ALL OVER THE MAP: RETHINKING AMERICAN REGIONS

	CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., Feb. 1 -- Far from being buried by
forces of mass culture, commercialism and increased mobility,
differences between America's regions are as strongly defined -- and
cherished -- as ever, a distinguished group of historians says in a
newly published book.
	With newcomers and old-timers alike showing impassioned
attachments to local places, the country is undergoing a regional
renaissance that is basically multicultural and inclusive in spirit,
say the four historians, each of whom has ties to a different region
and contributes an essay to the book, "All Over the Map: Rethinking
American Regions" (Johns Hopkins University Press).  The scholars --
Edward L. Ayers and Peter S. Onuf of the University of Virginia,
Patricia Nelson Limerick of the University of Colorado and Stephen
Nissenbaum of the University of Massachusetts -- trace changes the
concept of region has undergone in the national experience and
conclude that regional differences continue to play a significant
role in Americans' self-image.
	 There has long been a cyclical process of forgetfulness and
rediscovery of the idea of region in the United States, the authors
say, with the Civil War giving "a tragic, historic weight" to
regional thinking.  The "new regionalism" is evident not only in
academic studies, but in a strong resurgence of interest in local
history, racial and ethnic history, environmentalism, historical
preservation, and in the growth of regional magazines, festivals,
tourism advertising and even such new products as local beers and
wines.
	In an age of "lost faith in national innocence and the
national state" and disillusionment with big structures, "many
Americans have apparently decided that places closer to home deserve
more of their loyalty," Onuf, a Connecticut-born specialist in early
America, and Ayers, a Southern historian raised in Tennessee, write
in an introduction to the study.  Regional accents "are not being
scrubbed away by mass media," "historical memory has never been so
lovingly cherished," and positive and negative stereotypes about
regions are as strong as ever, they assert.
	America's broad regions, including their exact boundaries,
have always been in flux, and this is one their strengths, the U.Va.
historians stress.  Malls and cable TV may be a threat, but the
greatest threats to regions, they warn, are "attempts to freeze
places in time," to define some particular aspect of a region as its
essence, leading people to worry when that special quality seems to
be disappearing. "It is better, we think, to recognize that regions
have always been complex and unstable constructions generated by
constantly evolving systems of government, economy, migration, event
and culture.
	"We are skeptical of those who want to lay claim to some
kind of ownership of regional identity, to identify their 'heritage'
as the genuine one.  We think it is important to see regions more
expansively, to include more people as genuine participants in the
creation of regional life."
	Regional identity is usually more about belonging than it is
about exclusion, say Onuf and Ayers.  "People seem able to 'become'
Southerners or Westerners in a way they cannot become black or
white, Italian or Puerto Rican. Cowboy hats and blue jeans are worn
by both Mexican Americans and Anglos; hunting and fishing appeal to
both black and white Southerners; professional sports enable
white-collar and working-class people across New England to identify
with one another and their region."
	Americans have a persistent but not wholly accurate set of
assumptions about regions, according to Onuf, author of "The Origins
of the Federal Republic," and Ayers, whose "The Promise of the New
South" has won wide acclaim. One assumption is that regional
identity is an inheritance from the past that must be preserved
against "the ravages of modern life." To many people there was a
time in the past when each region was most fully itself:  "the Old
South," "the Old West," "pristine New England."
	Another assumption is that regional differences naturally
developed out of variations in the American landscape.  Thus
regional differences in people appear to mimic regional differences
in land and climate, resulting in cold, flinty New Englanders,
hot-tempered, slow-paced Southerners, and hardy, independent
Westerners.
	A region "is climate and land," the historians concede. "It
is a particular set of relations between various ethnic groups; it
is a relation to the federal government and the economy; it is a set
of shared cultural styles.  But each of these elements is constantly
changing....The result of these changing relationships is regional
history."
	A key theme of their study is that awareness of distinct
American regions didn't spring up until the founding of the nation.
The little communities that made up colonial America of course had
vast cultural differences, says Onuf, whose essay focuses on the
origins of regionalism.  But real consciousness of those
differences, and the identification of economic interests or of
cultural patterns that could be seen as distinctly regional,
depended on a common context that had not existed before the
Revolution.  "Without the whole, there could be no parts."
	American nationalism came before regionalism and was "the
necessary precondition" for the development of regional
consciousness, says Onuf.  Regionalism was compatible with, and
helped Americans express, their national identity, until the two
identities became tragically tangled in the Civil War.
	Today, Americans refuse to let regional identity die, he
says, because "it offers something that appears hard to find in mass
society: a form of identity that promises to transcend ethnic
boundaries, to unite people across generations."   
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January 31, 1996
	[Review copies of "All Over the Map: Rethinking American
Regions" are available from The Johns Hopkins University Press at
(410) 516-6932.  For interviews Edward Ayers may be reached at (804)
924-924-7585 and Peter Onuf at (804) 924-3478.]