black experience in the United States with that in the United Kingdom, Douglass would later refelct on an irony Bancroft would not: 'The republic meant slavery and the monarcyh freedom.'"
p. 129 "On July 5, 1982 Douglass delivered one of the greatest speeches in American history. ... he asked what the Fourth of July meant to a slave, a question that led him to consider what the signers of the Declaration of Independence had pledged to seventy-six years earlier: the promise of universal human equality. ... He warned, 'From the round top of your ship of state, dark and threatening clouds may be seen.' ... Slavery violated all those principlesand thus'brands your republicanism as a sham, your humanity as a base pretense, and your Christiany as a lie.'"
p. 198 "Slavery had been defeated and the Union restored, but by the onset of the first postwar winter it appeared that LIncoln's dream to found a liberal democratic republic might have died with him. ... over the second half of 1865, President Johnson let the defeated states set about re-enslaving the freed people in everything but name."
p. 212 "The reign of terror against the black population accelerated during the 1870 and 1872 election cycles, with the Klan assassinating elected officials and beating and terrorizing would-be Republican voters regardless of race. ... Congressional investigators found that in the nine months after the 1870 vote, thirty-eight South Carolina blacks were murdered by masked vigilantes, and hundreds more were beaten, shot, whipped, or disfigured by having their ears cut off. That winter thousands slept in the woods to avoid being dragged from their beds and beaten or killed by these terrorists."
p. 217 "Douglass questioned why Confederate soldiers were being venerated at all. 'We are sometimes asked in the name of patriotism to forget the merits of this fearful struggle, and to mremeber with equal admiration those who struck at the nation's life, and those who struck to save it - those who fought for slavery and those who fought for liberty and justice.'"
p. 226 "Voting irregularities threw the South Carolina, Louisiana, and Florida results into dispute, leaving the Democratic candidate - white supremacist Samual Tilden of New York - with 184 electoral votes, one short of an Electoral College victory. ... The election was thrown to Congress to resolve. ... In the end the parties made a deal: Hayes would become president, but white Southerners would rule at home. Federal troops withdrew from their posts prtecting the state houses in Columbia and Baton Rouge. Democratic 'Redeemer' governments took power, rolling back civil rights protections and public school spending while reintroducing many of the Black Codes. The Supreme Court issued an 1876 decision that effectively annulled the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments by ruling their protections applied only to the actions of state governments, not individuals."
p.256 Turner's famous essay. "History 'is more than past literature, more than past politics,more than past economics. ... It is the self-consciousness of humanity -- humanity's effort to understand itself through the study of its past. ... The story of the peopling of America has not yet been written. We do not understand ourselves.'"
p. 278 Douglass "There is no negro problem. The problem is whether the American people have honesty enough, loyalty enough, honor enough, patriotism enough to live up to their own constitution."
p. 310 "Wilson's personal position finally became clear to all. ...WIlson retorted sharply that if blacks didn't approve of his policies, they should vote for someone else in 1916. ... Segregation prevented 'friction' between the races and, thus, improved the administrative efficiency of government. Blacks were being too sensitive, and their opposition to Jim Cros would only make things worse. Trotter pushed back, arguing 'We are not here as wards .. we are here as full-fledged American citizens, vouchsafed equality of citizenshipby the federal Constitution."
p. 312 Gettysburg anniversary ceremony in 1913. "Tens of thousands of men who'd fought on that very battlefield fifty years before sat in the stands, some in blue uniform, some in gray, their faces creased, their chests covered in medals and service ribbons. Nine Confederate generals had recently led their former soldiers in a rousing rebel yell in that tent, an act that would have been unthinkable at Gettysburg just three or four decades earlier. General Bennett Young, grand commander of the United ConfederateVeterans, declared that what made the gathering remarkable was that his men had 'come as Confederates' with 'no explanations sought or expected.' Judge Alfred Beers, commander in chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, saluted theSouthern veterans on behalf of those of the North, happy that a 'war waged by men of the same race, men of the same bravery' had ended in this 'meeting of brothers.'"
p. 342 The Zimmerman telegram was sent from the US Embassy (!) because Germany's cables had been cut at the beginning of the war.
p. 342 "'The world must be made safe for democracy,' Wilson proclaimed in his war message to Congress on April 2. 'Its peace must be planted upon the foundations of political liberty.' He then proceeded to destroy those very foundations at home. At his insistence, Congress passed a raft of authoritarian legislation: The Sedition Act, the Espionage Act, andthe Trading with the Enemy Act. Together these acts criminalized criticizing or disagreeing with either the war effort or the government. ... Opponents of the war, including Socialist presidential candidate Eugene Debs, were given long prison terms simply for speaking against the conflict."
