is America really the lone superpower
everyone thinks it to be hi I’m Veronica
watchmojo.com and today we had the
opportunity to speak with author of what
is America mr. Ronald ray your new book
is titled what is America why did you
choose that as the title partly I was
picking up on an old essay that was
written back at the time of American
independence by a cracker called what is
an American that is kind of the first
expression of the American Dream and the
question doesn’t only apply to what is
the United States it also really is
about what is the role of the Americas
in North Central and South in world
history America and the rest of the
world sees itself as very far advanced
but you suggest that they have in our
cake mentality can you elaborate on this
well I think America has done a very
good job of persuading itself and
persuading the rest of the world that it
is in the forefront of modernity
technologically that is often being true
but when you look at their political
culture and the social attitudes what we
find is actually a very parochial
provincial and archaic mentality that’s
pretty far out of the mainstream of
Western civilization most of the Western
world’s not have the capital punishment
at all every other Western nation has
had some sort of universal health care
for its citizens and the United States
has avoided and resisted that and sees
it as a kind of socialist plot so in
many ways the United States doesn’t get
it throughout the book why did you
decide to use this versus the popular
stories the popular stories are the
myths you know the winning of the West
the idea that it was an empty land and
therefore the United States is all about
freedom and opportunity it has been
about freedom and opportunity for white
immigrants but it’s also been a place of
constant warfare against the original
inhabitants also slavery notoriously
what I was interested in really was
tracking this American Imperial and
colonial attic
and particularly the parts that we tend
to forget what I’m trying to do here is
not just pick out sort of bad deeds in
the past cuz every powerful nation has
those on its CV but to see the patterns
of behavior
America has Americanized the world but
you suggest that it’s time that it finds
a new way to do things why do you say
that I think the American culture was
forged by a colonial process the taking
of the land of the original Americans
later when industrialization began the
process accelerated enormous li and that
enabled in the United States to conquer
the northern half of Mexico to throw the
railways across the continent and then
to move on into the Pacific those have
led to an economic system and a
political system that believes that
human beings can go on expanding forever
the trouble is that we’ve run out of
room
everyone thinks it to be hi I’m Veronica
watchmojo.com and today we had the
opportunity to speak with author of what
is America mr. Ronald ray your new book
is titled what is America why did you
choose that as the title partly I was
picking up on an old essay that was
written back at the time of American
independence by a cracker called what is
an American that is kind of the first
expression of the American Dream and the
question doesn’t only apply to what is
the United States it also really is
about what is the role of the Americas
in North Central and South in world
history America and the rest of the
world sees itself as very far advanced
but you suggest that they have in our
cake mentality can you elaborate on this
well I think America has done a very
good job of persuading itself and
persuading the rest of the world that it
is in the forefront of modernity
technologically that is often being true
but when you look at their political
culture and the social attitudes what we
find is actually a very parochial
provincial and archaic mentality that’s
pretty far out of the mainstream of
Western civilization most of the Western
world’s not have the capital punishment
at all every other Western nation has
had some sort of universal health care
for its citizens and the United States
has avoided and resisted that and sees
it as a kind of socialist plot so in
many ways the United States doesn’t get
it throughout the book why did you
decide to use this versus the popular
stories the popular stories are the
myths you know the winning of the West
the idea that it was an empty land and
therefore the United States is all about
freedom and opportunity it has been
about freedom and opportunity for white
immigrants but it’s also been a place of
constant warfare against the original
inhabitants also slavery notoriously
what I was interested in really was
tracking this American Imperial and
colonial attic
and particularly the parts that we tend
to forget what I’m trying to do here is
not just pick out sort of bad deeds in
the past cuz every powerful nation has
those on its CV but to see the patterns
of behavior
America has Americanized the world but
you suggest that it’s time that it finds
a new way to do things why do you say
that I think the American culture was
forged by a colonial process the taking
of the land of the original Americans
later when industrialization began the
process accelerated enormous li and that
enabled in the United States to conquer
the northern half of Mexico to throw the
railways across the continent and then
to move on into the Pacific those have
led to an economic system and a
political system that believes that
human beings can go on expanding forever
the trouble is that we’ve run out of
room
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