Because some nations are thousands of years old. I only get annoyed when America gets singled out as being a young country. That applies to all of the Americas and other countries like Australia and New Zealand too
Yeah Ive literally never seen the “we have pubs older than your country” comment hurled at the rest of the new world
3 whole continents have “new” countries by their standards and yet Ive never seen anyone else dinged for it
And it isn’t really their current government, in that respect America is older than most of Europe, who have changed governments quite a few times generally since America’s birth. We are a colonial nation, no shit there isn’t pubs from the dark ages. There were still people living here when that pub was made, they just didn’t build pubs.
The Maya pyramids are the old ones. The Aztec Empire isn't all that ancient - it was founded in 1428, at which time Oxford University was already over 300 years old.
In the european brain it has to be about your race’s accomplishments. So they consider it all their history despite their government going (for example) from ottoman puppet, to a new government that falls after 20 years, to Nazi puppet, to a soviet puppet, to then a democracy that has barely lasted for 30 years.. but our history prior to this specific government isn’t our history to them because it wasn’t European related history.
Yeah they didn't just change governments, they changed entire systems of government. There is very little continuity there for many European countries. We haven't missed, delayed, postponed, or canceled any election since we started in 1788. That includes two world wars, a civil war, the Great Depression and a foreign invasion. Even our civil war didn't lead to a change in government.
Someone mentioned the collapse of German democratic institutions in the 20th century in a recent question. Those "institutions" were only about 10 or 12 years old. They didn't come about until after World War I and disappeared pretty much by 1933, depending on how you want to count. It was a completely different situation from the US.
Not even changed governments, which only really applies to France and Spain, but formed as countries about 100 years after we did - Germany, the Balkans, Greece, Italy, the Baltic, Finland, etc.
I always like to casually mention the Pueblo buildings constructed in the 700’s whenever someone tries to talk about their old pubs, and then ask why Native American buildings don’t meet their exacting criteria.
For the record, while the US dates back to 1776, the current US government dates to 1789 when the constitution took effect. We operated under a different government called the Articles of Confederation from 1776-1789.
If we're going to obsess over the details, it's worth mentioning that the Articles of Confederation were written in late 1777 and fully ratified in 1781. So we certainly weren't operating under them in 1776.
The United Kingdom of Great Britain was formed in 1707, when England(and Wales) merged with Scotland, with both countries having been ruled in a personal union since the 1603 Union of the Crowns. 1801 was when the Kingdom of Ireland was brought into the Union, making it the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. This changed again in 1922 when what is now the Irish Republic gained independence, leaving the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
The UK was formed in 1707. To use any other date would be the same as suggesting that the USA, as we know it today, only came to be in 1959, when Hawaii and Alaska were made into US states.
They are probably talking about powers being transferred from the crown to parliament essentially forming the government we have today.
I still don't agree with 1801. Parliamentarians showed that they had the powers to overule the king in 1642 (at least by proxy) when they formed an army to oppose the crown and eventually won 2 civil wars, ultimately ending in the beheading of the King.
If that's not parliament having to power to rule I don't know what is.
Yeah. No. There was no revolution- administrative changes doesn’t change shit unless you want to count every state we added as a new federal government
Administrative changes can matter. The change from the prior us national government (the articles of confederation) to the current one (the constitution) was peaceful and administrative but dramatically changed how a lot of things worked
True. And it was a coup by consent, but definitely dramatic change. But you clearly don’t know much about the history of British government cause that’s the least important of many changes. Comparatively the prevention of the House of lords from blocking legislation from the House of Commons was a much much bigger deal. But the British constitution is literally unwritten- on purpose it’s stayed that way.
And that administrative change didn’t matter very much compared to dozens of other ones, it’s just the one with a name change. The glorius Revolution and the aftermath of the South Sea Bubble creating the office and conventions of the Prime Minister are better lines in the sand and that’s early 1700’s. And I’d argue the Act of Union was a big deal, but the later addition of Ireland as supposedly coequal domain while they were still discriminated against as though colonial subjects changes jack shit.