p. 348 "African Americans greatest ally in Paris turned out to be the Japanese delegation. Its members arrived proposing a fifteenth point that Wilson could never countenance: that the principle of racial equality would be incorporated into the Covenant of the League of Nations, including a guarantee that citizens of all member states could travel within the others without discrimination. ...When the Japanese forced a vote on their measure by the League of Nations Commission, it passed 11-5, with the United States and the British Empire among those opposed. Wilson, who chaired the meeting, arbitrarily announced that the measure had failed for lack of unanimity. The commissioners were outraged, as two previous decisions ... had both passed with opposition."
p. 357 "The national consensus that America was effectively an Anglo-Saxon-led ethnostate outlasted Wilson's presidency by more than three decades. From 'Dick and Jane' to 'Leave it To Beaver', from Barbie dolls to 'flesh'-colored crayons, children were tuaght that they lived in a Euro-Americansociety. In the South a racial apartheid system was extended, to include everything from public parks to graveyards. In the North administrative discrimination frequently confined nonwhite people to certain neighborhoods based on their race by not granting them mortgages or insurance policies in any other areas. ... The federal government actively resisted making diversity an official part of American life. ... Domestic white supramcy was also exposing the gap between professed American ideals and the reality on the ground."
May 13, 2026
I finished reading Union the other day and have to say it's the most disappointing historical work I've read in some time. For the most part, the book was just kind of boring, more of a biography of several different (and oddly random) historians and writers than a concise narrative on a particular subject. Also, it's hard to see why this group were chosen as the subjects of the book, other than they happen to be people of interest to the author, as they mostly seem to be unrelated to one another.
If most of the book was rather weak, however, the true problems come in as soon as we reach the sections dealing with Woodrow Wilson. Now, the best historical works, when dealing with a complex, flawed, but monumentally important historical figure like Wilson, offer a nuanced portrait of their subject, provide information on both the negative and positive aspects of their life, and then let readers draw their own conclusions about the individual. And while many works fall short of that high bar, you at least hope the author attempts to get as close to that as possible. However, that's clearly not what happened here. Instead, with Union, Colin Woodward has clearly decided to create his own narrative, in which Wilson is a convenient villain. To do so, he offers an incredibly biased, unbalanced, and in many places, inaccurate account of the 28th president.
Clearly, the author has a strong distaste for Wilson (which is fine), and it bleeds through every part of the story (which isn't). And Mr. Woodard was not subtle, as he attacks Wilson as a child by focusing on how he spent time daydreaming about leading fantastical military units, then for being an unserious student, then as a scholar, where he belittles his published works, and while that highlights the direction the book is taking, it's not even the most problematic part of the narrative.
Indeed, it's only when Wilson reaches the presidency that the problems really start to pile up. To begin with, the author clearly ignores many subjects (such as Wilson's progressive reforms or his management of the war effort) for which he's usually given high marks, instead framing Wilson's entire administration through the lens of his well-documented racism. Even when he does discuss a potential positive, such as the Fourteen Points (for which Wilson was awarded the Nobel Prize), he focuses entirely on the racial shortcomings of the plan. And while the book does do a good job of highlighting the full breadth of the era's white supremacy, this focus leaves us with an incomplete picture of the Wilson administration at best, and an incredibly misleading one at worst.
The issue here is that Mr. Woodward is trying to sell a narrative that the individuals he focuses on were the authors of the five most influential efforts to provide a national narrative for the United States. And while I think the book falls short of making that case throughout (several of these individuals are fairly obscure, and they're certainly not the only influential narratives of nationhood ever created), the biggest problem is that, in Wilson's case, the narrative being discussed isn't even his; instead, Mr. Woodward’s focusing on the infamous KKK film "Birth of a Nation" and claims that it created a national consensus that the U.S. was an Anglo-Saxon Ethnostate. He then blames Wilson for the film by pointing out that the filmmakers quoted Wilson's earlier writings during the film, therefore making the whole thing Wilson’s fault. Obviously, this is inaccurate. Wilson wasn’t involved in the production of the film, nor (from anything I’ve read) was he aware of the film’s content ahead of viewing the movie at the White House.
Again, this is part of the author’s effort to create a narrative in which Wilson is viewed as a purely villainous character who’s responsible for all the country’s ills. What strange is that I read this so soon after conservative Supreme Court Justice (and conservative activist) Clarence Thomas attempted something similar in a bizarre speech last month in which he cast Wilson as the founder of Progressivism and then went on to blame Wilson and the Progressive Movement for nearly everything that’s ever gone wrong in the world, particularly the rise of both communism and fascism in Europe in the 20th century, and to cast progressivism as a threat to America’s founding principles.
Obviously, Thomas’ speech was gonzo, but it highlights something strange that’s been happening regarding Woodrow Wilson in recent years. Namely, that both sides of our political debate view it convenient to cast him as a villain. And though they do so for different reasons (modern progressives hate Wilson for his racism, while modern conservatives hate him for being the first progressive Democratic President, leaving Wilson as a man without a political country in modern America) the results are often the same misleading statements on the man’s legacy. And while I expect nothing better from the likes of Clarence Thomas, it’s disappointing to see such antics in a book such as “Union” that is presented as a serious piece of scholarly work.
