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•1. The influences of the Golden Rush in American

•The towns and villages quickly filled up → growth of already established cities, such as San Francisco

•The creation of new hastily-developed settlements:

•-  Many of these developed into permanent cities still surviving today

•-  Many were abandoned at the close of the Gold Rush → Today, numerous ghost towns dating from the Gold Rush can be found scattered across California.

•The newly created settlements

•-  Encroached on the farmland, destroyed habitats and thousands of animals. made turned  farming communities  into economic prosperity during the Gold Rush

•-  Creation of infrastructure, particularly transportation routes, previously unknown in California

•Native Americans

•-  When gold first discovered, Native Americans did not oppose nor feel strong negative effects: the white miners hired the Native Americans to pan the gold for them

•- However, as news of the discovery spread and miners began to arrive from other regions, relations between the miners and the natives began to sour

•→ Hostilities were soon opened, and the two groups openly attacked each other.

•→ Newcomers disregard for prior treaties and land reservations, native Americans were forcing them to move

•2. The American Revolution: significant

•A political upheaval during the last of the 18th century in which the 13 colonies of North A. overthrew the governance of the British Empire & then rejected the British monarchy to become the sovereign US of A.

•- Free A. from colonial era, to become an independent nation

•- A challenge to the old monarchies & heritage-based privilege hierarchies of the old systems in Europe

•- The A. shift to republicanism & the gradually increasing democracy caused an upheaval of the traditional social hierarchy & created the ethnic that formed the core of A. political values.

•3. “Was the war only about slavery?”

•The Southern Slave states wanted to secede the US so the rest of the country fought to preserve the nation as a whole because most of the southern states couldn’t legally secede from the Union ending slavery in the US, restoring the Union, & strengthening the role of the federal gov.

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4. The role of the US in the cold war: your opinion

•In the cold war, the US & the Soviet Union were the only two superpowers in the world. A. was the capitalism superpower & the USSR (Russia) was the communist  superpower. The USSR also included most of what we now call east Europe (ex: East Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Georgia..). the US led the West. This group included countries with democratic political systems & the US also led the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949 (NATO was a joint military group). However, in my opinion, the US had effectively become the most powerful & influential country in the world both military, politics & economy.

•Military: the US possessed the powerful military forces

•Essentially, naval-based advanced military with the highest military expenditure in the world. World’s largest navy with largest number of aircraft carriers, bases all over the world, particularly in an incomplete “ring” bordering the Warsaw Pact to the West, South & East. Largest nuclear arsenal in the world during the first half of the Cold War. One of the largest armies in the world. One of the two largest air forces in the world. Powerful military allies in Western Europe (NATO) with own nuclear capabilities & the means of delivering such weapons.

•Economy: as the majority of WW II had been fought far from its national boundaries, the US had not suffered the industrial destruction or massive civilian casualties that marked the wartime situation of the countries in Europe & Asia

•Furthermore, A. maintained economic dominance by establishing the Marshal Plan which meant that the US would give financial aid to European countries so that they could buy A. products. Although the Soviet Union forbade its satellites from participating in this arrangement, the Marshal Plan was successful in putting A. in the center of international economics

•The war had reinforced the position of the US as the world’s largest long-term creditor nation & its principal supplier of goods; moreover, it had built up a strong industrial & technological infrastructure that had greatly advanced its military strength into a primary position on the global stage

•Politics: A. “won” the cold war when Russia gave up communism in 1991 due to economic failure. The fall of the Soviet Union seemed a heaven-sent chance to fulfill a long-held dream of global leadership-a leadership welcomed & even embraced by the world. Americans had always considered themselves the world’s most important nation & its destined leader.

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5. What do you think of the issue of the immigration in the US in the globalization era?

a. What is globalization?

The fact that different cultures and economic systems around the world are becoming connected and similar to each other because of the influence of large multinational companies and of improved communication.

b. Advantages

_ immigrants often taken the low-paying jobs (like food service and hotel cleaning…) that most American don’t want to do at such low wages. è economic development.

_ some of the most intelligent and ambitious individuals, who are unsatisfied with their own countries, bring their skills to America.

_ it increases the diversity and expands the culture of the country.

_ it improves the overall image of America internationally, as it is seen an open, welcoming country, and immigrants who return home or maintain contact with family back home have a true image of America, not the one propagandized in much of the international media.

c. Disadvantages

_ more immigrants mean more  opportunities for terrorists, drug dealers, and other criminals to enter the country.

_ less-skilled American citizens earn less money and have fewer job opportunities because they must compete with immigrants in the job market.

