BOOK REVIEW: ‘The Untied States of America’ Tells Us Nothing is Certain but Uncertainty
Reviewed By David M. KinchenHuntington News Network Book Critic
Hinton, WV (HNN) – No, that’s not a typo in the headline: The book I’m reviewing at the very end of 2005 is “The Untied States of America” by Juan Enriquez (Crown, 368 pages, notes, indexed, $24.95). It’s a quirky, fact-filled book with the weirdest typography I’ve seen in a long time. A sentence will start out in small type, suddenly getting larger, often with Bold-Faced Headlines Marching Down stair-like on the page.
The 46-year-old Mexican-born Enriquez is a Cabot (as in Boston Brahmin Cabots) on his mother’s side. He’s an entrepreneur in Boston and heads the Life Sciences Project at the Harvard Business School. Yes, the multi-talented Enriquez is a graduate of Haavard! He even served as a peacemaker in the Zapatista rebellion of a few years ago in extreme southern Mexico. That’s the part of Mexico, he reminds us, that gave us Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, Costa Rica and El Salvador about 150 years ago.
What we have in this book is a geopolitical, sociological, historical survey, economic review – all in one handy book that will appeal to fact-obsessed geeks – and other people who love this kind of stuff.
One of the central themes of the book is that nothing is set in stone about nations: They are born, grow up, expand, decline and disappear. Atilla the Hun was on Hungarian currency in the 1980s – he may still be on it – but his empire is long gone, as is the Roman Empire he helped destroy. Where’s the British Empire today? In 1905 there was nothing bigger. Czechoslovakia? Get a new atlas! In 1860 there was no West Virginia. Cartographers have probably the best job security of any professionl, what with constantly changing borders.
If a few battles had turned out differently a couple of centuries ago, we might be Canada today, a big Canada bordering the Mexican states of Alta California, Nuevo Mexico and Tejas, but a Canada still. Probably with single-payer health care for everyone (with long waits for elective operations, like the present-day Canada).
When I graduated from high school in 1957, there were 48 states – the same number we had since 1912. When I graduated from college four years later, a new 50-star flag snapped in the breeze at Northern Illinois University. Now there’s talk in the two added states – Alaska and Hawaii -- of independence or autonomy on the order of Wales or Scotland in the Untied (Oops!) United Kingdom.
Remember the map of the U.S. that swept the Internet around the time of the 2004 Presidential election? The one with New America and Jesus Land? This book reproduces the map, along with many illustrations. There’s a Mad magazine feel (I was a big-time Mad-a-holic 50 years ago) to this solidly researched book that I’m putting on my home office shelf next to the World Almanac, my atlas and my many dictionaries. Did I say the book is fun to read? IT’S FUN TO READ!
Enriquez uses a colloquial, non-academic writing style; he would make a great journalist. If I were the Big Kahuna Editor (I know, I know: I AM an editor) I would put him on the copy desk – where the nerds hang out – to liven things up and season him. Then, I’d drag him kicking and screaming to the business beat to shake up the boring writers that inhabit this dead-end of American journalism. Yes, in another life, I was a business editor of a one-man business section. Enough of the dreaming, let’s get on with the review.
He says – and he was there at the epicenter of the revolt – that Mexico could split up into four countries, Canada could devolve into three countries (It almost lost Quebec a decade or so ago and the Maritime Provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island have more in common with the New England-New York-New Jersey region than they have with Alberta or British Columbia.
Enriquez’s skipping around approach is somewhat off-putting, but it fits my needs and wishes. I have a short attention span and want more facts and I WANT THEM NOW! If you believe all the propaganda about the U.S. being the richest nation in the world, you’re wrong. We may have the richest corporate executives, getting their hand-picked board of directors to pay their taxes on their perks under an obscene accounting technique aptly called “grossing-up,” but Enriquez reminds us that incomes have been stagnant since the early 1970s for Joe and Josephine Lunch Box. Once a poverty stricken exporter of people, Ireland today (Page 205) has an income per capita of $43,862 per year; the supposedly richest country in the world – the United States of America – is $39,991. Britain – the richest country in the world 100 years ago, is at $35,505. Enriquez notes that some of his fellow Bostonians are seeking EU nationality through Irish passports. Happy St. Patrick’s Day in advance!
Enriquez devotes a fascinating chapter (the whole book fascinated me, satisfying my inner geek) to the revolts of native peoples in Canada, Mexico, Hawaii, the U.S., New Zealand, Australia and elsewhere. (You could make the argument that the residents of Chechnya and Dagestan are Russia’s native peoples, but the downsized but still gigantic country also has natives in Siberia). There are Indian reservations in New Mexico and Arizona bigger than West Virginia. They’re essentially self-governing nations within the bigger U.S. Speaking of big, the biggest casino in the U.S. isn’t in Nevada or New Jersey. Quicker than you can say Jack Abramoff, guess which state has this casino. If you guessed Connecticut, grab a handful of five-dollar chips and head for the tables. Foxwoods, any one? The name conjures up a summer camp, but the illustration reminds me of a Vegas mega-casino.
One statistic stands out in this book (Page 81) and it doesn’t bode well for the U.S.: In 2001, the U.S. graduated 59,536 engineers; in the same year China graduated 219,563. Brazil goes to the smallest school in the vast nation and seeks out the best soccer players; South Korea does the same thing with kids who show promise with math and science and funds their education. Which nation is the more prosperous? Back when I was in high school, South Korea was a poverty stricken, war-torn nation. Now it’s one of the Asian Tigers, a maturing one with problems, but nevertheless a prosperous, modern nation. Not to slight Brazil; it has a booming economy and actually makes things – something we used to do in the U.S. It’s also far ahead of us in the use of renewable alternative motor vehicle fuels.
I couldn’t tell if Enriquez is a liberal or conservative. He’s certainly not a U.S. or Mexican chauvinist. I don’t think it matters! He packs a lot of useful information in this book that I found as exciting as “Freakonomics” and “1491,” two of the most important books I reviewed this year (check the archives for my reviews).
Happy New Year! Happy new book reading (and don’t forget the recently published books you might have missed. Remember, a book helps restore the brain cells you lose watching TV! If you live in the Huntington area, you’re in luck with the former library books on sale at John Gaylord’s Empire Books & News in Pullman Square. The last time I was there, I bought a wonderful biography of Hetty Green, the richest woman in the world 100 years ago, and I got a Tama Janowitz essay collection – all for $3.99! The previous month I picked up a mint copy of David Cay Johnston’s wonderful “Perfectly Legal,” about our ridiculous tax system and how corporate porkmeisters game it).
Publisher’s web site: www.crownpublishing.com