Post by simon darkshade on Aug 17, 2021 13:03:09 GMT
Whilst browsing through ‘Strategic Power USA/USSR’, a 1990 collection of essays on the superpowers, I came across this quote in ‘American National Style and Strategic Culture’ (William Kincade):
”A distinguishing characteristic of the United States has been the immensity of its resources. To the natural resources must be added the human resources in waves of migrations and resources of development capital, foreign and domestic. The consolidation of an independent American republic, the extension of its borders, and the development of its resources began fitfully and frequently required privation of many sorts.
Yet there was rarely any doubt about the potential for abundance. Features of the intangible environment favourable to exploiting the potential were a political culture that valued individual freedom of action, as well as group freedom of association, and an economic culture that stressed personal initiative and the role of the marketplace.
North American geography yielded more than abundant resources. With the emerging political culture, it offered sanctuary: from religious, ethnic or other forms of persecution; from economic oppression, if opportunities could be grasped; from the corruption and conflict of the Old World; and, even now, from the threat of invasion, occupation and subjugation.”
There is a fair bit of meat there, but what particularly caught my eye was the idea of natural resource abundance having a direct and discernable impact on the evolution of national character and cultural style.
Are there other circumstances/cases that chaps think explore this notion?
”A distinguishing characteristic of the United States has been the immensity of its resources. To the natural resources must be added the human resources in waves of migrations and resources of development capital, foreign and domestic. The consolidation of an independent American republic, the extension of its borders, and the development of its resources began fitfully and frequently required privation of many sorts.
Yet there was rarely any doubt about the potential for abundance. Features of the intangible environment favourable to exploiting the potential were a political culture that valued individual freedom of action, as well as group freedom of association, and an economic culture that stressed personal initiative and the role of the marketplace.
North American geography yielded more than abundant resources. With the emerging political culture, it offered sanctuary: from religious, ethnic or other forms of persecution; from economic oppression, if opportunities could be grasped; from the corruption and conflict of the Old World; and, even now, from the threat of invasion, occupation and subjugation.”
There is a fair bit of meat there, but what particularly caught my eye was the idea of natural resource abundance having a direct and discernable impact on the evolution of national character and cultural style.
Are there other circumstances/cases that chaps think explore this notion?