The Graywolf Annual Ten: Changing Community

For nearly all of human history, our notion of community was centered on the family, tribe, and/or village. The centrality of that notion is at the core of our values. The 20th century brought air travel, a revolution in communications, the internationalization of culture and business, the growth of an "international language"--all in all, a complete overturning of our historic understanding of community.As a result, we now have to think about the many different levels and many new faces of community. Our families are nuclear, extended, and broken; few of us live in one place our entire lives, and most of our cities, towns, and regions change beyond recognition every few years. The concept of the nation-state itself is breaking down, and people are more closely identifying with biogegional, religious, or ethnic communities.Incorporating essays from a diverse range of sources such as Parabola , A Magazine of American Culture , the New Yorker , and The Well, a national computerized bulletin board, Changing Community examines the ways that our ideas of community are evolving.