But make no mistake, that’s what you’re getting here. Mr. Woodward, just like Mr. Thomas, tries to blame Wilson for nearly everything negative thing that happened in the later 20th century. He blames him for the creation and growth of the Ku Klux Klan (again by citing the film “Birth of a Nation” as Wilson’s work), he blames him for the rise of fascism by casting him as being solely to blame for the failure of the Senate to approve the League of Nations (he in fact states that Wilson’s refusal to compromise “set the stage for rise of Adolph Hitler”) while largely giving the isolationist’s a pass on the issue, he blames him for anti-immigration quota bills that passed in the 1920s despite the fact that these bills were signed by republicans (long the nation’s anti-immigration party), and he blames him for the creation of confederate monuments, despite the fact that the Daughters of the Confederacy and the Lost Cause Ideology they serve easily pre-date Wilson’s political career. Even more bizarrely, he then blames the narrative Wison supposedly created for disparate pop-culture phenomena such as Barbie dolls and flesh-colored crayons.
While it might be nice to believe that there’s a single boogeyman responsible for everything we don’t like throughout American history, such arguments should clearly be looked at as nonsense. That said, we do have to acknowledge that the singular role Wilson played in his era, as both a southern racist and a progressive, with a political coalition that included both groups, leaves him vulnerable to such attacks from various modern political commentators. Those interested in studying his life should be aware of this dynamic and should choose their sources of information with great care.
A few more strange and troubling tidbits from Union:
“Dixon recalled that when the credits rolled, Wilson turned to him and said: ‘It is like writing history with lightning. My only regret is that it is all so terribly true.” This again relates to the film Birth of a Nation, and Mr. Woodward includes the statement to paint a picture of how aligned Mr. Wilson was with the film. The problem is that this very famous quote is unverified. Its source was the people who created the film as they attempted to promote it, and most historians don’t believe Wilson made this statement. However, the author includes it in his book as fact, without any further commentary about the statement’s origins.
“Over Wilson’s objections women had won the right to vote in 1920.” Ugh, this is just lazy, and considering the author’s attacks on Wilson as a lazy researcher, it's very disappointing that such a statement shows up in the book. It is, in fact, very well known that, while Wilson initially opposed women’s suffrage, he came out in support of the 19th amendment and gave a speech in support of women’s suffrage before Congress in 1918, and that he continued to support the amendment’s passage until it finally cleared Congress in 1920.
My favorite, however, is in the suggested reading section at the end of the book. The quote reads: “Wilson has been shielded from proper scrutiny by a small army of hagiographic biographers, so it’s difficult to recommend a general biography.” What a crafty way to acknowledge that no scholarly work ever produced on Wilson would fit this author’s narrative.
If most of the book was rather weak, however, the true problems come in as soon as we reach the sections dealing with Woodrow Wilson. Now, the best historical works, when dealing with a complex, flawed, but monumentally important historical figure like Wilson, offer a nuanced portrait of their subject, provide information on both the negative and positive aspects of their life, and then let readers draw their own conclusions about the individual. And while many works fall short of that high bar, you at least hope the author attempts to get as close to that as possible. However, that's clearly not what happened here. Instead, with Union, Colin Woodward has clearly decided to create his own narrative, in which Wilson is a convenient villain. To do so, he offers an incredibly biased, unbalanced, and in many places, inaccurate account of the 28th president.
Clearly, the author has a strong distaste for Wilson (which is fine), and it bleeds through every part of the story (which isn't). And Mr. Woodard was not subtle, as he attacks Wilson as a child by focusing on how he spent time daydreaming about leading fantastical military units, then for being an unserious student, then as a scholar, where he belittles his published works, and while that highlights the direction the book is taking, it's not even the most problematic part of the narrative.
Indeed, it's only when Wilson reaches the presidency that the problems really start to pile up. To begin with, the author clearly ignores many subjects (such as Wilson's progressive reforms or his management of the war effort) for which he's usually given high marks, instead framing Wilson's entire administration through the lens of his well-documented racism. Even when he does discuss a potential positive, such as the Fourteen Points (for which Wilson was awarded the Nobel Prize), he focuses entirely on the racial shortcomings of the plan. And while the book does do a good job of highlighting the full breadth of the era's white supremacy, this focus leaves us with an incomplete picture of the Wilson administration at best, and an incredibly misleading one at worst.
The issue here is that Mr. Woodward is trying to sell a narrative that the individuals he focuses on were the authors of the five most influential efforts to provide a national narrative for the United States. And while I think the book falls short of making that case throughout (several of these individuals are fairly obscure, and they're certainly not the only influential narratives of nationhood ever created), the biggest problem is that, in Wilson's case, the narrative being discussed isn't even his; instead, Mr. Woodward’s focusing on the infamous KKK film "Birth of a Nation" and claims that it created a national consensus that the U.S. was an Anglo-Saxon Ethnostate. He then blames Wilson for the film by pointing out that the filmmakers quoted Wilson's earlier writings during the film, therefore making the whole thing Wilson’s fault. Obviously, this is inaccurate. Wilson wasn’t involved in the production of the film, nor (from anything I’ve read) was he aware of the film’s content ahead of viewing the movie at the White House.
