The Disunited States

Given the growing intensity of regionally inflected political polarization in the US, many observers have grimly predicted that a divorce between red and blue America could well happen. Yet how likely is this possibility, and would it really produce a beneficial outcome? In The Disunited States, Ryan Griffiths shows why an orderly breakup would be nearly impossible given the complexity of America's political geography. A bracing rejoinder to the idea that the peaceful breakup of the US is a plausible outcome, this book establishes why the forces that increasingly divide Americans are unlikely to rip the nation apart-and why unity remains the best of all outcomes.

Ryan D. Griffiths is Professor of Political Science at Syracuse University and the author of Secession and the Sovereignty Game.