I'll expect a lot of people to disagree with this but i'd rate it very high. Slightly behind book printing and steam power, (way?) ahead of radio and television. hm, or maybe i don't even rate it that high.

Should start a thread but w/e. Why isn't there an "American" (USA) national/ethnic identity (yet)? Er, not the Natives, what I mean is when asked their identity people may say 50%, 25% this, 15% that, etc, all these "old world" nations/tribes. How are these identities forged? Will there ever be an "American" identity, how long would it take?

I have no connection other than 'blood' with any Euro ethnic background whatsoever and am something like 40% English, 25% Irish, 25% Czech, 10% whothehellknowswhat (roughly) and I never think of my identity belonging to any of those peoples but there is no "American" identity (or is there?). Family on mother's side goes back to verrrrrry early colonial times, father's side 2nd/3rd generation (making me 4th/5th) whatever (different ethnic background with his parents) who never had any kind of "ethnic" type uhhh 'activities' (terrrrrible usage of language here I hope you get what I mean though). I know **** all about my 'people' in Ireland or whatever cultural things they celebrate. Nothing. There's no place in Europe I am 'from.'

Of course there is an American identity. Have you been outside the US as an American? People generally easily identify you as American--we're dripping with an "American" culture as much as the next nationality. If you did travel outside US, do people think you are from England? Even if you never left the country, how can you really think people don't identify themselves as Americans first, in general? What anthem do they sing? What flag do they wave? What language do they speak? What holidays do they observe? What media do they consume? What foods do they eat? This is all what makes a culture.

There is an American identity, granted. I misspoke. That whole thing is poorly worded. To say the least. I'm talking about ethnic identities. How do these develop? There were no "French" 300 years ago (er, around there--pretty sure) but now it is considered an ethnic identity. The USA goes back almost as far as ethnic identities like "German" (further in many cases--"Palestinian") but if you ask about their background the answer is always broken down into "part this and that etc." Do you get what I'm saying?

Vixticator:


Just a few quick thoughts regarding "American" as an indentity from my personal experience.

I am 25 years old, half Polish, half Italian. Of my four grandparents, three spoke a language other than English, at least very early in life. (They were all born in the U.S.; my great-grandparents all moved here from either Poland or Italy.) My paternal grandfather and maternal grandmother both could still speak Polish more or less fluently for their entire lives, while my other two grandparents gradually lost their ability to speak Italian.

If I don't cut to the chase I'll ramble on too long, so here's the gist: when my mother was a very young child, the older members of the family conversed in Italian, and basically ignored the young children. Fish was served for Christmas and Easter meals; there was no meat. Basically, the attachment to Italian culture on my mom's side of the family was strong. (To clarify I should probably point out that on my mom's side of the family I only know my grandpa's (the Italian) side.)

When I was very young, the members of my great-grandparents' generation began dying, and while I have some vague memories of Italian being spoken at family gatherings, those memories dissapear by the time I'm about 5 or 6. Still, Christmas and Easter were formal affairs for a long time. Recently, though, and I couldn't say exactly when it started, things have changed. People wear jeans on Christmas and Easter, pizza is an option at both meals, and of course nobody speaks Italian. Even so, I'm pretty confident all of them who are old enough to do so would identify as Italian rather than American.

I think the youngest generation now, though, is going to start to lose that sense of identity. A lot of my family members in their 30's or 40's are married to non-Italian spouses. My younger cousins, who range from about age 5-15, will never hear Italian spoken at a family gathering. I can't be sure of this, but I would bet heavily that most of my family members are ignorant of Italian culture and history.

All that being the case, I don't see the "hyphenated American" trend lasting forever. I can't imagine my younger cousins caring one way or another about their Italian identity, since I can't imagine them knowing anything about it. I think the time that different communities do away with it will be staggered, since the time that said communities arrived in this country is different, but I think there's a real possibility that, at least in the descendants of the late 19th/early 20th century immigrants, it could dissapear. I wouldn't take too strong a stand on it, though, beacause I think it could be the staggered arrival that results in Americans finding it necessary to use the hyphenated identity.

(On a side note, I find it interesting that the (overwhelmingly good) desire to assimilate results in the negative side effect of a language dying out in a family within say 40 years. I know very few Italian words, can only blaspheme in Polish.)

Heh, i also can't imagine your cousins without the strong Polish/Italian background saying that word. For those who don't know, obviously Italy, but even more so Poland are very religious/catholic.

Vix - what do you think is the German/French ethnic identity?

as for the background - it seems to me the reason they say "part this and that etc." is that you are an American - if they were in France im sure they'd say they were American - just like a Frenchman in the US says he's french and if he's in France that he comes from Paris or the Normandy or Marseille.
i think the reason there is no classic "ethnic identity" in the US is simply that it has always been and continues to be an immigration country.

does anyone have a history forum they prefer? obviously 2p2 is my first choice for reading, but the topics discussed up to this point are limited.

I don't need any other history forum. I'm quite satisfied with this one.

Course that I'm definitely registering for tomorrow at 1 PM:
Luckily "Pop" stands for Popular so I can't wait until we get into that jazz. Hopefully we won't just brief on it like we did in my America in the 1960s class.

