10 Historical Conflicts Still Relevant Today
8. The North-South Divide in the US
The United States is not culturally homogeneous, and certainly a major reason for that has its roots in the historic divisions between North and South that led to the Civil War. The antebellum South was principally agrarian, with most of its economic output being agricultural crops that were exported to Europe as cash crops. Meanwhile, the antebellum North was increasingly industrialized, consuming local resources locally with a more balanced import-export economy. This division in economic fundamentals drives a lot of the cultural differences between the North and the South even today, although many people think that climate also plays a role.
Obviously the South lost the Civil War, and the North imposed its will over the South during Reconstruction, and this imposition amplified the ill will that already existed between the two divisions. Although the cultural differences and the antagonism between the Northerners and the Southerners are not nearly as prevalent as a century and a half ago, the South is still much more conservative, rural, religious, patriotic and militaristic than the North.
