A note about France-American history

Discussion in 'History and Culture' started by LafayetteBis, Mar 9, 2019.

  1. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    Actually, by the time of the country was founded the North was becoming increasingly Industrial and Mercantile.

    The center of American Publishing was already in New England. As well as textiles and other goods. Muskets, ships, clothing, as well as fishing and whale industry. But mostly trade. Sending colonial made goods to the West Indies and Europe. And those shipyards and the ships they built were the basis of the already existing trade routes which only increased in the coming century.

    And there is a large difference between the "agrarian" of the Northern colonies with those in the South. The farming in the North was much more diverse, everything from wheat and corn to potatos, oranges, and everything else edible. In the South, it was primarily industrial agriculture based around 3 crops, only 1 of which was edible.

    The big ones everybody knows about was cotton and tobacco. You can not eat those, you can only trade those for things you can eat. SO the South was actually the largest agricultural zone in the colonies, and at the same time the largest importer of food. Their only food crop early on was rice, but by the time of the Revolution rice paddies were being replaced with tobacco plantations because it made more money.

    And the South never developed much industry. Something that basically crushed them when they tried to revolt. They were roughly a century behind the North, still relying upon little more than subsistence farming and most of their product was export goods not for human consumption. The center of commerce was based in Boston and New York, the business and commerce hubs then as it is now.
     
  2. VotreAltesse

    VotreAltesse Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    @LafayetteBis Interesting thread.

    @James Knapp Robespierre is much more poorly known in France aswell. In his life and death, he was used as a scapegoat of the revolution terror, he had his part in it, but he is far to be the tyrannical bloodthirsty man described in his black legend. So yes, his name is known, but who he was really isn't. Everybody had a reason to use him as a scapegoat : the revolution right wing wanted war and Robespierre was a pacifist, the far left found him to moderate and he opposed them.
     
  3. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Robespierre was a blood-thirsty radical and he found his "just due" under the same blade (guillotine) as the King and Queen of France in the Place de la Concorde*.

    Which is not the only bit of just irony in French history ... !

    *Concorde means more-or-less "agreement or harmony" in French.
     
    Last edited: May 2, 2019
  4. VotreAltesse

    VotreAltesse Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Well, that's the black legend, not the reality of the man. I will developp a little bit more thereafter. I will open a new thread and mention you in it. That's why I says he is even less known in France than in the rest of the world, many people don't know at all about him, but french people, they get a false idea of him.
     
  5. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    ..
    I did not pick that information from hearsay.

    That's what the wikipedia version says of him ... in French. Which, I suspect, was the original WP-entry regarding this "personage" of French history .

    Well, I dunno.

    The French I know have a very good understanding of their history. It is so - uh, powerful.

    And a lot more interesting than what is going on today in France, which I suspect will be promptly forgot it is so borrrinnnggggg ...
     
  6. unkotare

    unkotare Well-Known Member

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    No, it's not.
     
  7. unkotare

    unkotare Well-Known Member

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    Of course, the French wouldn't throw all in with us until after the Battle of Saratoga despite the fact that sticking it to the British was in their own interests.
     
  8. Talon

    Talon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Then you know nothing about the debates that are still surrounding the French Revolution in America.
     
  9. unkotare

    unkotare Well-Known Member

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    There aren’t any, outside some tiny, insignificant academic bubbles.
     
  10. Quasar44

    Quasar44 Banned

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    USA and FRA have never been close
    Same with USA and Germany
     
  11. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Don't know from where you got that piece of BS. It's a new age, and the ideas that prevailed to put Hitler at the helm of Nazi-Germany are long gone.

    I know the Germans well, having worked with them. I rarely met one who did not roll-their-eyes whenever I tried to spark a conversation regarding Hitler.

    The Nazi Regime is a deep embarrassment to most Germans, and the French share that notion. The two countries have been getting along fine.

    But there is a glitch between them over high Unemployment Rates. Macron wants EU Bank to stimulate production by means of debt-expenditure. His good friend (Angela) is not of the opinion that France's National Debt needs any expansion whatsoever. See EU debt-list here. And 60% of GDP is the Maastricht limit. long since surpassed ...
     
  12. VotreAltesse

    VotreAltesse Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    @LafayetteBis @Quasar44 From what I observed, I suppose French and American culture are opposed on many points, like the relationship to religion or the relationship to money.
    For french people, religion is something you're more supposed to keep private, when for american it's more a public fact.
    The relationship with money is quite similar, French have kept that taboo around money which come from catholicism, when the american have more the culture of indenpendant compagny creator.
    That cause some miscomprehensions between french and american.
     
  13. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    Enlightenment political ideas were the common heritage of intellectuals in France, Britain and North America (among other places) in the 18th century. I don't think it's very useful to worry too much about who influenced whom. They all influenced each other.

    Louis XVI and his minister Vergennes threw in with the Americans against the British for concrete reasons of state, and they achieved their objectives. But in so doing they bankrupted the French government, leading eventually to convening the Estates General, which led to . . . etc.

    Lafayette was a dramatic but unfortunately ineffectual figure whose enduring value is symbolic. When John J. Pershing led the U.S. Expeditionary Force ashore in France in WW1, he proclaimed: "Lafayette, nous voila!" It doesn't get better than that.

    The best book I know on this topic is Simon Schama's Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution.
     
  14. btthegreat

    btthegreat Well-Known Member

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    Enjoying this thread. I do so like to dip into history periodically. I also dip into classical literature . The 'some people' to which you refer are the readers of the Bard, Here is the quote. uttered by Cassius in the Shakespearian play Julius Caesar "“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars / But in ourselves, that we are underlings.” (Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene III, L. 140-141). Gotta give ol William his due. He did have a clever way with the English aphorism.

    Now I will keep reading the thread.
     
    Last edited: Jan 1, 2021
    Jack Hays likes this.

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