Nine Nations of North America 30 years Later
nytimes.com
Nine Nations of North America 30 years Later
1–10 of 66 posts
Re: Nine Nations of North America 30 years Later
#2Has anyone read this book? What were your thoughts on it?
Re: Nine Nations of North America 30 years Later
#3[deleted]
Re: Nine Nations of North America 30 years Later
#4Has anyone read this book? What were your thoughts on it?
I have. I loved it. I mean no book is perfect, but it is well written and researched. What makes it most interesting is when you consider the state of the world when it was written (1981) and how much of it is still relevant today.
Re: Nine Nations of North America 30 years Later
#5A nicer name for the "empty quarter" would be Marlboro Country.
Re: Nine Nations of North America 30 years Later
#6Very cool idea. Although the recent oil and natural gas booms are fast transforming "The Empty Quarter" into "Extractopia" where oil, gas, logging, and mineral extraction, which are already the main industries, are going to become an increasingly important driver of overall North American economic growth.
Re: Nine Nations of North America 30 years Later
#7Has anyone read this book? What were your thoughts on it?
My dad loved it in the '80s, and I read it some time in the late 80s when I was in my tweens. I probably didn't understand a lot, and I've forgotten a lot, but that map is good, and I do use it a short hand a lot in my thinking to this day.
Though I do think that some peopleº treat it as more than a short hand - and like all stereotypes it can cause more harm than good when actually believed.
º I recently heard a barista talking passionately about "Freeing Cascadiaºº"
ººNot literally one of the 9 nations, but a related idea
Re: Nine Nations of North America 30 years Later
#8Similar to the 7 States of Facebook which surfaced a few years ago.
http://gigaom.com/2010/02/08/the-7-somewhat-united-states-of...
Culturally some of these boundaries seem more accurate.
Re: Nine Nations of North America 30 years Later
#9I am not from Americas, and had never heard of the concept of Nine Nations. If you're equally lost with some of the terms ("Dixie"? "The Foundry"?) or the overall theory, this sheds some light on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Nations (but unfortunately does not provide links for some of the regions). Anyone know of a better online exposition?
Re: Nine Nations of North America 30 years Later
#10Has anyone read this book? What were your thoughts on it?
It's an interesting work and well worth reading, although it's more than a bit broad-brush in its discriminants. Ferligoj, Batagelj and Doreian did an analysis a few years ago using relational-constraint clustering of counties with Census data and found that the "Nine Nations" thesis actually conforms quite well to clustering by race, age, land usage and economic data.