Woodard uses the term “alliances” to refer to the coalitions that form between and among different sections of the country. An alliance is generally a political agreement between nations to cooperate and push forward a common military and political agenda. Woodard is using this term instead to refer to informal coalitions between different parts of the country. For example, Yankeedom, New Netherland, and the Left Coast form the “Northern alliance,” while Appalachia, the Deep South, and the Tidewater form the Dixie bloc. These nations did not sign or agree to a formal alliance, but they have common cultural heritages or interests and often work together politically.

The Deep South is one of the 11 nations Woodard identifies and one of two key regions in his discussion of The Regions at Loggerheads (the other being Yankeedom, the Deep South’s long-time rival). Woodard’s use of the term is more expansive than the common definition, as it encompasses not only Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, and eastern Texas but also Florida, South Carolina, and parts of Tennessee, North Carolina, and Arkansas. What these regions have in common is the legacy of slavery and, more specifically, a particularly brutal and caste-based form of slavery imported by planters from the West Indies; the region is, according to Woodard, committed not only to white supremacy but also to hierarchical society broadly, as it views the privileges of an elite few as hinging on the subjugation of the masses.