Nationhood Lab director Colin Woodard was the guest on CBS News’s The Takeout August 27 to discuss how the centuries-old regional divides in the U.S. facilitated the decline of democracy… Read more »
Posts By: Colin Woodard
OpEd: Trump’s ethnonationalist 250th
Donald Trump and his allies are marking the 250th birthday of the Declaration of Independence by attacking what it stands for, Nationhood Lab Director Colin Woodard wrote in an opinion… Read more »
For TPM: the America250 commission’s deeply flawed Christian Nationalist comic book history series
In Talking Points Memo, Nationhood Lab director Colin Woodard discusses the disturbing contents of the official, Congressionally-created America250 commission’s core historical product: a sixteen-volume comic book series produced under license to a Christian comic… Read more »
Speaking to the BBC and Politico about the meaning of 250 years of U.S. history
For the nation’s 250th birthday, Nationhood Lab director Colin Woodard spoke with the BBC and Politico about the meaning of the U.S. history, how the country expanded, and the still… Read more »
The regional geography of social capital in the Washington Monthly
For Washington Monthly, Nationhood Lab Director Colin Woodard shared the results of the project’s recent analysis of the geography of social capital in the United States. The online piece summarized the results… Read more »
Trump’s support is collapsing in every American Nations region
Over at Nationhood Lab, I recently posted a regional analysis of Trump’s approval ratings, based on G. Elliott Morris’s polls and local-level model. It presents a devastating picture for the… Read more »
Speaking at the WBUR Festival, May 29, on causes and remedies for polarization in the U.S
Have you ever wishes you could hear Dr. Lilliana Mason, Dr. Joshua Greene and myself converse on the underlying causes of our tribe-like polarization and what can be done about… Read more »
Is the U.S. a nation-state? How does it hold together? Discussing national identity with the CSCE’s Transatlantic podcast
The Helsinki Accords — signed in 1975 by the Soviet Union, U.S., Canada and every country in Europe (save Albania and Andorra) — were a landmark development in the acknowledgement… Read more »
Sharing Nations Apart with public television’s “Story in the Public Square”
Last week, I was the guest on the nationally syndicated public television series “Story in the Public Square,” which is produced by the Pell Center and Rhode Island’s Ocean State… Read more »
Speaking on the crisis in U.S. democracy and what to do about it at Emmanuel College, Salem Athenaeum
APRIL 19, 2026 BOSTON – Nationhood Lab director Colin Woodard shared Nationhood Lab’s work on American divisions and the story that unites the U.S. to audiences at Emmanuel College Boston and… Read more »
COLIN WOODARD is a New York Times bestselling author, historian and award-winning journalist. He is the author of seven books that have been translated into a dozen foreign languages and inspired an NBC television drama. He is currently Director of Nationhood Lab at the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Affairs at Salve Regina University. As State and National Affairs Writer at Maine's Portland Press Herald, he won a 2012 George Polk Award and was a finalist for a 2016 Pulitzer Prize. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, The Economist, Smithsonian and dozens of other major publications.