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Countries that have preoccupied Americans the most since 1900

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Re: Countries that have preoccupied Americans the most since 1900

#91

Post by everyone »

lordnacho wrote: post #24

What's interesting is if you did this for just about any other country, there would be a wall of star spangled banners. If you ever travel outside the US, you inevitably hear about what the US is doing, what they're discussing, who the important people are, etc. The reverse is not true: - Everyone outside the US knows the top US politicians. You even know what issues they are discussing, like gun control and healthca…

"What's interesting is if you did this for just about any other country, there would be a wall of star spangled banners."

Pure conjecture.

Making that statement however does tell us a lot about you.

Re: Countries that have preoccupied Americans the most since 1900

#92

Post by bloak »

lordnacho wrote: post #24

What's interesting is if you did this for just about any other country, there would be a wall of star spangled banners. If you ever travel outside the US, you inevitably hear about what the US is doing, what they're discussing, who the important people are, etc. The reverse is not true: - Everyone outside the US knows the top US politicians. You even know what issues they are discussing, like gun control and healthca…

What you've written there would definitely be an exaggeration for the UK. I would guess that most university-educated British people would not be able to point out more than a couple of US states on a map. Very little interest in US sport here, as far as I know, except perhaps tennis and maybe golf, for a minority of people. As for films and pop music: hard to say, seeing as the same films and songs are probably being pushed here. Of course, a significant proportion of university-educated adults have no interest in films or pop music and couldn't name a single recent pop song from their own country (though they'd be able to name songs that were in the charts when they were teenagers).

US trivia finds its way very easily into UK news. Probably lazy journalists take anything off social media that is in a language they can understand and copy-paste, with the result that in the UK media there is more of that kind of story from the US than from the UK.

Trump's antics get reported. I'm not sure British people are generally aware of there being any other politicians in the US.

Re: Countries that have preoccupied Americans the most since 1900

#93

Post by maire »

imhoguy wrote: post #34
FeteCommuniste wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Putting Russia and the Soviet Union under the same flag is the obvious one.

"...Through the Eyes of the US" they mean the same.

A lot of times this is done for continuity of the data not for political ignorance.

If you look at gapminder.org they use modern countries so that you can track data over time. Gapminder goes back to 1800 before Germany existed - yet they still call it Germany.

Gapminder was originally Swedish although it is now owned by Google.

Re: Countries that have preoccupied Americans the most since 1900

#94

Post by suming »

Emma_Goldman wrote: post #3

A few things which I found of note: 1. The blanket of Union Jacks, especially in the first half of the 20th century. 2. The impact of the Korean War clearly pales in comparison to the impact of Vietnam. 3. If you didn't know better, it would look like the US and China were at war. 4. France in 1926-27. I'm not sure what happened in France of international significance then? The bombing of Damascus?

super nit: the flag used for China before 1949 is incorrect. The PRC (People's Republic of China) didn't rule China until 1949. From 1912-1949 the flag of ROC (Republic of China) should be used.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_China_(1912–1949...

Re: Countries that have preoccupied Americans the most since 1900

#95

Post by austincheney »

lordnacho wrote: post #24

What's interesting is if you did this for just about any other country, there would be a wall of star spangled banners. If you ever travel outside the US, you inevitably hear about what the US is doing, what they're discussing, who the important people are, etc. The reverse is not true: - Everyone outside the US knows the top US politicians. You even know what issues they are discussing, like gun control and healthca…

Here are my assessments as somebody who has traveled to South America, Europe, and spent 4 years living in the Middle East.

> Everyone outside the US knows the top US politicians. You even know what issues they are discussing, like gun control and healthcare.

That is only vaguely true. People outside the US tend to know of these issues in the media about as well as the average American, which isn't very well.

> You'll know the names of the states. How many other foreign countries do you know the subdivisions of?

I don't find that is true. Most Americans don't even know of most US states and I find people outside the US are about as aware of US geography as the average American. Americans that frequently travel abroad tend to be well versed in geography particularly where they are traveling to. Likewise, foreigners who travel to the US to be far better aware of US geography than the average American.

> You know what movies are big in the US. You know what songs are popular.

