November 9, 2005

Rhode Island Culture

The Encyclopedia of New England

Carroll Andrew Morse

OpinionJournal has a short review of a reference book titled the Encyclopedia of New England…

The book draws on the efforts of some 1,000 contributors and, spooled out over 1,564 pages, touches on a nearly boundless range of topics, from the textile mills of the Industrial Revolution to the Internet boom of the information age; from clamming to aquaculture; from Ralph Waldo Emerson to Robert Frost; from the Harvard-Yale game to the Boston Red Sox. The tidy entries are accessible to the general reader and end with suggested readings for further study.
The review caught my eye mainly because of this one sentence that I think is a bit over-the-top…
The "Encyclopedia" also rightly emphasizes New England's complicated and often ambivalent place in the nation. It is a region both distinctly apart from America and yet a part of it just the same.
I'd like to hear what other New Englanders think of this idea. Do you feel like you’re living in a place “distinctly apart from America and yet a part of it just the same”? And do Rhode Islanders, in particular, feel a sense of belonging to a larger New England?

12:50 PM
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Well, on multiple occasions I've been known to compare Rhode Island to a Central / South American "Banana Republic" so perhaps that qualifies as feeling that RI is a place “distinctly apart from America and yet a part of it just the same." ; )

Posted by: Tom W at November 9, 2005 6:05 PM