The Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram – the largest newspaper in my native state — is one of the few dailies that still has its own book reviews and book section, and they recently took up my new book, Nations Apart: How Clashing Regional Cultures Shattered America.
Reviewer Thomas Urquhart, author of Up For Grabs!, a detailed history of Maine’s interior and the power struggles to control its land, did a terrific job describing the book and how I came to write it, starting with my time confronting authoritarianism in the early 1990s Eastern Europe and the Balkans. His review, “Confronted with national divide, Maine historian looks back in time: Colin Woodard’s ‘Nations Apart’ warns about the perils of autocracy,” appeared in the Feb. 15 edition of the Telegram, the paper’s statewide Sunday edition.
“Armed with this impressive battery of data, Woodard examines and breaks down the attitudes of each nation,” Urguhart wrote. “It was a pleasure to read the more philosophical chapters about the creation myths of the various ‘nations.’ . . . Woodard’s message is urgent and could hardly be more timely. I believe he is absolutely right.”
Nations Apart, released Nov. 4, has been well received, earning a starred review from Booklist, glowing reviews from Library Journal, Kirkus, and Publisher’s Weekly, and even a begrudgingly positive review from the Wall Street Journal, whose editorial stance is always strongly opposed to seeing Trumpism for what it is.
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.