book review

Name
Professor’s name
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Lifestyle and beliefs separating America
Summary
The Big Sort is a book authored by a famous journalist Bill Bishop regarding how diversified the United States are. The book further shows that individuals prefer to put up in homogeneous neighborhoods. Bishop’s book points out that the Americans live in a sovereign state and they are embracing uniformity and moving away from lifestyles that are differentiated. Bishop’s argument is that in the early years, Americans moved from one place to the other in search of fiscal expansion but in the past thirty or so years, the movements are triggered by the desire to live in societies with a uniform way of life. Americans are moving into neighborhoods characterized by individuals they have common ideologies or have similar social status. Neighborhoods are therefore not defined by economies but are rather described by political, religious and social beliefs. Bishop, therefore, shows that the United States as a nation is getting separated when Americans form homogeneous groups that are centered on personal beliefs. Further disparities are created by the level of education of the Americans since characters are clustered depending on the academic qualification. Highly educated individuals get higher wages than those of lower educational qualification hence make those with higher academic qualification to occupy cities regarded rich or for the elite. Bishop’s book, therefore, depicts a separated nation due to the clustering of individuals sharing a lifestyle or belief.

Bishop does not only rely on his research, but he incorporates data from Robert Cushing’s sociological and statistical works on how America is sorted. Therefore, Cushing and Bishop show how Americans have been arranging themselves for the past thirty years depending on financial ability, political beliefs, and conviction and physical positions.
Why I like the book
Bishop’s book is moving, and it keeps a reader engaged since it is an actual depiction of the present situation in America. The book shows that the Americans are separated from unity. It is surprising that a nation, great and powerful as the United States can be defined as separated and full of disparities. It takes the genius work of Bishop and Cushing to show that lifestyle and beliefs divide America. First Bishop uses topographical maps to indicate the political beliefs of different parts of the United States. The first map used shows how political beliefs did not diversify people in the years before 1976. The second map used by Bishop to show how people are sorted into uniform groups depending on their political beliefs. Bishop does a marvelous job using the maps to explain how the sort occurred based on political beliefs. Bishop further uses different color schemes to show the distribution of individuals depending on political opinions. Therefore, Bishop’s view about the sort is self-explanatory since a reader can compare how people were spread in 1976 and how they how they became sorted in the year 2004. By using different color schemes, it becomes easier for a reader to distinguish regions with their political affiliations (Bishop and Cushing 7). The use of different colors further shows a reader the communities with similar beliefs but in different geographical areas of the United States. A reader can, therefore, postulate the views of the community in a different geographic area by studying another community with a similar color shade as that of the community of interest.
Bishop does a tremendous job in explaining how communities rather than states homogenize individuals. The author of the Big Sort, therefore, indicates that states do not hold similar political ideologies rather societies are responsible for their opinions. Grouping communities depending on their political beliefs helps people aspiring to be leaders in the US know the communities they can rely on for votes. Bishop shows that individuals living in same societies after the sort have similar lifestyles or political opinions hence making it easier for them to interact than when living in differentiated communities. Similar political communities make it easier for politicians to determine the effort they need to place during campaigns depending on the political beliefs. Therefore, Bishop’s book passes a message to the politicians to use communities rather than states to carry out their campaigns.
Dislikes
What I disliked about Bishop’s book is how it plays a negative role in promoting unity among the Americans since it shows that people are united by lifestyles or beliefs rather than on being citizens of one nation. Bishop shows that America is sorted by political, religious and financial beliefs. Further, Bishop shows that Americans are differentiated depending on their education levels since the elite lives together. Bishop’s book, therefore, acts as a rift between the Americans since it shows them the basis of their differences. The book creates a notion that Americans have no desire to embrace new ideas since they gather in communities characterized by similar opinions. If the people living in the homogeneous communities have a similar belief, then it becomes challenging to bring new ideas into America since people prefer to reside in places with neighbors they share ideologies. The Big Sort, therefore, depicts America as a united but separate nation, but in the actual sense, Americans are united despite having different opinions or lifestyles.
The Big Sort is lengthy hence making it boring to read. Bishop would have written a book with few pages to make people desire to study its content. The book has numerous pages that most readers will avoid if reading the book for leisure. Therefore, Bishop would have summarized the content of the book to make it appealing to readers since people will be scared by looking at its volume. The author should have reduced the diagrams so as to cut on the number of words used to explain the same. The over four hundred pages might be scary to some readers especially when it contains information regarding demographic patterns. Therefore, Bishop should have made his book shorter to ensure that it is appealing rather than scare readers by looking at the number of pages.
Rating
I would rate Bishop’s book with a seven on a scale of ten. First, the book uses pictures to explain how beliefs and lifestyles have affected people when it comes to making decisions regarding communities they decide to occupy. Secondly, Bishop’s book is a weapon for politicians since the maps in the book can help them locate region by their political affiliations. Were it not for the lengthy literature, I would have favorably rated the book with a nine out of ten. Further, the book encourages separation of the Americans because it shows that their unity depends on their beliefs and lifestyles. In conclusion, it is a good book that all Americans should be encouraged to read as a way of promoting unity among the citizens despite the existent sorts.

Work Cited
Bishop, Bill, and Robert G. Cushing. The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2008. Print.