Suggested Reading

The publishers of this volume have decided that they won't have anything to do with making it longer than it already is. Thus, the following is far from being a complete list of the works consulted by me and Nancy Balz in the course of our putting out the book. That list would run to thousands of items. What we've done, then, is compile something of an eclectic reading, viewing, and listening list for the monolingual English-speaking layperson intrigued enough by this book to wish to delve further into some topics raised here. The list is definitely not one of prime sources. The California Water Atlas, the novels of Faulkner, The Almanac of American Politics, and the songs of David Allan Coe have shaped my thinking a lot, and you will find them in the following pages. But many of the other suggestions are for the benefit of the nonprofessional wishing to learn more while being at least moderately entertained with reasonably basic material. Professionals interested in my prime sources - some of which are exotic indeed - are invited to get in touch with me through Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston. I would be especially interested in hearing from graduate students in search of dissertation topics who have access to very fast computers, some research money, and a high boredom threshold.

A textbook that introduces what its title clearly states it to be. A lot of others allude to the connection between economics and geography, but Messrs. Alexander and Gibson lay it out.

A magazine in a newly popularized field that a layperson can read. It has been of increasing academic interest since computer met census data.

The work that is the grandfather to others here.

Mr. Stewart's book is a very readable series of essays on the process of naming, suitable for a literary person's own library and containing much information on an item-by-item basis. There are also many place-name dictionaries in libraries.

Wilbur Zelinsky today is the dean of North American cultural geographers.

A 1940s look at our region-by-region history, social life, and customs, written in a descriptive style. Some well-known writers who contributed to this series over the years include Hodding Carter, Oscar Lewis, and Carey McWilliams.

This series of more-than-travel guides was the result of the 1930s Federal Writers' Project of the U.S. Works Progress Administration. Many of the essay sections on individual states still stand as well written and historically informative. Some of the books in the series, such as the one on Pennsylvania, are being reprinted in their original form.Others, like the California guide, have been periodically revised.

A wealth of factual information in a convenient travel guide-size on foreign lands brought to you by the feds who send diplomatic and military people to such spots as Mexico, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba. Encyclopedic information on the backwaters for the spouse of an E5.

"News analysis" written in 1835 that bears periodic reading and re-reading. This is a full edition, but some may find an abridged edition more appealing for the reread.

This is still the most amazing job of painting the United States, state by state, in existence. It is insightful, incisive, and entertainingly written. I still have difficulty imagining how he did it as fast as he did.

Also available in a paperback edition. Penguin Books, 1979.

Twenty years after Gunther, Neal Peirce, a syndicated columnist who works for the National Journal, went back to retrace his steps. The result was this book, followed by nine regional books, the latest on the Great Lakes region. Chockfull of facts, many of them political, which, unfortunately, dates some of the older volumes.

I'm not sure I buy the political thesis set forth in this book, but the cultural geography, with maps, is terrific.

Grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities under-wrote this ambitious publishing venture timed for Bicentennial-inspired reading. Nevertheless, the small volumes, such as the Louisiana one by Joe Gray Taylor, do provide a service: an Establishment view of each state's history in fewer than 200 pages published by a commercial publisher.

Calvin Trillin is to my mind the finest writer on North America appearing in periodicals today. Look especially for his "U.S. Journal" pieces in The New Yorker. This book makes for some pretty funny reading and for great eating on the road.

While I was writing this book, we used the 99th and 100th editions. A friend of mine has a copy on his night table for bedtime reading. I prefer The Almanac of American Politics, but to each his own.

This one has an enlightening introduction by the author's colleague Richard M. Scammon.

If you have time to read only one, make it the Wall Street Journal. It provides the most consistently thoughtful and interesting reading on the great "out there."

The most beautiful book I own.

I mauled and destroyed seven copies of the 55th edition (1979) in my travels. It was, along with my tape recorder, my most used tool.

Populations for U.S. counties based on final 1970 U.S. Census data.

A beautiful map made with sophisticated techniques that showed me how out of date a map could be before it was even published. Nineteen seventy is history for most of the Nine Nations' energy situations.

This was an early map made by the bureau with a computerized cartographic technique to promote the use of statistical maps as an analytic tool. The map uses data from the 1970 census of population. When the 1980 data start rolling from the machines, we ought to see some fascinating maps.

Indian lands and related facilities as of 1971.

These are recordings of "Yankee" humor, but they are not listed frivolously. North America does not express itself only in writing. It talks and sings, too.

New England's Southern Living. See Dixie references.

Also the film, John Ford, director, with Spencer Tracy. Columbia Pictures, 1958.

Samuelson writes regularly in the National Journal on Foundry topics.

A marvelously clear and concise discussion of the history and manufacture of steel, printed in the size and shape of a fold-up road map.

The seminal argument that federal funds are being drained from the Foundry to elsewhere.

How the other one tenth of 1 percent lives.

The modern classic on Alaska.

Only in the District of Columbia could this periodical attempt to thrive.

Ditto.

Gumbos, etouffees, and other fine Cajun cooking.

John Shelton Reed, who teaches sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has written a variety of delightful monographs on Dixie, including the marvelously titled "Below the Smith and Wesson Line: Reflections on Southern Violence." He has pioneered in the view of Southerners as an ethnic group.

Masquerading as a very popular magazine, this is the acculturation manual to the most recent New South.

Especially the title cut.

"Boat Drinks," on side 2, is this nation's anthem.

Especially side 1, cut 4, "Miami." This lyric Spanish love song to the city was a hit at the same time that a much-touted, very expensive, quite different, unsingable English-language song of the same name was being pushed unsuccessfully by the Chamber of Commerce.

"If That Ain't Country," side 2, is the essence of a new wave 1970s country song.

The whole album, but especially the title cut and reprise.

An authentic statement, still.

El Rey de Texas (the King of Texas), Norteno accordionist, Tejano folk hero, and MexAmerican cross-over artist.

The dean of outlaw country and western.

The most sensitive discussion of the new breed of person who is the Hispanic MexAmerican.

Also available in a paperback edition. Bantam Books, 1979.

What Southern Living is to Dixie, the East-West Journal is to Ecotopia.