Canada and the U.S. aren't young

[rousseau]

A bit of a historical pet peeve of mine is the notion that Canada and the U.S. 'don't have a lot of history', a perspective that I find really odd.

If you want to take a modernist, nationalist point of view, and delineate the history of Canada and the U.S. from that of Europe based on when they formed a rigid government, it makes sense, but the thing is European history is North American history.

The best term I've come across to illustrate this point is 'proto-Europe'. While we have actual Europe, the rest of 'Western' society is actually a de facto Europe. Get your mind out of geographical and political boundaries and the history of North America and even Australia is the history of Europe. Our cultural customs, life-ways, and linguistic patterns are one and the same. So to study 'Canada' we're also studying an extension of Europe and not a distinct entity.

And there you have it, a Saturday morning historical perspective over coffee.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Kind of a silly pet peeve.
Sure, humanity isn't young, human history extends back longer than known history and distinctions and milestones can be seen as artificial divides in that history.
But if you're going to accept the milestone (Canada) in any form, that milestone does not extend all that far into history.

Not when you compare something like the timeline of American presidents to the timeline of English Monarchs. Yes, some of the English monarchs were the monarchs of the people who became Americans, but that fact doesn't make America any older than it actually is.

So to study 'Canada' we're also studying an extension of Europe and not a distinct entity.

I would say that we could not fully understand Canada without understanding the Europe that helped create it, but it is a distinct entity. Or rather, your view that it isn't seems no less biased and contrived than the view that it is.

 

[rousseau]

I'm just trying to bring down smug Europeans, that's all

If you were to approach North America historically you could do it from a number of perspectives, including the definition of Canada as a distinct entity. That's quite common as you can't sell a book based on the perspective I mention. People are either looking for Canadian history, or European history, rarely both.

But I don't think it's actually correct to call Canada a distinct entity, at least when you're putting it in the context of European history. To say something like 'Canada has no history' and 'Europe has a ton of history' makes no sense because Canada is a British colony and directly descended from Europe. It's socio-economic and cultural development is a direct extension out of early-modern Europe, it's just in a different geographic position. In other words, outside of modern political boundaries there is no delineation between Canada, the U.S. and Britain, outside of geographic proximity.

But on the other hand, if you want to understand Canada within the framework of the modern global economy, then you need to look at what distinguishes it from Europe, in which case it does make sense to look at it as a distinct nation state. That's not so much history, though, as much as it is modern international relations.

 

[LordKiran]

As de facto polities go, there are younger nations in Eurasia than the US and Canada.

 

[ronburgundy]

The U.S. didn't exist 1776. The fact that many aspects of it were derived from prior societies doesn't make it any older than that, just like the fact that you were derived from your parents makes you any older than the date of your birth.

Also, the "birth" of the US as a nation is not merely some technicality with no relevance to its culture and the current realities of the nation. What came before the American Revolution was a qualitatively different context and thus society. It's not just the laws that the US constitution changed, but a psychological shift in all members of the society who only then had a national identity.

Plus, that wasn't even the start of many of the regional cultures in the Western states. California is only 160 years old. LA currently has half the population of London, but both are massive influential cultural centers. However, London has been a massive cultural center for several centuries, with over 100,000 people back in 1500. There are still people alive who were born when LA was a relatively unpopulated nothing whose population didn't pass 100,000 until 1900, and then exploded when the Dust Bowl pushed people West. London as a population center on the leading edge of modernity goes back over 25 generations, compared to less than 5 generations for LA.

 

[BH]

I would say a big cultural difference between the US and Europe is that while the US had slavery we never knew a feudal period. I think that this lack of experience is one reason the US lags behind most western and developed Asian nations in its attitude towards social issues. Under feudalism (at least in theory) the employer (noble or churchman) did actually owe the serf something simply because the serf was a human whose value went beyond economic considerations. Yes, the serf owed the noble or churchman too but they had the idea that just being a human being means you were entitled to bare clothing and sustenance and protection. You have value in theory at least because you were simply a human being and not because you made someone money. We in the US never had that attitude on a large enough scale to encompass the the morals views of the great majority of society. This is why we are so cut throat and treat each other so shitty and have a pittance of a welfare state always on the verge of being cut back even more. Even though it would be horrible and do not want it to happen I have wondered if it would be good for the US long term if we ever had another great depression hit or ever got bombed to smithereens like Germany did or Japan did in World War Two and have an enemy come in and actually take over the place. I wonder if our people would learn to help each other out more by being put in desperate straights or would we act like tigers, lions, and bears all thrown in a jail cell together.

 

[bilby]

The 'new world' has a rich and detailed history, almost all of which was lost when these places were colonized by Europeans. As a result of this loss, it is IMO correct to say that the US, Canada and Australasia have no history; And attempts to link the history of pre-colonial Europe to that of the 'new world' are further undermining any attempt to recover that lost history.

Before colonization, the lands now occupied by the handful of nations we call the new world, were occupied by a large number nations and tribal peoples, with their varied languages and cultures, in which treaties, trade, alliances, wars, revolutions, and all manner of history all took place; But little is known about these historic events. Historians and archaeologists describe the time before the earliest surviving written records as 'pre-history', and it is telling that 'pre-historic' in the Americas usually means 'before 1492', and in Australasia 'before 1788', as compared to the European meaning of 'before 440BC'. Australian history and pre-history have a duration of between 40,000 and 60,000 years, only the last 229 of which are 'history'; European history and pre-history are about 5,000 years shorter in total, but include almost 2,500 years that are 'history' - more than ten times the 'history' found in Australia, and about five times the 'history' found in America.