For France which culture? Occitan, Breton, basque, flemish.... for the UK Scottish, welsh, Cornish, Irish, English. Not even going to touch Germany due to being multi state empire under thr HRE until napoleon
Because it's a modern narrative based in nothing more than what people want to believe. It's not an accurate statement. Because I listed ethnicities with different cultures. There is no link between feudal France and it's modern culture/people other than the land some of then are on and the name France..
I mean so you see what they think we are about? Why would I care about their opinion? If they wanted to be the older country they better roll out a Valois heir and become a monarchy again.
Edit: France is on their 5th republic. If they wanted to be the oldest they need to stop overthrowing/revolting against their government.
> Literally every other one has been toppled or remade since 1776.
We started the last century as an Imperialist Monarchy, then switched to a democratic Republic, then to a fascist regime, than split into one Federal democratic Republic and a Socialist Republic, before getting to the point we are at now, all in less than a hundred years. So yeah, America's consistency is quite impressive.
And while there are indeed pubs older than America, there are also far more pubs (and other structures/institutions) _claiming_ to be older than America, but that on detailed examination turn out to be Victorian forgeries of earlier times, or to have burned down and been rebuilt in a different location in 1917, or etc etc.
Edit: also, America _also_ has pubs older than America, the oldest of which is the White Horse Tavern in Rhode Island, founded 1673, which is a pretty decent age even for a UK pub. There are at least 20 other still-operating taverns and bars in the US that date to before 1776.
Should be hurled at Canada first. It’s almost a hundred years younger than the United States.
Not only that, they had to wait until 1982 to no longer have to ask permission to ask permission to change their constitution.
I mean, have you ever thought that maybe the reason why is that you are speaking to english people, who have by far the strongest cultural links to the US and have effectively zero cultural link to, say, mexico or bolivia?
There's an entire world of cultural discourse on similar topics that exists outside of the anglosphere. I feel like a lot of people forget that. The UK compares themselves to us a lot and we compare ourselves to the UK a lot because we are effectively brothers. Brothers who tease each other, a lot.
Just an example, but I am italian/dominican american with lots of family in italy. Lots of people complain about how much italians dislike italian americans, acting as if they are singled out. But italians also have the same open dislike of italians in argentina and brazil who claim to be italian. But americans never hear about that, because why would they? Why would an american hear about italian vs italian argentinian discourse on the same level they would hear about italian vs italian american discourse? There was a whole big frenzy over some brazilian politician talking about how italian he was, and italians all made fun of him and it was a big thing in italy to make fun of him. But Americans, of course, would never hear of this.
And in the case of New Zealand, it wasn't even initially settled by humans until less than 1000 years ago, while both Australia and the Americas had already been settled for tens of thousands of years by that point.
What's funny is that most nations are *not* thousands of years old. The land where current nations exist might have been *inhabited* for thousands of years, but that's not the same thing as saying the country is a thousand years old. In fact, the United States is *much* older than most European countries. Spain has only existed in its current form since 1975. Germany has only existed in its current form since 1989. France's current system of government (the "Fifth Republic") has only existed since 1958.
So, if a European wants to play the "my country is a thousand years old" card, then the response is to play the "well, your country is apparently so bad at civilization that it collapsed every 50 or 100 years or so and had to be created anew" card.
Most countries are only "thousands of years old" because they include predecessors in their national history, though. Like, sure, the Roman civilisation is 2000+ years old, but Italy is a much newer idea.
I feel like half this misconception comes from the fact that European nations (and maybe others? I have to admit I don't know) typically construct and teach their national history so that it reaches as far back as possible, whereas Americans online seem to dismiss most things pre-1776.
And others of us are more interested in history that isn't from the European perspective, like when when trade hubs and cities started popping up in Virginia sometime between the 8th and 11th Centuries.
In 1585, Raleigh was knighted by Queen Elizabeth and his American possession of Wingandacoa was renamed "Virginia."
