Books about the break-up of the US [View all]

[matt819]

I was going to post this in GD, but I figured there'd be a largely "you're fucking crazy" response.

I don't think we're having a serious enough discussion on the prospect of an American break-up. It's undemocratic, maybe seditious.
Fucking nuts. We're the United States of America, you moron.

Why do we think we're so special that we can't break up? Sure, I can point to much of Europe, including Russia and the rest of the former Soviet republics, and the response would be that we're nothing like them. WWII. The Cold War. Toppling of dictators (I'm looking at you, former Yugoslavia). So stipulated. But so what? The circumstances here may be different, but the past 40 years have demonstrated that we're not all that united, so maybe it's time for a divorce.

In any case, my post in non-fiction is for recommendations for good books about the issue. There are remarkably few, it seems.

There's a new one by an Evangelical conservative, David French, which has favorable comments from liberals. There's another one by Richard Kreitner about secessionist movements in our history (not so few and far between, it seems). Then there's the one a few years back by Colin Woodard about the eleven nations/cultures of North America. If you search online, you come across these as well as "predictions" by a Russian foreign policy analyst. Some bias there, I think.

A search on DU reveals a number of posts on the issue over the past decade, but I didn't notice any references to books on the issue.

So. . . does anyone know of relatively recent books on the subject, preferably from a more or less liberal perspective? Not looking for shrill screeds or predictions of doom and civil war, but rather rational, intelligent analysis of where we are and what now.

Thanks.