Again, this is part of the author’s effort to create a narrative in which Wilson is viewed as a purely villainous character who’s responsible for all the country’s ills. What strange is that I read this so soon after conservative Supreme Court Justice (and conservative activist) Clarence Thomas attempted something similar in a bizarre speech last month in which he cast Wilson as the founder of Progressivism and then went on to blame Wilson and the Progressive Movement for nearly everything that’s ever gone wrong in the world, particularly the rise of both communism and fascism in Europe in the 20th century, and to cast progressivism as a threat to America’s founding principles.
Obviously, Thomas’ speech was gonzo, but it highlights something strange that’s been happening regarding Woodrow Wilson in recent years. Namely, that both sides of our political debate view it convenient to cast him as a villain. And though they do so for different reasons (modern progressives hate Wilson for his racism, while modern conservatives hate him for being the first progressive Democratic President, leaving Wilson as a man without a political country in modern America) the results are often the same misleading statements on the man’s legacy. And while I expect nothing better from the likes of Clarence Thomas, it’s disappointing to see such antics in a book such as “Union” that is presented as a serious piece of scholarly work.
But make no mistake, that’s what you’re getting here. Mr. Woodward, just like Mr. Thomas, tries to blame Wilson for nearly everything negative thing that happened in the later 20th century. He blames him for the creation and growth of the Ku Klux Klan (again by citing the film “Birth of a Nation” as Wilson’s work), he blames him for the rise of fascism by casting him as being solely to blame for the failure of the Senate to approve the League of Nations (he in fact states that Wilson’s refusal to compromise “set the stage for rise of Adolph Hitler”) while largely giving the isolationist’s a pass on the issue, he blames him for anti-immigration quota bills that passed in the 1920s despite the fact that these bills were signed by republicans (long the nation’s anti-immigration party), and he blames him for the creation of confederate monuments, despite the fact that the Daughters of the Confederacy and the Lost Cause Ideology they serve easily pre-date Wilson’s political career. Even more bizarrely, he then blames the narrative Wison supposedly created for disparate pop-culture phenomena such as Barbie dolls and flesh-colored crayons.
While it might be nice to believe that there’s a single boogeyman responsible for everything we don’t like throughout American history, such arguments should clearly be looked at as nonsense. That said, we do have to acknowledge that the singular role Wilson played in his era, as both a southern racist and a progressive, with a political coalition that included both groups, leaves him vulnerable to such attacks from various modern political commentators. Those interested in studying his life should be aware of this dynamic and should choose their sources of information with great care.
A few more strange and troubling tidbits from Union:
“Dixon recalled that when the credits rolled, Wilson turned to him and said: ‘It is like writing history with lightning. My only regret is that it is all so terribly true.” This again relates to the film Birth of a Nation, and Mr. Woodward includes the statement to paint a picture of how aligned Mr. Wilson was with the film. The problem is that this very famous quote is unverified. Its source was the people who created the film as they attempted to promote it, and most historians don’t believe Wilson made this statement. However, the author includes it in his book as fact, without any further commentary about the statement’s origins.
“Over Wilson’s objections women had won the right to vote in 1920.” Ugh, this is just lazy, and considering the author’s attacks on Wilson as a lazy researcher, it's very disappointing that such a statement shows up in the book. It is, in fact, very well known that, while Wilson initially opposed women’s suffrage, he came out in support of the 19th amendment and gave a speech in support of women’s suffrage before Congress in 1918, and that he continued to support the amendment’s passage until it finally cleared Congress in 1920.
My favorite, however, is in the suggested reading section at the end of the book. The quote reads: “Wilson has been shielded from proper scrutiny by a small army of hagiographic biographers, so it’s difficult to recommend a general biography.” What a crafty way to acknowledge that no scholarly work ever produced on Wilson would fit this author’s narrative.
August 31, 2020
This book gets off to a slow start and is incredibly "even handed" for the first half. The authors voice is almost entirely missing except for points where he pushes his "American Nations" thesis about migration patterns. Until the Civil War begins, the style is very much just surfacing the racist beliefs of the characters without much comment.
The second half of the book drastically changes that. Here we get a biography of Wilson that focuses exclusively on his racism, along with the story of the authors progenitor, Frederick Jackson Turner, who never quite writes the book with the thesis of American Nations.
Overall the style here is actually very good. It took some time to adjust to but it served to enlighten rather than distract in the end. I definitely learned a bunch
The second half of the book drastically changes that. Here we get a biography of Wilson that focuses exclusively on his racism, along with the story of the authors progenitor, Frederick Jackson Turner, who never quite writes the book with the thesis of American Nations.