•6. American dream and 6 traditional American values: ideas and reality

•American dream

•-The  US has shifted from an industry-based economy to one that is service or informative-based, there has been a decline in high-paying jobs for factory workers à much more difficult to go” from rags to riches”

•- As the US competes in a global economy, many worker are losing their old jobs and finding that they and their family members must work longer hours for less money and fewer benefits

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6 traditional American values not always put into practical

•Freedom

•The black slavery supposedly dedicated to freedom and equality plagued the nation from the very beginning and was not resolved until the civic war

•Some racial groups and individual are not as free as others, haven’t enjoyed the same rights and opportunities as others

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•Equality of opportunity

•Some have a better chance for success than others

•Those whose are born into rich families have more opportunities than those into poorer families

•Many black American have fewer opportunities

•Today many immigrants have fewer opportunities than those who came before them

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•ECONOMY

•7. The US economic role in the global context?

•(America is the most affluent country in the world now)

•According to the latest statistics in May, 2008, the US is still considered the leading economic power in the world even the story of China’s explosive economic growth over the last few decades (averaging 9.6% annual growth in GDP since 1978) can seem formidable.

•High technology: no other nation exports as much high technology as the US

•Agriculture: farming is highly mechanized and commercialized.

•Goods and services: the leading importer of food and beverages, machinery and iron and steel products.

•Mineral resources and fertile farm soil: very rich

•8. What are the achievements that the US has reached so far and what are the challenges it is now facing?

•Achievements:

•One of the world leading economic powers

•The world’s leading producer of electrical energy, aluminum, copper, sulphur and paper

•One of the top producers of natural gas and automobiles

•The leading imports of the US are food and beverages, machinery and iron and steel products.

•Technology: no other nation exports as much high technology as the US

•Agriculture: farming is highly mechanized and commercialized à productively à not only produce enough food for domestic consumption but also still supply much of the world’s food needs (10%)

•Challenges:

•Restoring financial stability à the new president should work with the international community to develop a common agenda for managing capital flows: increasing flexibility in exchange rates to facilitate the adjustment of persistent imbalances; developing global codes for improved transparence of new players, updating the mission and governance of the international financial institutions to address today’s challenges and engage today’s players.

•Setting the right green agenda: require a delicate balance of persuasion and pressure to induce the fastest growing amount of greenhouse gases; require much assistance and financing to help the most vulnerable nations adapt.

•Exercising smart power: invest in the education, health, livelihood ad the security of the world’s poorest à make Americans feel good about themselves as well as the world feel good about America

•Navigating China’s rise: should look for cooperative mechanisms to advance its goals where possible

•Engaging an emerging India: should look for areas of cooperation where possible and deepen bilateral engagement broadly.

•3. How are the American traditional beliefs and values mirrored in the US economic system?

•(Characteristic of Americans)

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•9. A LIMITED GOVERNMENT AND TRADITIONAL AMERICAN VALUES

1. A suspicion of strong government: It is strongly believed that strong government is a threat to tradition value of individual freedom. They create some features that limit the government power:

+ Federalism: dividing authority between the central government and the individual states. National government has power over areas of wide concern. Each state has its own legislative, executive and judicial institutions.

+ Separation of power: government powers are given to 3 separate branches with separate functions to avoid superior rested in small powerful groups or few leaders.

+  A system of checks and balances: each branch checks or limits powers of other branches

2. Criticism on big government

- Welfare state: government provided payment for retired persons, government checks for unemployed, supports for family with dependent children and no father to provide income and other benefits for needy persons.

- American fear that weakening self- reliance associated with restricted individual freedom.

- American less have accepted welfare program than citizens of other democracies.

- They believe that having to “go on welfare” to meet daily needs is personal embarrassment and a mark of failure.

- People supported by welfare payments complain that the system is degrading and cause them to lose their self-respect.

-In 1996, a welfare reform bill placed limits on the number of years people can receive welfare payments.

•10. AMERICAN EDUCATION AND TRADITIONAL AMERICAN VALUES

1. Monetary value

- The American value education for its monetary value: the more schooling they have, the more money they will earn.

- A change in job market in America: more and more education is required to do work; whereas in the past, it was possible to get high-paying factory job without a college education.

2. Individualism

- Develop critical thinking: express their own ideas and opinions/ think for themselves

- Goals: teach them how to learn/ help them reach their maximum potential

3. Competitiveness

- Develop social and interpersonal skills: Add a large number of extracurricular activities to daily life at school

→ demonstrate: special talents, level of maturity and responsibility, leadership qualities and ability to get along with others

- Some types of extracurricular activities:

+ athletic (competitive sport): learn how to compete successfully

+ student government: develop competitive, political and social skills

4. Racial balance and discrimination

Americans try to achieve racial balance after a long time of discrimination.

- 1954: a more modern Supreme Court agreed that laws that forced black students to go to racially segregated schools violated the US Constitution.

- The late 1960s and 1970s: a serious of court decisions forced the nation take measures to integrate all of its schools.

- For the next 20years, Americans tried various methods to achieve racial balance in the public schools.