At Globalicity, Gardiner Rynne makes an interesting comparison between cultural changes in 21st Century China and 20th Century America. His touchstone? The way in which Tarkington wrote about the automobile’s impact on American culture.

Bear in mind that this is not some sentimental, twenty-first century tree-hugger pining away for the halcyon past. Tarkington was writing as one who could remember America before the automobile took over. A related, albeit darker, consideration of such change would be Neil Gainer’s American Gods. Despite the name, I would think this would be particularly relevant to Indians as they watch Lakshmi, the Hindu god of wealth metamorphosis into just wealth. Do they remake the god or just discard it? … What were the geographic efficiencies that were a “natural” part of life before the automobile spread out our cities? Read Tarkington’s Penrod to get a sense of daily life for a boy who didn’t have a soccer mom to taxi him from place to place. India and China are at a crossroads. They have to choose how tightly they will embrace the automobile, as this article notes. If they can recognize this while it is still a choice, as opposed to a necessity as it has become for us, they may be able to prevent some of the foolish excesses to which America has succumbed.