Nationhood Lab’s director was the guest on the statewide networks’ respective hour-long live public affairs interview and call-in shows.
Project director Colin Woodard discussed his new book, Nations Apart, and the project’s work it showcases on the flagship public affairs programs of two statewide public radio networks.
Woodard appeared on Maine Public radio’s hour-long live interview and audience call-in program, “Maine Calling,” on Nov. 10, speaking with veteran broadcaster Keith Shortall. The program is carried live across the fourteen stations of the Maine Public network, which serve the entire state and has a weekly listener base of 250,000.
“My view of the human condition and American history is sufficiently bleak to think that we would manage to do that without things becoming violent and difficult,” he said in response to a listener question about why we shouldn’t just break the U.S. up into separate countries, noting that one of Alexander Hamilton’s arguments for a stronger union in The Federalist Papers was to avoid having the states go to war with one another.
“The concern has been there the whole time that if we aren’t bonded together we might fight one another,” he noted.
The following day, he was the guest on Utah Public Radio’s equivalent program, “Access Utah,” speaking with host Tom Williams, based at UPR’s studio on the campus of Utah State University in Logan. UPR is broadcast across Utah – except, ironically, Salt Lake City proper – via KUSU and 26 FM repeater stations around the state.
“When we looked at actual public opinion on hot button issues – there are differences between the regions for sure…but most people actually agree on most of the stuff in the middle,” Woodard said. “There’s a lot more common ground then we think we have, we’ve just been tricked into thinking we’re mortal enemies when we actually probably agree on 70 percent of the [potential policy] stuff.”
Woodard’s new book, Nations Apart: How Clashing Regional Cultures Shattered America, showcases Nationhood Lab’s research into regional divisions in the United States and the shared national story that can hold the country together. It goes beyond this work as well, with original historical and sociological research on how we got here as a country. It was released by Viking/Random House Nov. 4.
Nationhood Lab, a project at Salve Regina University’s Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy, delivers more effective tools with which to describe and defend the American liberal democratic tradition and better understand the forces undermining it.