A good photograph of a city or a country is a snapshot of its society at a given moment in time, which is what Corbusier described in great detail.
And I’d like to think that a good photograph is like a balance sheet of a company, it gives you a snapshot of the company at a given time, it tells you how the company looks right now, whether it is making a profit or not and it accurately pin points its losses and profits, but it, nevertheless, is only a snapshot of at one particular time, and it is not a movie, and it cannot tell you the history and circumstances that will explain why the company is in that situation and nor how will the picture change in the future.

The decline of France is palpable but is lived as the “final proof” that all the extreme-free-market-capitalism policies failed… “fortunately” the harder the crisis, the more voters will buy into keynesian, socialist and protectionist policies.

PM: living in the same town as Corb., I don’t think this is quite true. Most of the social trust/distrust I’ve found has directly related to whether or not an area’s fallen off the economic map. Once an area has turned “zombie pit,” then social trust tends to vanish until gentrification recurs. I’ve seen this over and over again in VA, MD, and parts of Cali, too.

Which brings about the disturbing possibility that high urban social trust is a middle-class value. Not sure I care for the ramifications of that one…

Corbusier mentions that he likes how the Mexican elite “aggressively embrace contemporary design” rather than in certain parts of the United States where people adapt and develop traditional designs.

I wonder it it has ever occured to Corbusier that those are the parts (sadly not nearly as much of the United States as was once the case) of the United States where people are not full of fear and can and walk and engage in civil interaction.

There may be a connection.

As has often been stated. A community is a compact between the living, the dead, and those yet to be born.

Cultural traditions and practices evolve that cut across and partly unify “the rich” and “the poor”, and styles of building are part of those traditions and practices.

This sense of style and taste, and more basically “what is fitting” – is better than any building code.

James in Calgary: Many thanks. I also take note of your recommended readings.

I guess by now I do have a pretty sizeable amount of books to buy and read and from what I gather there will be many more so I’d better call the carpenter to expand my bookshelf soon.

I also believe Millie Woods is right: “people don’t learn French today because it is no longer a language of access to knowledge not available in one’s native language which was the case for French in the past.”
My father also learned French but had little use of it during his lifetime.
But while other languages may be considered important to learn, English is a must and companies in Mexico, be them national or foreign, they require you to speak English, and the same is happening in Chile, Argentina, Brazil, and the many other nations in Latin America.

Academia was slow to follow in most Latin American nations with mostly state funded universities, because for a while, nationalistic and anti-American attitudes in these public universities blocked the advancement of the English Language, which they saw as part of a cultural invasion, but these same academics and functionaries had no problem with teaching French language in the past, in fact, there are still French professors in many of these Universities.

French was important in the past because of what Millie Woods says, the need to access knowledge and I might add that there are also other reasons that might explain why learning French continued to be important in our societies for some time in past decades.
When dictatorships and military juntas rampaged through Latin America and Spain and Portugal, many Latin American intellectuals, writers, painters and the like fled to France and got asylum there. Julio Cortazar from Argentina wrote entire works while living in France, Bennedetti from Uruguay, Pablo Neruda from Chile, etc.
Then Paris and not Madrid became the hub of Latin American intellectual and ideological movements (mostly socialists) and learning French became a must for many young Latin Americans who wanted to be writers, painters, etc. and who dreamed of traveling to Paris where they expected to find the relations and connections and support to become successful writers or painters in the huge Latin American community of intellectuals living in Paris in those days.
But the advancement of democracy and the globalization and the internet have quickly eroded this Paris-Latin America connection.

Not to stray too far from the subject, but this made me chuckle – I took Chinese in high school; we were the only high school Chinese program in New York state outside of New York City. Perversely, it was an easy class because it’s such a brutal language to speak (nevermind write) for kids raised on English. 5 tones, thousands of ideograms – yikes. They could barely scratch the surface of the subject. Nevermind that they were teaching us Mandarin, when Cantonese would have been way more useful in NY.

