Colin Woodard – Jill Grinberg Literary Management

Colin Woodard

Colin Woodard is an award-winning journalist and the author of six books: Ocean’s End: Travels Through Endangered Seas; The Lobster Coast: Rebels, Rusticators, and the Struggle for a Forgotten Frontier; The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down (a New York Times bestseller and the basis for the NBC series Crossbones, starring John Malkovich); American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America (a Wall Street Journal bestseller and named a Best Book by The New Republic and The Globalist); and American Character: A History of the Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Good. His latest book, Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood, was published in June 2020 by Viking. He is currently Director of Nationhood Lab at the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy at Salve Regina University, an interdisciplinary research, writing, testing and dissemination project focused on counteracting the authoritarian threat to American democracy and the centrifugal forces threatening the federation’s stability. He is also a POLITICO contributing editor. He is on sabbatical from his position as State and National Affairs Writer for the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram, where he was a Pulitzer Prize finalist and George Polk Award winner for investigative reporting. He lives with his family in Maine.

Agent

Jill Grinberg

Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood

The author of American Nations returns to the historical study of a fractured America by examining how a myth of national unity was created and fought over in the 19th century – a myth that continues to affect us today.

Union tells the story of how the myth of our national origins, identity, and purpose was intentionally created in the 19th and early 20th centuries. A small group of individuals—historians, political leaders, and novelists—fashioned a history that attempted to erase the fundamental differences and profound tensions between the nation’s regional cultures, the motive for the Confederacy’s secession (protecting a slave system), and even the reasons that drove the colonies to secede from Britain. These men were creating the idea of an American nation instead of a union of disparate states, and a specific, ethnically defined “American people” instead of just a republican citizenry.

Their emerging nationalist story was immediately and powerfully contested by another set of intellectuals and firebrands who argued that the United States was instead an ethno-state, the homeland of the allegedly superior “Anglo-Saxon” race, upon whom Divine and Darwinian favor shined. Their vision helped create a new federation—the Confederacy—prompting the bloody Civil War. While defeated on the battlefield, their vision later managed to win the war of ideas in the late 19th century, capturing the White House in the early 20th century, and offering the first consensus, pan-regional vision of US nationhood by the close of the first World War. This narrower, more exclusive vision of America would be overthrown in mid-century, but as early 21st-century Americans discovered, it was never fully vanquished. 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.

Praise for Union

“Woodard is a gifted historiographer, and this excellent work will be appreciated by anyone interested in American history and how it came to be written.” –Library Journal, starred review

“This enlightening and character-driven account will resonate with progressive history buffs.” –Publishers Weekly

“Union is detailed and unflashy, and it contains many valuable historical lessons modern readers will find useful.” –Booklist

Publisher

Viking

Publication Date

June 16, 2020

Age Category

Adult

Genre

Nonfiction/History

Rights

JGLM

American Character: A History of the Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Good

The struggle between individual rights and the good of the community as a whole has been the basis of nearly every major disagreement in our history, from the debates at the Constitutional Convention and in the run up to the Civil War to the fights surrounding the agendas of the Federalists, the Progressives, the New Dealers, the civil rights movement, and the Tea Party. In American Character, Colin Woodard traces these two key strands in American politics through the four centuries of the nation’s existence, from the first colonies through the Gilded Age, Great Depression and the present day, and he explores how different regions of the country have successfully or disastrously accommodated them. The independent streak found its most pernicious form in the antebellum South but was balanced in the Gilded Age by communitarian reform efforts; the New Deal was an example of a successful coalition between communitarian-minded Eastern elites and Southerners.

Woodard argues that maintaining a liberal democracy, a society where mass human freedom is possible, requires finding a balance between protecting individual liberty and nurturing a free society. Going to either libertarian or collectivist extremes results in tyranny. But where does the “sweet spot” lie in the United States, a federation of disparate regional cultures that have always strongly disagreed on these issues? Woodard leads readers on a riveting and revealing journey through four centuries of struggle, experimentation, successes and failures to provide an answer. His historically informed and pragmatic suggestions on how to achieve this balance and break the nation’s political deadlock will be of interest to anyone who cares about the current American predicament—political, ideological, and sociological.

Praise for American Character

“Woodard offers a fascinating way to parse American (writ large) politics and
history in this excellent book.” –Kirkus

“A deep analysis of the history of the common good versus individual rights. . . .
The history of that struggle is a big-dipper ride through four centuries as first
collectivists then individualists take their turn at managing the country.
Lurking just below the surface are always mirrors reflecting our own times. . . .
Woodard’s essential thesis is vital to understand.” –Portland Press Herald

Publisher

Viking

Publication Date

March 15, 2016

Age Category

Adult

Genre

Nonfiction/Politics

Rights

JGLM

American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America

A Wall Street Journal bestseller

According to award-winning journalist and historian Colin Woodard, North America is made up of eleven distinct nations, each with its own unique historical roots. In American Nations he takes readers on a journey through the history of our fractured continent, offering a revolutionary and revelatory take on American identity, and how the conflicts between them have shaped our past and continue to mold our future. From the Deep South to the Far West, to Yankeedom to El Norte, Woodard (author of American Character: A History of the Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Good) reveals how each region continues to uphold its distinguishing ideals and identities today, with results that can be seen in the composition of the U.S. Congress or on the county-by-county election maps of 2016’s Trump versus Clinton presidential election.

