美国社会与文明prosperity.doc

美国社会与文化 HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL REASONS FOR THE PROSPERITY OF UNITED STATES Historical and Political Reasons for the Prosperity of the United States The history of modern America is quite short. The USA was founded at July fourth, 1776. For a young country like America, the achievement it obtains is fairly great. Nowadays, America is the most powerful country in the whole world, and plays a crucial role in the world politics. And every political, financial and military movement affects the world. So, how is it possible for a country to prosper in such a short time ,whose record history has only 236 years? I think there may be several reasonable answers to this question. First, American mainstream culture is based on Puritanism, and American adore individualism. Puritan pays a close attention to education. Universities like Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Columbia, MIT, Stanford, etc. are all the top schools among the world. There are many well-known examples in which an individual succeeded something difficult, like T.A Edison, Bill Gates and many more. Besides the culture, American politics are conservative, the Federal government does not have much power on the states government, which ensures the independence of each stats. Thus the combination of culture and political environment has a direct influence on the prosperity of the country. Second, USA covers a half North America continent. It faces the Europe across the Atlantic Ocean, the Asia across the Pacific Ocean. The adjacent countries around it are all small or less powerful countries, who do not present any threats to America. Even during the World War One, and World War Two, there has no direct conflict over the American land. The perfect location provides a good opportunity for USA to develop its economy, technology and military force. America is a country of immigrants. Due to its unique location as well as its emigrant history, US has been the destination of many intelligent emigrant people, especially in