Building the Outposts of Empire

Posted by Staci on: 12.11.2007 /

As University of Oregon professor Mark Gillem’s newly released first book, America Town: Building the Outposts of Empire and his upcoming address at a NATO conference suggests, the use of space/land is very different in the US than in most other nations. It seems these cultural norms are not really considered when the US establishes a base in another country.

Two interesting facts: 1) the units of measure most often used to describe land in the US as compared to South Korea and Japan and what that says about each cultures perceptions about land use 2) his survey indicating that the biggest complaint about US bases in other countries was not that the base was there but that they were huge and didn’t use the land efficiently - and that the military didn’t know about that concern.

This made me think that perhaps there are thousands of “little things” that could be done to improve US relationships with the citizens of other nations. By little things - I mean things like learning about and respecting the value of the land we use in their nation and showing good stewardship of it. On the other hand, what about the important of balancing that by sharing our value of keeping what we call “green spaces” - or undeveloped spaces so that there is unpaved ground to absorb rain in cities, trees to produce oxygen and process carbon dioxide, places for children to play, etc.

Mark Gillem narrates a slideshow of his topic here. The news release is available here.