The Gifts of Travel - The Wise World Traveler: Becoming a Part of All that You Meet - page 7

For students of American culture, geography lies near the center of the American ex-
perience. Rufus Miles writes of the consequences of a “virgin continent”:
Settlers of the North American continent found incalculable riches—seemingly inex-
haustible sources of food, fiber, hides, woods, and minerals with which to fashion
all the necessities and most of the amenities of life…Never again can human beings
stumble upon so mammoth an area of rich, sparsely populated, undercultivated and
easily exploitable land. [12]
In historian David Potter's observation, Americans were born a people of plenty. As a
consequence, it is customary to link American economic development with the optimism
that has dominated American culture. [13] More important, the easy availability of land for
taking (and conquering) gave America one of its most powerful social memories and our
mythic age—the westward movement, the frontier . The frontier, with land to be farmed,
forested, and mined, also gave opportunities for accumulating wealth. As Alexis de Toc-
queville wrote about America in the 1830s, “I know of no country, indeed, where the love
of money has taken stronger hold on the affections of men.” [14]
The frontier also fostered a sense of self-reliance, resistance to intrusive government,
and the importance of private property. Over time, we would make our system a market-
based, or capitalist, political economy. And perhaps most important of all, the availability
of land meant that the new America could escape European and Asian feudal systems. This
is why Karl Marx observed that America is the great exception to feudal social, politic-
al, and economic organization. Lacking that feudal history, America turned its back on an
ascriptive society, that is, a society in which rank and social privilege are inherited. As is
often said, a democratic outlook and a demand for democratic government are rooted in
American geography.