Genuine posts please, if you want to post about neo-Imperialist aggression or the disenfranchisement of the poor or whatever, start your own thread.

So, here's some suggestions from me:

Jazz
Hardboiled detective fiction
The pulps
Damon Runyon

Jazz in particular literally couldn't have happened anywhere else, you need the combination of the blues and the Creole orchestras, though I do rather wish some of the more vocal proponents of jazz today in America were aware that it went overseas in a big way a long time ago and giving birth to a thing doesn't give you rights to it in perpetuity.

What about you?  Any suggestions?

Quote from: Balbinus;238638Genuine posts please, if you want to post about neo-Imperialist aggression or the disenfranchisement of the poor or whatever, start your own thread.

So, here's some suggestions from me:

Jazz
Hardboiled detective fiction
The pulps
Damon Runyon

Jazz in particular literally couldn't have happened anywhere else, you need the combination of the blues and the Creole orchestras, though I do rather wish some of the more vocal proponents of jazz today in America were aware that it went overseas in a big way a long time ago and giving birth to a thing doesn't give you rights to it in perpetuity.

What about you?  Any suggestions?

Comics books, rock and roll, D&D.

Attempting to skip politics... it's impossible, but I'll try.

M1 Garand and the Model 1911.
Lloyd Alexander
Robert Heinlein
Westerns


I could go on for a while...

Ok, here's a story about my favoritest thing lately: Scooters.

I have a Honda Metropolitan. I love that thing, and I'm kinda getting into the whole 50cc scooter culture.

Scooters are big nearly everywhere else in the world except the US. Vespa, Piaggio, Honda, Yamaha, Kymco, cheap chinese knockoffs.. theyre everywhere from Europe to Indonesia. They never caught on here. However, in a way, they have a very American lineage.

After WW2, the Piaggio brothers are sitting inside their bombed-out aircraft factory trying to figure out what to make. Aircraft is out, nobody needs it. They considered engineering motorcycles, but they didn't have the rubber or the right materials to make wheels. But they DID have a whole bunch of 10" aircraft wheels and tires left over.

So they decided, "hey, the Americans have these little Cushman Iron Eagle Scooters they use to get around the airfield and deliver the mail and so forth. We could do that.. "

".. and put a really kick-ass little italian motor in it!"

And thus the Vespa was born.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;238647Comics books, rock and roll, D&D.

Are comics actually American in origin?

I'll give you the other too, particularly the last one.

Quote from: gleichman;238650Attempting to skip politics... it's impossible, but I'll try.

M1 Garand and the Model 1911.
Lloyd Alexander
Robert Heinlein
Westerns


I could go on for a while...

Great, now I have to go google Lloyd Alexander.  Thanks Brian.

Westerns, definitely, I'm reading on and off a Zane Grey currently, and it is one of the great movie genres.

Quote from: Balbinus;238652Are comics actually American in origin?

I'll give you the other too, particularly the last one.

Comic books? Absolutely they are. They came from the pulps.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;238655Comic books? Absolutely they are. They came from the pulps.

Fair enough, I'll give you comics then.

Like many American inventions, like jazz in fact, they have been adopted and made native in many other countries.

The advancements made by Americans in the field of technology cannot be minimized, but it's worth noting that none of them occurred in a vacuum.

The internet.

Hamburgers and BBQ.  Probably not invented in America but certainly perfected there.

Quote from: Engine;238657The advancements made by Americans in the field of technology cannot be minimized, but it's worth noting that none of them occurred in a vacuum.

Thing is, that's not really uniquely American is it?  Lots of countries have great invention lists, only America has jazz.

The variety of porn where the woman is looking at the camera and gasping like a fish (not to mention the noises).  

What?  Like you haven't noticed?

I too am a fan of the Western and D&D.

There are many good things American citizens have done and invented, just like most other countries.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;238673I too am a fan of the Western and D&D.

There are many good things American citizens have done and invented, just like most other countries.

Sure, but the other countries don't tend to get an online kicking, America seems to get mostly posted about on the negatives.

If anyone wants to start a thread for somewhere else though, that'd be cool.  Not Scotland though, the list would be too long, we'd overload the internet.

Quote from: walkerp;238663The internet.

Hamburgers and BBQ.  Probably not invented in America but certainly perfected there.

I think the first is English (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee) and the second German, I'm afraid.