Phil A. Neel

This is a whole book! Particularly eye-opening was the description of the counties so rural that they could not provide a deputy off-hours and advised people dealing with domestic abuse situations to move to other places. The argument that these areas of the country are particularly vulnerable to the power being taken over by extremists because extreme groups step in to provide those services is particularly strong.

This book did seem scattered, and it felt like Neel could have written more clearly edited books on every topic referenced here—the way that rural areas are decimated over time and the black markets that spring up there, the migration of rural people into urban areas and the process of becoming part of those places, and the urban organization of modern cities with an analysis of industrialized areas and demographic spread. The urgency carried this book beyond the scattered scope, but it feels like someone writing for the first time about issues, probably because I came into this knowing Neel is not from academia. He does not have the attitude that liberals should come in and change rural areas, which comes up when people from universities start this kind of analysis. Instead his writing sits on the edge of the coming revolution, looking over the groups that have succeeded elsewhere, at the rumblings of unrest in America. He doesn’t have a prescriptive solution, but he offers clues to what we might start to look for, which is in its own more honest way much more helpful.… (meer)