Overall the style here is actually very good. It took some time to adjust to but it served to enlighten rather than distract in the end. I definitely learned a bunch
Read
December 31, 2023Really fascinating book highlighting 4 major writers and figures who shaped the American narrative during the lead up and aftermath of the Civil War. Interesting approach to the American narrative and what it means, where it comes from, and where it points us toward. Very good, saddening, and poignant.
July 29, 2025
Woodard’s book appeared shortly before another book on the same subject, Heather Cox Richardson’s “How the South Won the Civil War.” Both make the basic point that while the South lost the Civil War militarily, its values and beliefs continued on. The difference between the two books is that Woodward sees this process primarily though the lives and writings of a small group of individuals while Richardson’s is more general.
Woodward’s book follows an earlier one of his, "American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America" in which he demonstrated how various regional interests were unique and often at odds with other regions. One of the authors that he follows in “Union” is George Bancroft who became a well-known historian who argued that the strength of the United States lie in its unity. That may well be, but he downplayed regional interests, including slavery in the South, that would always threaten to disrupt that unity.
One of the chief proponents of that disruption was William Gilmore Simms who wrote a number of novels that defended the southern way of life that embraced slavery. In his view, a popular one in the south, blacks were inferior to whites, generally realized that, and expressed fears that they were not ready for freedom. Simms vehemently disagreed with the abolitionists and in particular “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” the anti-slavery novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe.
Another voice that began to be heard in the mid-19th century was that of William Douglass, an ex-slave who tirelessly worked for the abolition of slavery. Woodard gives a detailed account of his escape and his rise as an eloquent anti-slavery advocate.
When northern attempts at the reconstruction of the South came to an abrupt end in l876, the old conditions in the south that subjugated blacks returned with a vengeance. The Ku Klux Klan was recreated and launched its campaign of terrorist lynchings and killing of any blacks who opposed it. The South would return to a disguised form of a slave economy through the practice of sharecropping.
Much of he latter part of the book details how the federal government engaged in racist practice of inequality and segregation, relegating blacks to inferior jobs. Woodard is especially critical of President Woodrow Wilson whose administration condoned and contributed to these practices.
Wilson was raised in the South and his lofty aims for world peace following World War I were at odds with his domestic views. One of his friends was Thomas Dixon on whose book D. W. Griffith’s racist movie, “Birth of a Nation” was based. It was hugely popular and helped advance the myth of the civilized South where noble white people had to organize to put down barbaric black advances . Wilson sponsored a showing in the White House, givingit his tacit approval.
All of these details support Woodard’s thesis that a true “union” of common interests is difficult to come by. He thinks a consensus that America was an Anglo-Saxon led nation outlasted Wilson for many decades. World War II helped to begin breaking down that barrier, as did the Civil Rights movement of the l960’s.
This book, however, was written during Trump’s first presidency, and the call to “make America great again” raises the question of which America? The battle for America’s soul hasn’t ended, he concludes. And perhaps never will, given its disparity of interests.
Woodward’s book follows an earlier one of his, "American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America" in which he demonstrated how various regional interests were unique and often at odds with other regions. One of the authors that he follows in “Union” is George Bancroft who became a well-known historian who argued that the strength of the United States lie in its unity. That may well be, but he downplayed regional interests, including slavery in the South, that would always threaten to disrupt that unity.
One of the chief proponents of that disruption was William Gilmore Simms who wrote a number of novels that defended the southern way of life that embraced slavery. In his view, a popular one in the south, blacks were inferior to whites, generally realized that, and expressed fears that they were not ready for freedom. Simms vehemently disagreed with the abolitionists and in particular “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” the anti-slavery novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe.
Another voice that began to be heard in the mid-19th century was that of William Douglass, an ex-slave who tirelessly worked for the abolition of slavery. Woodard gives a detailed account of his escape and his rise as an eloquent anti-slavery advocate.
When northern attempts at the reconstruction of the South came to an abrupt end in l876, the old conditions in the south that subjugated blacks returned with a vengeance. The Ku Klux Klan was recreated and launched its campaign of terrorist lynchings and killing of any blacks who opposed it. The South would return to a disguised form of a slave economy through the practice of sharecropping.
Much of he latter part of the book details how the federal government engaged in racist practice of inequality and segregation, relegating blacks to inferior jobs. Woodard is especially critical of President Woodrow Wilson whose administration condoned and contributed to these practices.
Wilson was raised in the South and his lofty aims for world peace following World War I were at odds with his domestic views. One of his friends was Thomas Dixon on whose book D. W. Griffith’s racist movie, “Birth of a Nation” was based. It was hugely popular and helped advance the myth of the civilized South where noble white people had to organize to put down barbaric black advances . Wilson sponsored a showing in the White House, givingit his tacit approval.
All of these details support Woodard’s thesis that a true “union” of common interests is difficult to come by. He thinks a consensus that America was an Anglo-Saxon led nation outlasted Wilson for many decades. World War II helped to begin breaking down that barrier, as did the Civil Rights movement of the l960’s.
