THE NEW WORLD OF THE GOTHIC FOX
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and least fashionable ones.) Basically, Veliz maintains that the Industrial
Revolution born in England and now residing in the United States is
not near its end but at its midpoint: "We are not elsewhere but in the
middle of an English Industrial Revolution that is scarcely more than
two centuries old and shows no symptoms of weakness or decline."
Moreover, "the possibility of Ithe I metropolitan center [of this Industrial
Revolutionl emigrating elsewhere li .e., from the U.S.I in the foreseeable
future is virtually insignificant." This appears to be at least implicitly an
argument against Yale historian Paul Kennedy's notion of the decline of
U .S. influence, and it is explicitly set off against the view expressed in
1989 by Derek Bok, that the United States is now " in the early stages of
a long decline like that of Britain in the early part of the nineteenth
century which continues to the present day."
The Kennedy-Bok view is what some like to call "the received wis–
dom"; Veliz challenges it head-on, contending that what was most dis–
tinctive about the English Industrial Revolution now flourishing vigor–
ously in the U.S. is its creativity, its capacity to nourish and encourage
the continuing innovation of cultural and economic activities, ideas, and
products that have appeal throughout the entire world.
It
is this capacity
to
create what people everywhere want, he says, that enables the U.S. to
meet the challenges from countries such as Japan and other Asian Tigers
(South Korea, Taiwan , Singapore, Hong Kong). The latter are
spectacular at adapting and organizing but not in innovating. To
support this argument, Veliz provides an avalanche of diverse and often
novel examples: sports, movies, cartoons, Safeways, the TV program
Dallas,
automobiles, freeways, suburbs, McDonald's, skyscrapers, airlines,
and the vast complex of activities associated with them, credit cards,
laundromats, and, last but not least, "Happy Birthday to You ," "the
most often performed song on earth," which was first published in
Louisville, Kentucky, in 1893.
It
is hard to refute his contention that no
other country has been or is so innovative across so many fields of human
endeavor in ways that appeal to so many people, places, and cultures
worldwide. And if, along the way, Veliz the Chilean can embellish his
argument with a few gentle, playful digs at mother country Spain or
friendly neighborhood rival Argentina, so much the better for him.
I am not surprised that the reviews of his book which I have seen so
far have ignored this particular argument. Not only is it novel, it is also
politically incorrect. However, there also are legitimate questions
to
raise
about Veliz's thesis. Does he overvalue consumerism and commerce and
undervalue aesthetic and interpersonal considerations? Does he neglect
phenomena that do in fact support a picture of the "U.S. in decline ,"
