Many Americans who were children sometime between the 1950s and the 1980s no doubt remember Game of the States. It was (and evidently still is) a simpleminded catch-and-carry board game through which multiple generations learned vague, generic facts about the 50 states. That game is probably the reason I know all 50 state capitals to this day. Massachusetts and Georgia are tough because the answers are too obvious; South Carolina and West Virginia are tough because the answers seem almost intentionally confusing.
But the most important teaching tool in Game of the States was its playing surface, which depicted the United States floating in a sea of blue, an innocent island of Idaho potatoes, Missouri hams and Pennsylvania steel. If as economic history the game was completely devoid of context or dynamics, as geography it was even worse. Canada? Mexico? What and where are they, exactly? Both our neighboring nations appear to have vaporized. If any trade exists with them or anyplace else in the outside world, it’s entirely invisible.
Far too much about America is explained by Game of the States. We have an ingrained national tendency to behave as if the rest of the world simply doesn’t exist — or, on a slightly more sophisticated level, as if it were just a colorful backdrop for our vastly more important national dramas. The only time “foreign policy” plays a significant role in American politics — for liberals or conservatives or really anyone — is when a major overseas war becomes an unavoidable and damaging issue, as with Vietnam in 1968 and 1972, and Iraq in 2008. Continue reading.