From my informal questioning of students, it seems French retains some appeal, especially with female students, because French means “elegance” and “fashion.”

The popularity of Chinese has increased, but a common story I hear is that students assume Chinese will be easy, because it uses similar ideographs; then they experience the pronunciation and it suddenly becomes frightful.

For a thoughtful consideration of the Anglosphere and Hispanosphere, you would really enjoy Prof. Claudio Véliz’s book “The New World of the Gothic Fox: Culture and Economy in English and Spanish America” Univ of California Press, 1994. Also, for a good companion to Mead’s God and Gold, consider Gelernter’s Americanism (on the roots of American exceptionalism), and Barone’s “Our First Revolution” for the inspiration that the Americans drew from the English “Glorious Revolution” of 1688.

Best wishes and happy reading.

(Great thread, Brian. Glenn Reynolds of instapundit linked to this one, generating a lots of input here, too)

A brand new Anglosphere book is “God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World” by US Council on Foreign Relations scholar Walter Russell Mead. He argues that the story of the rise of Europe on the modern period is wrong. It’s really the rise and dominance of Britain, followed by the US. The former’s only war lost was the American Revolution, after all.

Jose-

You ought to study the books and columns of the most pro-capitalist author on Latin America in the US, Andres Oppenheimer. Based out of Miami, Florida, he’s even a career model for you! Write about what you know best, to an audience most needing to know more about Latin America – like he has. (I believe he’s a bit old now, and no longer a field correspondent. In other words, WE (in the US) NEED YOU!

Of Cuban origins, his books include “Castro’s Final Hour”, “Bordering on Chaos: Guerrillas, Stockbrokers, Politicians, and Mexico’s Road to Prosperity” and brand new “Saving the Americas: The Dangerous Decline of Latin America and What The U.S. Must Do.” Many of his books are also in Spanish.

Lastly, a vital blog with informed discussion of the Anglosphere is http://www.chicagoboyz.net/

-Orson in Colorado

Anon, thanks for the comment.

JeanE: Thanks for the comments, I am putting the
“The Anglosphere Challenge” and “The History of the English Speaking People Since 1900” in my list of books to buy.

Corbusier
You are so right. Frenchness is an advantage here in Mexico, we even invite the French to come to celebrate the anniversary of the 5 de Mayo battle against the French army, even though the French invaded Mexico and tried to impose an emperor (Maximilian I, Emperor of Mexico), they are looked upon with sympathy and interest and the country has put that in the past.

Russ: Thanks for the comments. I am from Monterrey, which is in north east Mexico and I live very close to Texas, I love Texas of course, have family and many friends there. I sometimes visit San Antonio and I’ve been to Austin a couple of times but I’ve never been in Dallas. I’d be happy to do some beer and bbq anytime.
In answer to your question: “La gente” means “people” and it is a noncount noun so we use it in singular form, but I believe your confusion arises from the fact that in English you do not use the article “the” before a plural or noncount noun when you use it in a universal or non specific statement as in for example: “Honey is sweet” or “birds fly” , but in Spanish we need to use the article “la, el, los, las” (all of these are simply “the”) so we say: “La miel es dulce” (Honey is sweet) or “Las aves vuelan” (birds fly), where the sentences would be incorrect without the “La” or “Los” articles. Also, it is important to remember that articles in spanish can be plural or singular and feminine or masculine. Hope that helps.

Midwesterner: Thanks a lot for the kind words and for sharing your own experience and I truly agree to what you say but what I believe is that it is also my responsibility to take those american principles of personal liberty and responsibility to my country.

James Bennett
Thanks for the comment and I take note of the books as well.
“The Anglosphere Challenge” at http://www.anglospherechallenege.com

John Murdoch: Thanks for the comments. I take note of the suggested readings as well. Patrick O’Brian works.

Sloan:
Thanks, I appreciate your interest in my case and take note of the links and books you suggest.
George Orwell has long been in my list of authors to read, I guess it is about time.