The American West
| ProfWork | Inside America |
Going West
We go West in Inside America in three chapters of Joel Garreau's The Nine
Nations of North America:
- Big Sky is where Daniel Kemmis will bring us
in his formidable manifesto for the West, Community and the Politics of Place,
excerpts of which accompany Garreau. Keep in mind the story told by Garreau: great wealth,
a colonial past, and very few people to appreciate or defend the natural beauty of the
landscape. Big Sky is up for grabs as energy prices rise.
- Ecotopia: The Pacific Northwest, from roughly San
Francisco, or Shasta as the Bioregionalists call this ecosystem, north into
Alaska and Valdez, scene of the nation's worst eco-disaster. The area mapped by Garreau is
entirely coastal, and wet. The eastern sides of Oregon and Washington are in the third
climate zone:
- MexAmerica: The Southwest, including Los Angeles
and the border with Mexico. The theme of the open border and the surge of migrants from
Latin America and from Asia contrasted with the Mediterranean, i.e. European or Anglo,
image of the turbulent Southwest. The chapter from Garreau sets up our reading of Mike
Davis, The Ecology of Fear.
I had prepared three web pages as background notes for our previous discussion,
although even these have been updated. The discussion of Ecotopia, MexAmerica, and Big Sky should be consulted
for this part of the course.
ProfWork, by Wayne Hayes, Ph.D.
for Inside America, AAMR30501
whayes@orion.ramapo.edu
Monday, March 20, 2000 08:00 PM