This book, however, was written during Trump’s first presidency, and the call to “make America great again” raises the question of which America? The battle for America’s soul hasn’t ended, he concludes. And perhaps never will, given its disparity of interests.
September 23, 2020
(3.5 stars) This work is a history of those trying to write the history of the United States. It is a comparative biography of several men, from George Bancroft, who would be the first to try to write the definitive history of the United States, to Woodrow Wilson, who, before he became president, also took his turn at defining what it was to be American and what the American story should be. Woodard highlights how these men of letters offered their insights into the American identity. Much of it focuses on American individualism, but also on the long-standing racial divide between those of English/Northern European descent and all others.
Woodard take a modern liberal approach to this work, and pulls no punches in excoriating Wilson's views on America, race, and the true American identity. If you didn't know that Woodard was talking about the American Wilson, the tenor of Wilson's writings might have you think you were reading some card-carrying white supremacist. For the older authors, he is a little more understanding, even if he doesn't entirely agree with them. With the focus on American racial identity, it was important to include Frederick Douglass for contrast. Given his prominence on the American scene in the mid to late 1800s, Douglass' voice was important to add.
Overall, this was an interesting and enlightening take on American history. It is not the complete historiography of the US and can't account for all facets of how America defines its history or national identity. Still, for what is presented, Woodard does a solid job with the material. Worth the time to read.
Woodard take a modern liberal approach to this work, and pulls no punches in excoriating Wilson's views on America, race, and the true American identity. If you didn't know that Woodard was talking about the American Wilson, the tenor of Wilson's writings might have you think you were reading some card-carrying white supremacist. For the older authors, he is a little more understanding, even if he doesn't entirely agree with them. With the focus on American racial identity, it was important to include Frederick Douglass for contrast. Given his prominence on the American scene in the mid to late 1800s, Douglass' voice was important to add.
Overall, this was an interesting and enlightening take on American history. It is not the complete historiography of the US and can't account for all facets of how America defines its history or national identity. Still, for what is presented, Woodard does a solid job with the material. Worth the time to read.
Read
December 18, 2023This book is copyrighted 2020, and I purchased it from my discount book catalog. I know I'm not supposed to be buying books, but I bought this based on my love for his book American Nations and this one did not disappoint. The book takes place from 1813 through 1932. In the author's words, "This is the story of the struggle to create the national story and with it an American nationhood." He goes on to say that "I end the story at the point when a broad consensus on how to answer these questions is finally achieved." Unfortunately, the answer is is that "The national consensus that America was effectively an Anglo-Saxon led ethnostate." In the epilogue, he recounts the progress made for a multi-cultural democracy starting with WWII and ending with the election of Trump. "America's ethnostate lived on hiding in the blind spots of the intelligentsia, fed table scraps by politicians, and nurtured in the churches of illiberalism. Then, in November 2016, it was swept back into the White House..." He tells this story in a compelling fashion primarily through the lives of George Bancroft and William Gilmore Simms (with whom I wasn't familiar), Frederick Douglass, Frederick Jackson Turner and Woodrow Wilson among others. I highly recommend this book if the topic interests you at all. I will be passing this book along to Clay and after Clay, Mark Douyard is widely read in American history.
August 29, 2026
Union covers the evolving nature of America’s identity from the late 18th century to the first quarter of the 20th century, with much of the focus on race. There was a lot to learn from this book, but I wasn’t a fan of how the information was selected and organized.
The narrative mainly follows the lives of historians and a few household names such as Fredrick Douglass and Woodrow Wilson. I had never heard of these historians and one of them seemed to be the predecessor of the cultural analysis of America’s regions that Colin Woodard wrote about is his book American Nations.
This book meanders through lots of different topics and tangents such as how 18th century German thought influenced George Bancroft, one of the historians covered in this book. Union feels a lot like a Tom Holland work in which the author jumps from topic to loosely related topic at a high level. If you are unfamiliar with the subject, it’s hard to grasp and keep track of the information presented. If you are well versed with history being covered, the book might not go deep enough.
The sections that focused on Fredrick Doulgass and Woodrow Wilson were more interested since I was already familiar with their lives and had a base understanding on the impact they had on history. I will round my review up to three stars since I still learned a lot from this book. I hope Colin Woodard's other books are more focused, better organized, and not as esoteric as Union.
The narrative mainly follows the lives of historians and a few household names such as Fredrick Douglass and Woodrow Wilson. I had never heard of these historians and one of them seemed to be the predecessor of the cultural analysis of America’s regions that Colin Woodard wrote about is his book American Nations.
This book meanders through lots of different topics and tangents such as how 18th century German thought influenced George Bancroft, one of the historians covered in this book. Union feels a lot like a Tom Holland work in which the author jumps from topic to loosely related topic at a high level. If you are unfamiliar with the subject, it’s hard to grasp and keep track of the information presented. If you are well versed with history being covered, the book might not go deep enough.
