More on big history and the West

One of David Christian’s most interesting points is the similarity of processes across different scales. Specifically, he compares human systems of complexity with natural ones. One parallel he draws is between the gravitational pull of large celestial bodies, and a similar lure exerted by cities as they developed throughout human history. As cities grew, they pulled in not only people, but information, goods, and so on. Eventually, major cities became so large that they functioned as cultural centers of gravity. Meanwhile, smaller cities and towns and even rural regions could function as what he calls “hubs,” assuming they were positioned geographically such that the flow of people, things and ideas to centers of gravity passed through them. And indeed, it was within these hubs that the greatest levels of innovation and dynamism were often found. Essentially, due to their smaller size and the rapidity with which cultural flows passed through these hubs, they were more easily transformed by the changes the flows inevitably brought.

I find both these concepts applicable to the American West. Centers of gravity have exerted and still exert major influences on their surrounding areas. (Cronon traces this concept for Chicago so well in Nature’s Metropolis.) This, among many other things, is what makes Los Angeles so fascinating. In fact, living in Albuquerque now, I still very much feel the pull of Los Angeles. Part of this is my own history, being born there, growing up and living in its direct shadow for most of my life, and reading its newspaper almost every day until recently. Baseball, too, plays a role – Albuquerque’s AAA teams have a long history as the Dodgers’ affiliates. My house here, built in the 1950s, has several fixtures that were built in Los Angeles (back when that city actually had a manufacturing base). Albuquerque feels to me very much like it is in the orbit of Los Angeles, yet not at all in the orbit of closer large cities like Phoenix or Denver.

But the dynamism of hub regions is, I think, even more applicable to the West, at least as a whole. Although not often located between centers of gravity until recently (once Los Angeles became one in the 1920s or so), it has long served as a site of mediation between various cultures, whether Spanish, Mexican, native, or Anglo. As such, the flows of people, ideas, and goods within and across the West has been somewhat uniquely intense, particularly in the 19th and 20th centuries as the pace of cultural and technological changes reached new and ever-expanding heights. Perhaps it is this dynamism that helps explain the West’s lasting cultural appeal in America, and its arguably outsized role in the creation of a distinctive American culture.

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