Made in America

This is the perfect book for someone like me. First of all, I've become a good Bryson fan; he's funny, a bit irreverent, and has a great take on life. Made in America illustrates the growth of American English over the years since the Pilgrims landed. Along the way, he covers an enormous amount of American history, business, politics, and pop culture. I love language and I've always been interested in how languages evolve, especially our American version of English, now that I realize how very different it is from the English spoken by Brits, Australians, New Zealanders, and other native English speakers. Plus, all the history trivia will come in handy some day, I just know it.

I found the chapter on the Age of Invention very interesting. It was a time when the rich indulged themselves heavily and obviously, while those people who sustained their wealth toiled in misery (in one town in Massachusetts at the turn of the century 36% of factory workers didn't live past the age of 25). Words like slum, sweatshop, and tenement came into play. In fact, tenement used to describe any apartment-type building, but by the 1840s in America, where only the poor lived in shared housing, it became a pejorative name for building inhabited by the poor and immigrants. Almost 70 years ago, people who lived in shared housing were considered lower-class! It's hard to reconcile that with our recent trip to Egypt where, after a week I was unable to get a picture that accurately captured how indescribably dense the housing was there. It speaks to the luxury of space that we've enjoyed for so long.

America has had a long history of tinkering. Often things were invented by people in their spare time, by an obsessive idea (Charles Goodyear and vulcanized rubber) or to help a friend out (Eli Whitney and the cotton gin). The word pragmatic appeared in 1863 to describe the kinds of inventions America excelled at turning out. Many great technological inventions--the car, the radio, radar, computers, and jet engines--were created in Europe. America certainly kept up its own end of that deal (telephones and light bulbs) but tended to focus more on conveniences that involved less complex systems.

Through most of this chapter I kept wondering "why?" Why are we a nation of tinkerers and inventors? Why were we/are we obsessed with making something better? Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and Ben Franklin were all tinkerers. What has made us stand apart in this respect? And for so long? And furthermore, why NOT other countries, like, say, Tanzania? Obviously, we have greatly benefitted from tremendous resources, a stable government, and an economic system that rewards efforts, but given some of those things, shouldn't others do the same? If someone is shown a way to do something in a way that is more efficient or more beneficial and has the resources and the knowledge to do it, wouldn't they?

Which, of course, is a central issue of development work. Mark's parents have been visiting and have commented many times on things that are inefficient or unproductive and have offered up very simple ways to change. Some issues are problematic at a very large level. A person can't change because the systems that person depends on aren't changed. But other times, a solution appears to be relatively easy to solve, yet things continue on. Even when given materials, training, and an eye to cultural differences. Why?

I've come to see less of the "failings" or problems of Tanzania as much as an increased awareness of my own privelege--of education, of my government, my history--things that I have very little control over or have done, but have shaped an attitude and an outlook on the world that I can't assume others share. Working with someone or a group that will acknowledge a problem, understand ways to address it, but not do it when faced with a practical situation is very challenging. Why is it easy for me to address that situation, but not this other person? Tanzanians very much want to join the rest of the world. They want to be more modern, more developed. Some of the things have gotten us as Americans to where we are are in significant conflict with the values of Tanzania. Others aren't. Nothing is easy when you approach things from two such vastly different perspectives. I certainly don't want Tanzania to be a little America, or even more like America necessarily. I think it would be best for the country to forge its own identity, creating itself the way we've been doing for the past 200 years. I don't know that will be done. I just know that it won't be done by simply showing people something new or different. Clearly, as Bryson illustrates, there is something very unique about us as Americans, something that we can be proud of. But when we look at the rest of the world, we should at acknowledge the benefits and opportunities that we have derived simply by being American, benefits and opportunities we enjoy without having to earn. We continue to stand on the shoulders of giants.