That is absolutely true. Everybody is in love with American media.

Re: Countries that have preoccupied Americans the most since 1900

#96

Post by lordnacho »

cf498 wrote: post #90
lordnacho wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What good does it actually do to know just the names from memory. Without any context they are rather useless. Point is if you don't know any names, you don't know any context either.

I would argue, that you inadvertently learn the names once you learn of the context. I would see it more as a filing system. If there is nothing it points to, whats the benefit of knowing it in the first place.

This is just a syllogism. Context -> names. !names -> !context.

So we can tell that a guy who hasn't heard of eigenvectors (name) doesn't know much about linear algebra (context).

Re: Countries that have preoccupied Americans the most since 1900

#97

Post by erikbye »

pixl97 wrote: post #62
TimesOldRoman wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Knowing about France is equivalent to knowing about California. US states behave a lot like EU members and knowing many US states is not indicative of anything.

Yep. How many US counties would a person from outside the US know about.

These are just the ones that come to mind right now: oakland county, providence, dupage, king, fairfax, essex, norfolk, san bernardino, los angeles, orange, spokane, sedgwick, sonoma, fresno, queens, cook, wayne, almeda, sacramento, san francisco, oklahoma... Don’t ask why these are the ones that come to mind, but I would bet I know 70-80% from books and movies, the rest from news articles.

Re: Countries that have preoccupied Americans the most since 1900

#98

Post by coldtea »

nothrabannosir wrote: post #35
lordnacho wrote: post #24

What's interesting is if you did this for just about any other country, there would be a wall of star spangled banners. If you ever travel outside the US, you inevitably hear about what the US is doing, what they're discussing, who the important people are, etc. The reverse is not true: - Everyone outside the US knows the top US politicians. You even know what issues they are discussing, like gun control and healthca…

> You'll know the names of the states. How many other foreign countries do you know the subdivisions of I prefer to compare the USA with Europe as a whole, its member countries as states. In that light, I wager many Americans would know quite a few. Norway, France, Germany, Poland, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Ireland surely would make the majority? Maybe even Belgium. Are we still allowed to say UK? Americans love to chast…

>In that light, I wager many Americans would know quite a few. Norway, France, Germany, Poland, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Ireland surely would make the majority? Maybe even Belgium. Are we still allowed to say UK?

As names (if that). Try having them pinpoint them on a map, or say anything intelligent about them.

Re: Countries that have preoccupied Americans the most since 1900

#99

Post by adventured »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #38
nothrabannosir wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You'll know the names of the states. How many other foreign countries do you know the subdivisions of I prefer to compare the USA with Europe as a whole, its member countries as states. In that light, I wager many Americans would know quite a few. Norway, France, Germany, Poland, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Ireland surely would make the majority? Maybe even Belgium. Are we still allowed to say UK? Americans love to chast…

What percentage of Americans could confidently name one state of India or one province of China? Our education system somewhat talks about Europe, but most of the world is basically ignored.

What percentage of people outside the US will know the name or location of more than a few US states? I'd bet it's extraordinarily low. I'd bet less than 1% of the world's adult population can name more than six US states. My experience has been, educated people I know from Europe struggle to do a lot better than that. Point them out on a map? Forget about it beyond the obvious or famous ones like California, Florida, Alaska (near Russia), Hawaii (island), Texas (they know it's big and in the middle), maybe NY, and a select few others. US states have the population and economies of European nations. Americans are unfairly criticized for supposedly not being able to name or locate a lot of other countries. The rest of the world can't name or locate US states either. Why? Because it doesn't matter to their lives. A few of my friends from Romania didn't know where Crimea was, because it wasn't something that mattered to them previously until the conflict. Ask someone from Bulgaria or Belarus which state is Alabama, they generally won't know because it doesn't make much sense for them to learn that.

Re: Countries that have preoccupied Americans the most since 1900

#100

Post by coldtea »

jacobmoe wrote: post #45
clatan wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do be hard on yourselves, because the rest of the world isn't so proudly uneducated.

Is there any real difference between those who think the US is uniquely terrible in every way and those who think it is uniquely great in every way?

Only accuracy.
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