Quote:
Originally Posted by Miserere
Latin American countries, no matter how disfunctional, are modelled according to Europe (Spain and also France, since Latin America has always been very frenchified historically).
The US is a reaction "against" certain Europe that does not exist anymore. The Europe of Reform and Countereform, the Europe of Enlightment that later regressed in many ways.
So there has not been any real "cleavage" between Latin America and Spain/Portugal. The two countries just collapsed during Napoleonic invasion and civil wars, and American countries became Spanish "cacicatos" or "taifas" ruled by powerful criollo families, not different to many regions in Spain and Portugal at that tiome and in the past.
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The average American has very little to no knowledge of the history of the Americas. Most wouldn't even know that by the time the British established Jamestown, Virginia, the Spanish had already re-established Tenochtitlan as Ciudad Mexico for 80 years. Honestly, if I hadn't gone out of my way to read all the books on Meso and Latin American history at my local library as a kid (public libraries = America's BEST and only true socialist program), I wouldn't know much myself. The U.S is so Euro-centric (and East-Coast centric as well) in its teachings, that you almost literally forget that other parts of the world exist. On top of that add our poor geographic skills, and we end up having citizens of the most powerful country on this planet who might as well be lost tribes of the Amazon, unbeknownst to them that a myriad of cultures exist beyond their little corner of the world. [Rant over]