The Five Regions of Colonial America: The Origins of American Diversity

Early American history is best studied as the parallel development of five different regions, each with its own economy, social structure, predominant cultural values, and characteristic crisis. The American Revolution saw those regions start to converge, and the struggles of the early independent nation can be understood as the inevitable tensions of that process. If the Civil War seemed to put an end to that struggle, developments in American culture and politics over the past fifty years demonstrate that it still exerts powerful influence over American life today.