Land, Law and Planning Book

As I’m apparently the only person in the US that gets slightly offended when the term “American” is used solely to represent us/US gringos (I’ve asked numerous South American friends and oddly they don’t seem to give a crap), I really enjoyed this book. Part of the pleasure comes from the author’s ability to condense the thick history of the post-Columbian Americas into just over 200 pages, yet it comes off as quite comprehensive.

The effusive writing reeks of an Iberian intellectual, yet his weaving of large historical generalities with specific details [Jefferson hanging painted buffalo hides and “savage” Tennessee carvings in Monticello’s atrium:] was most effective. His hope is a reunification of North and South into simply “that hemisphere” as apparently it was originally perceived by the Old World. He offers something of an historical balance as the southern Americas were, until the late nineteenth century, clearly the dominate half. The North (for his sake of argument, territories lying north of the Rio Grande) was a mere colonial backwater comparatively. Of course with the onslaught of industrialization in the north, coupled with certain sociopolitical fallout in the south, the power shifted to our current state. Offering an historical balance of both general periods, he seeks a perceptual equality across the Hemisphere that potentially could signal a real economic/productive/political equilibrium in the future.

Strangely, when he arrives at “The American Century” he, himself, falls into the trap of referring to the US as “America” and US citizens exclusively as “Americans.” I was nonplussed. Nonetheless a very engaging read.