The sections that focused on Fredrick Doulgass and Woodrow Wilson were more interested since I was already familiar with their lives and had a base understanding on the impact they had on history. I will round my review up to three stars since I still learned a lot from this book. I hope Colin Woodard's other books are more focused, better organized, and not as esoteric as Union.
January 8, 2022
All students of history will enjoy this book. Woodard follows the lives and works of five significant figures who were instrumental is forming the views of US history that are prevalent in our country today: George Bancroft, William Simms, Frederick Douglas, Frederick Jackson Turner and Woodrow Wilson. I knew little of Bancroft and Simms but learned a great deal from this reading. Both were influential in forming early ideas of nationhood in early America; Bancroft a proponent of the power of Puritan values and Simms an unapologetic white supremacist who fostered the Lost Cause of the Confederacy. Douglas is a well known orator and civil rights activist, yet, it is fascinating to read more of his story, especially his contacts with Lincoln. Frederick Jackson Turner is famous for his theory of the importance of the American frontier in forming nationhood. My view of Wilson, however, was altered the most by Woodard's description. His view of America was severely clouded by racist thinking, even in the formation of the League of Nations. The views of these prominent personalities echo into the 21st century.
September 11, 2020
Brilliant book, very well-written, but not a happy story. The author follows a few key figures whose interwoven stories show how we ended up with such a deeply racist story of our nationhood. So much damage done by these distortions, and very much implicated in the awful situation we find ourselves in today. If you care about this country, you might want to read this book. Or you can skip the book and just get involved in the movement for racial justice, and for a more honest account of our history. But it's a very, very good book, if you can bear to read it.
It reads like a novel, in a way, but it's so powerful and disturbing, I had to put it down sometimes, and wait until I recovered enough to go on. The friend who lent it to me warned me it would be like that, but I started off confidently, thinking, Hey, this is not so bad -- but then it was, and sure enough, I had to take a break. But I think that's the sign of a powerful book: You know you have to finish, but you just have to take a break.
It reads like a novel, in a way, but it's so powerful and disturbing, I had to put it down sometimes, and wait until I recovered enough to go on. The friend who lent it to me warned me it would be like that, but I started off confidently, thinking, Hey, this is not so bad -- but then it was, and sure enough, I had to take a break. But I think that's the sign of a powerful book: You know you have to finish, but you just have to take a break.
March 26, 2021
A hybrid biography of key writers of American history presented as a survey of competing ideas of what unites the country. George Bankroft, William Gilmore Simms, and Frederick Douglass start the story off with diverging stories about what America was and what it should be. Then, enter Frederick Jackson Turner and Woodrow Wilson.
Woodard seems to hate Wilson in particular, and presents him not just as an unreconstructed Confederate writing "Lost Cause" history -- quotes from Wilson's work made it into filmmaker DW Griffith's own racist history of the Civil War and Reconstruction, "Birth of a Nation" -- but as the first southern president since before the war, and thus, a kind of redeemer for white supremacy in the White House. If that's not bad enough, Woodard claims that Wilson was also a slacker who kind of stumbled into both history and politics, and a snob, who imagined himself as a boy to be an English lord and took that childish Anglophilia with him into adulthood.
Overall, an interesting introduction to figures and ideas that have dominated American history writing.
Woodard seems to hate Wilson in particular, and presents him not just as an unreconstructed Confederate writing "Lost Cause" history -- quotes from Wilson's work made it into filmmaker DW Griffith's own racist history of the Civil War and Reconstruction, "Birth of a Nation" -- but as the first southern president since before the war, and thus, a kind of redeemer for white supremacy in the White House. If that's not bad enough, Woodard claims that Wilson was also a slacker who kind of stumbled into both history and politics, and a snob, who imagined himself as a boy to be an English lord and took that childish Anglophilia with him into adulthood.
Overall, an interesting introduction to figures and ideas that have dominated American history writing.
July 11, 2021
For most of this book, I was certain I was going to give it a 5-star review. There's just so much to admire - it does justice to a sprawling narrative, tying together personal and professional stories of a wide range of characters and how they shaped and informed US history over nearly two centuries. The book seldom feels like a history lesson but is still able to convey an incredible amount. I found the author's own voice to be missing in the first third (until the arrival of Lincoln), but it worked to set the stage. The Civil War onwards, though, this book was unputdownable. There were times that I thought Woodard went too deep into personal stories (like that of Frederick Jackson Turner), but this is a minor quibble for an otherwise excellent narrative. My main criticism of the book is how quickly it wraps up towards the end - the conclusion seems both rushed and abrupt, and I would have loved to see another 100-or-so pages and some new characters who shaped the 20th Century. For instance, I would have loved to have more FDR, Truman, JFK, and MLK Jr.