Praise for American Nations

“Woodard offers a fascinating way to parse American (writ large) politics and
history in this excellent book.” –Kirkus, starred review

“A smart read that feels particularly timely now, when so many would claim a
mythically unified “Founding Fathers’’ as their political ancestors.” –Boston Globe

“Woodard makes a worthwhile contribution by offering an accessible, well-
researched analysis with appeal to both casual and scholarly readers.” –Library Journal

Publisher

Viking

Publication Date

September 29, 2011

Age Category

Adult

Genre

Nonfiction/Politics

Rights

JGLM

The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down

A New York Times bestseller, and the inspiration behind NBC’s Crossbones, starring John Malkovich.

In the early eighteenth century a number of the great pirate captains, including Edward “Blackbeard” Teach and “Black Sam” Bellamy, joined forces. This infamous “Flying Gang” was more than simply a thieving band of brothers. Many of its members had come to piracy as a revolt against conditions in the merchant fleet and in the cities and plantations in the Old and New Worlds. Inspired by notions of self-government, they established a crude but distinctive form of democracy in the Bahamas, carving out their own zone of freedom in which indentured servants were released and leaders chosen or deposed by a vote. They were ultimately overcome by their archnemesis, Captain Woodes Rogers—a merchant fleet owner and former privateer—and the brief though glorious moment of the Republic of Pirates came to an end. In this unique and fascinating book, Colin Woodard brings to life this virtually unexplored chapter in the Golden Age of Piracy.

Praise for The Republic of Pirates

“Disregard Robert Louis Stevenson’s rowdy buccaneers, the Disney factory’s lively rascals and those musical lads from Penzance: Here are the real pirates of the Caribbean, and the facts are as colorful and exciting as fiction….An Age of Sail adventure, pleasantly recounted.” –Kirkus, starred review

“The Republic of Pirates…adds a new dimension to an era that was, in equal parts, thrilling
and disturbing…What [the pirate captains] and their crews achieved, and destroyed, is the focus of Colin Woodard’s fascinating book [which offers] rip-roaring adventure stories from a distant past [and]…an opportunity to understand pirates as they truly were — and be grateful that the worst of them, at least, are gone.” –New York Times Book Review

Publisher

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Publication Date

May 7, 2007

Age Category

Adult

Genre

Nonfiction/History

Rights

JGLM

The Lobster Coast: Rebels, Rusticators, and the Struggle for a Forgotten Frontier

For more than four hundred years the people of coastal Maine have clung to their rocky, wind-swept lands, resisting outsiders’ attempts to control them while harvesting the astonishing bounty of the Gulf of Maine. Today’s independent, self-sufficient lobstermen belong to the communities imbued with a European sense of ties between land and people, but threatened by the forces of homogenization spreading up the eastern seaboard.

In the tradition of William Warner’s Beautiful Swimmers, veteran journalist Colin Woodard (author of American Character: A History of the Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Good) traces the history of the rugged fishing communities that dot the coast of Maine and the prized crustacean that has long provided their livelihood. Through forgotten wars and rebellions, and with a deep tradition of resistance to interference by people “from away,” Maine’s lobstermen have defended an earlier vision of America while defying the “tragedy of the commons”—the notion that people always overexploit their shared property. Instead, these icons of American individualism represent a rare example of true communal values and collaboration through grit, courage, and hard-won wisdom.

Praise for The Lobster Coast

“A thorough and engaging history of Maine’s rocky coast and
its tough-minded people.” –Boston Herald

“[A] well-researched and well-written cultural and ecological
history of stubborn perseverance.” –USA Today

“Delves deeply and reflectively into the history of Maine and
its people.” –Boston Globe

Publisher

Viking

Publication Date

May 24, 2004

Age Category

Adult

Genre

Nonfiction/History

Rights

JGLM

Ocean's End: Travels Through Endangered Seas

In this landmark call to action, Colin Woodard confronts the major environmental problem of our time: the fate of the oceans. Once thought to be limitless reservoirs constantly renewing themselves, the oceans are in fact bounded seas that lie within our power to kill—and as Woodard convincingly shows, we are killing them, through pollution, harmful fishing practices, ignorance, and global warming. A comprehensive, eyewitness view of how and why the oceans are in trouble, Woodard’s book covers all the aspects of this complex subject—not just the collapse of the fisheries but also the deaths of coral reefs, the effects of sea-level rise, and the creation (through pollution) of massive dead zones, including the entire Black Sea and much of the Gulf of Mexico.

Praise for Ocean’s End

“Part travelogue and part ecology lesson… an informed,
balanced, and constructive account…” –Foreign Affairs

“Woodard’s quietly passionate and focused presentation
leaves little doubt about the gravity of the water world’s
ecological crisis.” –Kirkus

Publisher

Basic Books

Publication Date

March 23, 2000

Age Category

Adult

Genre

Nonfiction/Environmentalism

Rights

JGLM