Changes
/* Is this a joke? */ new section
:I would not say that point is being "missed", when I had addressed it quite specifically. Why does ''triangular trade'' imply significant trade of finished manufactured goods? Why does the three legs of the triangle have to be "equal" (which basically just means that WE set a subjective value for the trade goods, by today's standards; not taking into account that the goods were actually sufficient to buy humans in Africa, which, in a context of trade, would in fact imply they were "equal")? [[User:Crucialwood|Crucialwood]] 23:28, 12 August 2009 (EDT)
== Is this a joke? ==
This isn't an essay, rather an intellectually shallow, and unsourced bullet list of jingoistic propositions.
Example:
''1. That "Yankee ingenuity" (American inventions) far surpassed the rest of the world, and brought great wealth to it''
This is a useless assertion,if not outright jingoistic, as "Yankee ingenuity" (please define this term more exactly if you can) took place over a broad time period of competing inventions from Europe. Additionally, many "Yankee inventions" were conceptualized by foreign nationals, see for example the machine gun, nuclear fission, rocket science (the last two being the key factors in American hegemonic rise in the late 20th century) Additionally, you really need to define Yankee and even American nation. A great argument can be made that it didn't exist until the cusp of the American revolution (if by Yankee innovation you're referring to early history).
''5. That hard work was the key to the success of many Americans.''
It's not an American trait purely, you're referring to the "Protestant Work Ethic", a Weberian Thesis.
See for example ,for an overview;
"A. Furnham, The Protestant Work Ethic: A Review of the Psychological Literature, European Journal of Social Psychology, 14:1, pp 87-104
''6. That most great Americans, from Abraham Lincoln to Thomas Edison, were homeschooled.''
Irrelevant in the context of the educational standards of the day. Public education was rare and basic, private tutelage was the method of education for upper class families since time immemorial until the modern advent of public education.
10. That Rhode Island and Thomas Jefferson, and their view of a "separation of church and state," had no role in the formation of the Constitution.
False, Citation needed before I'll accept that.
''12. That "anti-imperialism" movements against the United States were really communist or Muslim movements against Christianity, as in denying the Islamic basis for the Philippine insurgency around 1900.''
False, Ditto #10. Additionally,You need to prove the presence of Muslim movements against Christian's as a theme in colonial conflict,a great argument can be made that Islamic resistance movements are solely a product of decolonization. Finally, you need to prove that these communist or muslim resistance groups are fighting for Marx or Muhammad rather than masking anti-imperial or nationalist urges with a thin cover of ideology.
''15. That President FDR did not end the Great Depression, and may have prolonged it.''
Arguable, citation needed. Argument against see:
Gauti Eggertsson, Great Expectations and the End of the Depression, American Economic Review, 98:4,2008,pp 1476-1516
''17. That President Ronald Reagan's foreign policy was key to ending the Cold War.
''
False. Shows a gross misunderstanding of the full view, jingoistic. Author needs to review the literature on Perestroika, and Glasnost, as well as passive resistance within the Soviet Union . Should also review the role of Yeltsin, and the presidents of Ukraine and Belorussia in the immediate period pre-dissolution. Argument should be that Reagan played a crucial role rather than the key role in my opinion.
''18. That NO "triangular trade" existed in the 17th and 18th centuries with the New World[1]''
Irrelevant, straw man argument. Triangle trade is no longer explained as tangible trade routes, rather as a historical construction to understand flows of commerce and explanations for slavery and the first explosion of imperialism in the 17th century. Analogous to the Columbian exchange. Triangle trade not taken absolutely seriously as a tangible fact since '70;s.
See Gilman Ostrander, The making of the Traignular trade myth, The william and mary quarterly, 3:30:4, 1973, pp 635-644