January 11, 2022
Wishing that Goodreads had half-star ratings once again because I wouldn't call this a totally four-star book. Perhaps if I had read Woodard's other work, this would have felt more grounded to me, but the voices chosen to highlight at the beginning of the text felt both floating and decontextualized. It takes quite a bit to get off the ground, which feels like a slog, that leads into a much tighter, interesting, and connected back half or third with a rather abrupt end. That being said, I am fascinated with the act of history creation, who writes our history, and what we choose to keep reading, and that is absolutely part of this book's project - along with our sectional differences, although I think it's success at describing that was lesser than. All that aside, I would absolutely be interested in reading Woodard's more famous book, "American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America" to see that idea fleshed out more clearly. Once it got going, this was incredibly engaging to listen to.
July 19, 2020
Really interesting overview of how Americans conceive of America, from early 19th to early 20th centuries. While the overall survey is a bit disjointed (some of the through-lines become a bit murky), overall it tells a vivid and engaging picture of American self-identification. It really hammers home just how thoroughly the Confederacy took over the country after the end of the Civil War, and what an enormous piece of trash Woodrow Wilson was. I came into this book knowing a little about Wilson (including his overt white supremacy) but I was honestly shocked at the disgusting depths of his racism, and just how well he embodied the triumph of the South over American institutions. Seriously, more people need to be talking about how much Wilson sucks.
All in all, a really interesting history about an overlooked time in America. Telling it through the lens of self-identity and community construction makes it very relevant to 2020.
All in all, a really interesting history about an overlooked time in America. Telling it through the lens of self-identity and community construction makes it very relevant to 2020.
October 6, 2020
I'm always profoundly educated and inspired by Woodard's books, and this one ranks up there with American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America in terms of informing me and engaging and helping to mold my thoughts on U.S. history. Many of the individual historical character narrations in this volume are especially enthralling, e.g. Frederick Douglass, George Bancroft, and even racist Woodrow Wilson, whose various infirmities make him sadly sympathetic even as they help to illuminate the many manifest ill effects he had on this nation and the world.
I'd like to request an in-depth treatment of the "roaring '20s" through the Depression, the New Deal, and the '50s next, please, Mr. Woodard!
I'd like to request an in-depth treatment of the "roaring '20s" through the Depression, the New Deal, and the '50s next, please, Mr. Woodard!
January 30, 2021
A history of American history, its distortions, and the non-linear march towards a more perfect, evidence-based, objective account of a nation in its middle age.This book drives home the persistence of racial struggle as central to our history. As a 30-something from Kansas (the Midlands, to Woodard), I am newly astounded by the false sense of accomplishment in overcoming America's original sin suggested by my elementary, high school, and cultural education. The fight over the telling of our history is as fierce as ever today, as some continue to insist that racial conflict was solved by the emancipation proclamation, the North winning the war, or if not that, at least by the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the accomplishments of Martin Luther King Jr. Facing the reality of our history, it's clear these events mark the beginning of the work in seeking racial justice, not the end.
December 22, 2023
I am looking forward to reading Woodard's American Nations as I feel like this book can either be the prequel or post-script to it.
Woodard highlights historian George Bancroft (who influenced Lincoln)-the man with an optimistic view of America and how it was settled, Frederick Douglass, the formerly enslaved man who told Americans the truth about slavery, William Gilmore Simms- the author and historian who believed the south was laboring under a noble cause and frankly had very racist views, Frederick Turner- the historian that America should explore and settle the whole land and then realized the frontier closed and re-evaluated his earlier work at the time when people stopped listening to his corrections, and lastly President Woodrow Wilson-how his racist views came to be and how they affected America.
Besides Douglass and Wilson, I had never heard of these other men and I see their works and words still influence today.
Woodard highlights historian George Bancroft (who influenced Lincoln)-the man with an optimistic view of America and how it was settled, Frederick Douglass, the formerly enslaved man who told Americans the truth about slavery, William Gilmore Simms- the author and historian who believed the south was laboring under a noble cause and frankly had very racist views, Frederick Turner- the historian that America should explore and settle the whole land and then realized the frontier closed and re-evaluated his earlier work at the time when people stopped listening to his corrections, and lastly President Woodrow Wilson-how his racist views came to be and how they affected America.
Besides Douglass and Wilson, I had never heard of these other men and I see their works and words still influence today.
August 30, 2025
As a Canadian, I found the book fascinating for a number of reasons. The take on history through the rhetoric and writing of a few politicians and historians seemed to be a fairly creative approach. I wondered whether current tensions in different geographic areas leading to the current geopolitical environment today were as clear cut and linear as Woodard presented it throughout the book. On the other hand, he did present a fairly compelling case for how the diversity of people within different geographic and economic settings makes it challenging to bring together a nation. This seems particularly challenging today as there is so much anti-sentiment and anti-regulation possibly leading some people to believe that re-setting the clock back to a 50’s version of America is the right discourse.
I had not read previous books. This one intrigued me as I ponder the evolution of countries and an impossible common ideology.
I had not read previous books. This one intrigued me as I ponder the evolution of countries and an impossible common ideology.
June 27, 2020
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.
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.
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