I honestly never even thought to seek out a history forum before the idea of creating this one came up. If you've got something you want to discuss, feel free to start a thread. If nobody replies, I'll try and at least give my $.02 which can be worth -$5 to $.05 at any given time.

I'm sure this probably qualifies as low content, but if any of you are looking for a cheap resource to add to your historical or biographical library, I would strongly urge you to check out the Advanced Book Exchange, Abebooks.com.

This is an organization of booksellers who list their used books online - most at a huge discount. I am not a book seller nor affiliated with them in any way but I've used them for years and never been disappointed. It's interesting that they show History as their second most popular category. As a benefit, they have the books even broken down into areas of interest, such as:
Africa
African-American
Americas (North, Central, South, West Indies)
Ancient
Asia
Australia & New Zealand
Canada
Caribbean & West Indies
Civilization
Essays
Europe
Expeditions & Discoveries
General
Historical Geography
Historiography
Holocaust
Jewish
Latin America
Maritime
Medieval
Middle East
Military
Modern
Native American
North America
Oceania
Polar Regions
Prussian
Reference
Renaissance
Revolutionary
Social History
Study & Teaching
United States
World

For those seeking to establish an historical collection or add to an existing one, then ABE is worth a look.

Regards,
Yoda

In light of recent events reminding us of 9/11 and all the conspiracy theories my friends like to eat up from Alex Jones (i'm not sold on him), I thought it might be a good topic to discuss the legitimacy/debunking of false flag incidents that led to wars.

For example, the 1898 attack on the USS Maine which led to the Spanish-American war has often been speculated to be one.

In 1933 the Reishstag fire blamed on communists a week before elections that put enough Nazis in office to allow Hitler to rise to power, this most definately was one.

Go wild.

I really thought this would get some traction in the outer limits conspiracy debunking thread but perhaps its just too uninteresting a topic. We'll see if it raises any discussion here as I'm curious to what people will list.

Nope. It's still a hotly debated topic as to whether the communists or the nazis committed the arson attack, or whether Van der Lubbe acted alone. As far as I'm aware, there is no consensus among serious historians on who committed the attack.

You can get a flavour of the debate on the wiki page. It's an interesting topic to study.

This probably isn't threadworthy...I have a final coming up and this is 1 out of 3 questions that might be asked, I have a solid grasp on the other two.

I am looking for critique of my outline/approach as well as some assistance on how to get an A on this part of the final.

"Explain the origins of the scientific revolution. Were the theories of the ancient Greeks a hindrance or support? What influence did beliefs about magic and miracles have on the scientific revolution?"

Intro paragraph

explain the origins of the scientific revolution

- Findings of Galileo and Copernicus - church reaction
- Lifting of human dissection laws by the church.
- Replacement of the Aristotelian theory that all mates was continuous and made up of elements earth, water, air, fire and Aether. Matter is atomistic and complex.
- The introduction of the scientific method
- Kepler, Newton.
- Medical advances after the Plague.
- What other points should I touch on?

were the theories of the ancient greeks a hindurance or support?

Kind of meh on this one,

probably going to delve into Socrates, Aristotle, Ptolemy, geocentrism?

Anyone have any solid resources on this material? preciate it

Interesting read, I guess its too easy or naive to jump to the conclusion that the Nazis were behind the fire for sure. It was convenient but I suppose as one opinion read, the Nazis were just fortunate in the timing.

How about the Gulf of Tonkin incident, this one seems pretty clear cut with declassified documents and tapes.

I'm not an expert, but wasn't the Gulf of Tonkin incident a minor or non-incident which was lied about to the public in order to use it as a pretext for war, rather than strictly being a false flag incident (there is a distinction here)?

Third Reich: The Rise on The History Channel aorn

Third Reich: The Fall starts at 4pm EST

I'm reading a novel (The Adversary by Michael Walters) which mentions in passing that some Mongolian troops served in Afghanistan alongside Soviet troops during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Although subservient to Soviet foreign and domestic policy, Mongolia was not a Warsaw Pact country. Does anybody here know the scale of Mongolian involvement during the occupation? Did any of the Warsaw Pact countries send troops?

So you know...

twoplustwo.com/55/about-forums/why-has-history-become-history-1144119/

I suspect this is pretty easy, and the answer is most likely Ulysses S. Grant. It occurred years before the Civil War when he was stationed in California as his army assignment. The word is that he was lonely and essentially drank himself out of the army. But I suspect if he had stayed in the army, the strategy and tactics he used in the war might have been somewhat different, and/or perhaps he wouldn't have even made it to the 1860s.

Best wishes,
Mason

Attila probably drank himself to death, and Alexander may have, too.

I think drinking may have had far more impact on history then we lead on about in traditional history study. Opium use was also something there is great evidence impacted many events as well.

I wonder if much of the "Berserkers" (or berserks) that were Norse warriors who are reported in the Old Norse literature to have fought in a nearly uncontrollable, trance-like fury, a characteristic which later gave rise to the English word berserk were actually drunk or on some type of drug.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berserker