The established nature of the cultural artefacts in recent European history renders this period of little interest to archaeologists; At a dig in New England, every little bit of plough soil is sieved to recover any artefacts therein, as these are precious lost remnants of the ephemeral buildings and possessions of the early colonists; at a similar dig in (old) England, the plough soil is often stripped back with a backhoe, and discarded, because it is unlikely to contain anything older than a few hundred years, and as such is disinteresting - any European archaeologist who wants to see an example of 18th century pottery can find perfect specimens in a museum, and need not try to reconstruct them from fragments found in the dirt.

As BH points out, North America has also had a serious dearth of war and other hardships, when compared to Europe (and even more so when you only consider very recent history - within living memory). To North American civilians, war is something that happens to other people. The demolition of a few buildings in New York, and the attack by Japan on Hawaii, were held out as massively traumatic events - and of course, they were for those who lived through them - but the experience of almost every city in Europe makes these events look incredibly tame. In WWII, almost every German town and city was bombed to rubble - they didn't have a few buildings demolished, they had a few buildings left standing. It's a completely different scale of trauma, and it has had an enormous effect on the attitudes of the public. It was like 9-11, plus Pearl Harbor, several times a day, every day for four years.

The oldest building in my current home town, which is considered a remarkable and ancient relic, wasn't built until several years after the construction of the (very ordinary) house in which I grew up. The Australian and English perspective on what is 'old' and what constitutes 'history' really couldn't be much more different. Canada and the US are very young - but not as young as Australia.

 

[Philos]

The 'new world' has a rich and detailed history, almost all of which was lost when these places were colonized by Europeans.

bil,

Ain't that the truth!

As an aside; fortunately Adolf's copycat crime in Eastern Europe failed. Those untermensch were not having it.

A.

 

[rousseau]

Can't disagree with most that's been mentioned in this thread. Ultimately I'm offering a specific perspective dependent on context, but definitions would vary given other contexts.

 

[Toni]

The 'new world' has a rich and detailed history, almost all of which was lost when these places were colonized by Europeans. As a result of this loss, it is IMO correct to say that the US, Canada and Australasia have no history; And attempts to link the history of pre-colonial Europe to that of the 'new world' are further undermining any attempt to recover that lost history.

Before colonization, the lands now occupied by the handful of nations we call the new world, were occupied by a large number nations and tribal peoples, with their varied languages and cultures, in which treaties, trade, alliances, wars, revolutions, and all manner of history all took place; But little is known about these historic events. Historians and archaeologists describe the time before the earliest surviving written records as 'pre-history', and it is telling that 'pre-historic' in the Americas usually means 'before 1492', and in Australasia 'before 1788', as compared to the European meaning of 'before 440BC'. Australian history and pre-history have a duration of between 40,000 and 60,000 years, only the last 229 of which are 'history'; European history and pre-history are about 5,000 years shorter in total, but include almost 2,500 years that are 'history' - more than ten times the 'history' found in Australia, and about five times the 'history' found in America.

The established nature of the cultural artefacts in recent European history renders this period of little interest to archaeologists; At a dig in New England, every little bit of plough soil is sieved to recover any artefacts therein, as these are precious lost remnants of the ephemeral buildings and possessions of the early colonists; at a similar dig in (old) England, the plough soil is often stripped back with a backhoe, and discarded, because it is unlikely to contain anything older than a few hundred years, and as such is disinteresting - any European archaeologist who wants to see an example of 18th century pottery can find perfect specimens in a museum, and need not try to reconstruct them from fragments found in the dirt.

As BH points out, North America has also had a serious dearth of war and other hardships, when compared to Europe (and even more so when you only consider very recent history - within living memory). To North American civilians, war is something that happens to other people. The demolition of a few buildings in New York, and the attack by Japan on Hawaii, were held out as massively traumatic events - and of course, they were for those who lived through them - but the experience of almost every city in Europe makes these events look incredibly tame. In WWII, almost every German town and city was bombed to rubble - they didn't have a few buildings demolished, they had a few buildings left standing. It's a completely different scale of trauma, and it has had an enormous effect on the attitudes of the public. It was like 9-11, plus Pearl Harbor, several times a day, every day for four years.

The oldest building in my current home town, which is considered a remarkable and ancient relic, wasn't built until several years after the construction of the (very ordinary) house in which I grew up. The Australian and English perspective on what is 'old' and what constitutes 'history' really couldn't be much more different. Canada and the US are very young - but not as young as Australia.

As a North American, let me assure you that I don't see war as something that happens to other people. While it is quite true that the US (and Canada) have escaped most of the destruction of cities and land targets during modern warfare, I can assure you that civilians did lose quite a lot, in terms of lost friends and loved ones and the numerous losses and hardships that came with those soldiers and other personnel who were injured in the war (whichever war you want to name.) Several of my very close relatives carried with them a number of wounds, mostly unseen, decades after their war. I never knew my grandfather who died early because of injuries received in WWI. One of my sons will always live with a certain amount of damage from his service in an undeclared war. Viet Nam changed my cousins dramatically. He came back physically unscathed but I will never forget the look in my cousin's eyes when the men gathered around him at his welcome home party and wanted to know how many he got. He was not unscathed, although he was lucky and came home with no apparent serious physical injuries.

Compared to the numbers of casualties suffered in Europe and Asia? Yes, the US got off easily. But not completely free.

War is an expensive, terrible thing. The costs last generations, even in places which escape bombings, invasions, and mass civilian casualties. And I'm not talking about money.