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United States

With an estimated population of 309,605,000, the United States is the third most populous country in the world and one of the most diverse. Originally inhabited by a wide variety of Native American tribes, the lands of present-day United States were colonized by England, the Netherlands, France, Spain, Sweden, and Russia before being acquired first through the 13 British colonies' successful war for independence and later through wars, annexations, and purchases of land from European powers. Within 100 years of the nation's declaration of independence, it was the world's largest national economy, establishing itself as a worldwide military power in World War I and the first nuclear power at the end of World War II. Since the end of the Cold War, it has been the world's only superpower and remains a prominent cultural, political, and economic influence on the world.

Historical Perspectives

The social networks of the United States can be described in a variety of spheres but foremost is its distinctiveness in the way it was settled and the origins of the present-day population. American histories focus heavily on the political, religious, and cultural legacy of the founding fathers and the 13 original colonies, but few Americans can trace their roots to that period; for those who can, it is often through distant kinship ties. In the Revolutionary War period, the United States was significantly smaller in area than today's country. The acquisition of further territories brought in large numbers of Spanish and French, while within a few decades of the country's founding, immigration began in great numbers. The country was large and well protected from foreign threats, with an availability of agriculturally promising land that no European nation, nor for that matter collective Europe, could match. Some of the earliest immigrants were French refugees from Haiti, fleeing the slave revolt there; northern Europeans followed, then southern and eastern Europeans in significant numbers from the middle of the 19th century on. Asians (especially Chinese immigrants brought in as laborers), Mexicans, Latin Americans, and the large number of Africans forcibly brought in by the slave trade followed as well. Various immigration acts attempted to control immigration patterns and, specifically the ethnic makeup of the country; but by the time of the U.S. Civil War, the United States could not properly be called an Anglo-American nation as it had once been. In 1965, immigration was finally liberalized what was at the time a great controversy stirred by those who believed this would dilute the American character.

Any legal constraints on immigration in U.S. history have been network based. The first constraints were based on country of origin—countries were privileged and prioritized roughly according to how similar they were to the United States' ethnic status quo. Since 1965, constraints have been based instead on family connections, no less a biological link than the older country of origin constraints but one that equalizes Americans while in a sense elevating them equally above all others.

The Decline of American Social Networks

In his study of American social networks, Bowling Alone, Harvard sociologist Robert Putnam found that while Americans spent the first two-thirds of the 20th century forming closer and closer ties (culminating, in a sense, in 1965 immigration reform), they spent the last third reversing that trend. Furthermore, many of the gains of the 20th century were due to the creation of those ties. Even Prohibition, now viewed as a failed experiment, was at the time a success of American social networks and an outgrowth of a larger and more successful movement: the progressive movement, which encouraged active participation in democracy, not an easy task for such an ever-growing and ever-diversifying nation. Less mitigated successes were the various civil rights movements that fought for rights for women, blacks, Native Americans, homosexuals, and other disenfranchised groups; the campus activism that had developed a voice for young Americans; the formation of communes, religious communities, and other intentional communities throughout the country; and the “can do” American spirit that had long been credited with beating the Depression, turning the tide in World War II, and helping to rebuild Europe after the war. As much as their parents and other adults may have complained about the young people of the 1960s or disagreed with their specific goals and motives, those teenagers and college students of the baby boom generation possessed a civic vitality that others found admirable and that they themselves would reflect on nostalgically in the decades that followed, even while disengaging from these activist communities and drifting further and further from their participatory peak as they let their previous social networks become neglected.

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