Happy July 4th! This week I talk about how Americans are unique among all other cultures. I take a broad overview of what people say about Americans before talking about how Americans compare to their closest relatives: Europeans. I look at American in relation to British literature and French art before talking about the oddly good relations between the United States and Japan and why that might be. Finally, I talk about the specifics of what the key factors are that make Americans unique among other groups of people (even though we happen to be made up of all types of people).

Here are a few resources I mention during the podcast episode:

"Why Are We So Fascinated with US Literature"
https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2009/feb/11/poe-ballantine-american-literature

The article from 1939 that I mentioned, "What Makes an American"
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1939/03/what-makes-an-american/309021/

The two articles that I used to compare French and American art
https://learnodo-newtonic.com/famous-american-painters
https://learnodo-newtonic.com/famous-french-artists

Besides these, you can also check out these two other articles that show American and French​ paintings to compare them yourself:
https://www.complex.com/style/2012/05/the-50-greatest-american-paintings/
http://frenchpaintings.org/