Characteristic Of The American Nation History Essay

Characteristic Of The American Nation History Essay The United States are different from the rest of the world in many aspects, and Americans themselves like to emphasize their uniqueness. Many books, introductions to cultural studies, manuals, textbooks, dictionaries, guides, articles, and essays have been written with one common aim. They all have tried to distinguish and call the American distinctness by real names, as well as they have attempted to explain why Americans are such an exceptional nation. This thesis is also one of the efforts to objectify a rather complicated jigsaw of the American character. In total amount of four chapters a complex portrait of an American will be offered. To start a research which quests a current form of any culture it is important to look firstly into its past. America may not have long history like English or Italian but still approximately 200 years of self-selective immigration were enough to set very clear distinctiveness typical for the United States. The first chapter of this thesis will attempt to point out various occurrences since the foundation of the first permanent settlement in the North America till 1776. Two greatest foreign traveler publications by Alexis de Tocqueville and J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur that contributed to the development of the national pride will be mentioned. These two historical sources will be compared with current literature and it will be observed whether they differ or not. Finally, it will be dealt with the proportions of European immigrants and how they helped to change the portrait of the American nation. The following chapter will continue on approximation of the American differentness by portraying the system of values. First of all, it will be clarified what is regarded as a value because traditionally more than one definition of this term occurs. It will be proven that values function like dominant pillars on which the structure of the American character has been built. Quite much attention will be paid to values like wor k, achievement, or equality because these values have their historical background and are still reflected not even in American behavior but also in stereotypes common about American citizens. The third part will be devoted to religion in the United States. This topic is purposely not attached to the chapter about values because as it will be explained, religion is traditionally not being mentioned as a value. What is more, religion will be portrayed as an independent factor touching different beliefs of common people but also like a factor contrasting to the secularity of the state. The very last and rather shorter chapter will comment on stereotypes and prejudices which often do not provide a very objective picture of the United States. Attention will be also paid to the notably higher number of American stereotypes in comparison to other countries. Finally some examples of individual stereotypes will be provided and by these means the picture of the American nation will be conclud ed. americans in terms of the historical development Ever since America has been discovered, especially the North America, it has represented an object of fascination to observers from other countries who have been trying to solve the question of American nationality. The quest of the American   [ 1 ]   national identity, and who or what is considered to be American is perennial. It is regarded as a common knowledge that the US is primarily and undoubtedly a country of immigrants. According to American historian John Harmon McElroy, more than 55 million immigrants have arrived into America in the last four centuries. Such a high number represents the largest movement of people flowing into a certain place or a country in the history of mankind (60).