Normally I don't go in for this sort of thing very much, but I found the following map on pp. 378-79 of Volume 4, Global America 1915-2000, of Donald Meinig's magnum opus, The Shaping of America: A Geographical Perspective on 500 Years of History. The book was published in 2004, but Meinig states in the preface: “I want to make clear that this half-millenium coverage ends in the 1990s. ... None of my commentary on America and the world has been shaped by 21st century events.”
It seems like an attempt at a clean depiction of America's place in the world around 1999, without fetishizing national boundaries or becoming simple to the point of stupidity. At least it does get me to thinking. I'd have called the “Intervention Zone” the “extranjero vecino,” and I'd have placed Bosnia, Kosovo, and the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council as falling under American protection ... and I don't really know what to make of the “Western Civilization” shade ... but it doesn't seem terrible.
It leaves out economics, grey areas (like Australia's own South Pacific near-abroad and France's “SysAdmin-on-the-sly”), and might lead a simple reader to not think enough about what “military protection” implies for the protector. And it's probably misleading in all sorts of ways that I'm not noticing. But it made me think about the world in 1999, the so-called “unipolar moment,” at least for a minute. So here it is.
Nothin'?
Posted by: Noel Maurer | August 29, 2008 at 07:28 PM
Seriously, nothin'?
Posted by: Noel Maurer | November 28, 2008 at 11:04 PM