Vashta, you're the second person in the past five days to recommend this book by Sarah Vowell. Guess I'd better put it on the "To Read" list.

Another incredibly good book on the subject is Colin Woodard's "American Nations" -- American Nations

It goes even further than "Albion's Seed" by David Hackett Fischer who only broke the U.S. down into four groups as opposed to Woodard's eleven.

U.S. history is, in general, very poorly taught at the elementary or high school level. (Mudcat's Curmudgeon, my late husband Tom Hall, was an exceptional teacher of high school U.S. History & Government. He showed "All the President's Men" to his classes every year.) One of the reasons it's poorly taught is lack of time, general "dumbing down", and fear of offending someone (especially in the big textbook-producing state of Texas). Kids are never taught that most of our Founding Fathers had radically conflicting beliefs and in many cases hated each other. "American Nations" does an exceptional job of explaining these differences.

Linn