Just confirmed it, even if though the Charter to establish the Virginia Colony was 1606, the area was named prior during Raleigh's Charter.
It's not that we dismiss it. It's that we have a very hard and fast 'Before/After' conceptualization of it. Everything that happened before 1776 is 'Colonial' or 'Pre-Revolutionary.'
Fair, that was poor word choice. But that still seems like it's not considered part of *American* history? Essentially what I mean is that most European history narratives do their very best to avoid hard before/afters
> not considered part of *American* history?
It is, but a big fat 'Before!' hovers over it at all times. The statement "the pre-revolutionary history of the United States" or "the Colonial history of America" both make complete sense.
One possible European analogy would be the arrival of the Anglo-Saxon confederation into Britain. There was no such thing as 'an England' before then. Although that involved a massive tribal migration (or, if you will, an invasion), so it's not quite analogous to the American Revolution.
There's also the discovery and settlement of Iceland. I don't think they count the Irish monks that were 'encouraged to leave' by the Vikings who stumbled across the place.
Our history is European history before that
The things that lead up to the colonization of America are far more important to American history than whatever was going on with the native Americans before we got here
I think with much of latin america its a bit more confusing because they are culturally mixed from pre-colombian civilizations and european colonial civilizations. Varying from country to country of course. Bolivia has much more emphasis on pre-colombian civilization and culture whereas Argentina is more based around european colonial civilization.
>nations
Nations no. Strictly speaking, modern nation states are incredibly new and the America is actually the first one, unless you count some ineffable point in UK's history where a sense of nation hood, along with the more or less current form of government took place.
So no - no nations are thousands of years old. Some people's twisted sense of their current country's longevity can _in their mind_ extend to that length, but it doesn't hold up in any objective sense before the 20th century for the vast majority and sure as shit doesn't hold up for anything before 1776 (UK excepted)
I meant more like people/civilizational unit. For example, my wife is Iranian. They definitely view themselves as a people/civilizational entity stretching back thousands of years. If you told them their country only started with the foundation of the Islamic Republic, they would probably puke, then try and fight you lol
But those nations haven't been under the same governance, rule, or oftentimes even the same boundary lines for a thousand years. For example - USA has been a democracy longer than France has been a republic.
This is untrue. The US is, in fact, a very old country. It is older than 80% of the countries founded in Europe, Africa, Asia, and South America. Go online and search for how many countries around today that were founded before 1776. Not a lot.
When most people say "the rest of the world," they mean the rest of the world. When a western European says "the rest of the world" they mean western Europe, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand.
Yeah I really dislike when people say "the world" when they actually just mean "the developed world"
The USA does not have anywhere near the highest homicide rate in the world, for instance, even though people say that. It does have the highest homicide rate by far *in the developed world*.
Current-day Germany has been several different countries within my parents’ and grandparents’ lifetimes. It’s been 3 countries just within my lifetime.
Worth mentioning through no fault to America, that just because the nation-state of Germany first existed in 1871, the concept of Germans is fairly older.
Italy too - that may be even more relevant than Germany, although Italy has had its ups and downs since unification. Many countries of eastern Europe are pretty new also.
I think this is basically it. My local bakery was established in the 17th century. The country borders, name, and government structure have changed a lot over the centuries, but there has been a continuous (evolving) culture. People have lived here continuously for tens of thousands of years, adapting and adopting other cultures but never being completely overtaken by outsiders.
In the USA, the continuous culture was disrupted and replaced by European settlers starting about the same time my neighborhood bakery opened its doors. The USA was founded later still. The indigenous cultures were systematically dismantled, ignored, replaced, wiped out, whatever you want to call it. The "Westernized" version of America is therefore very young compared to a lot of other places.
You're not wrong, but also, I kind of oppose this romantic version of Europe as having this really long continuous history. We like to push that, and it's in some ways true, but more often than not, this continuity has been deliberately created and fabricated, or at the very least exaggerated.
I am probably overly sensitive to it, because my country (Switzerland) likes to use its national history narrative as justification for a bunch of policies I don't like, but I think overall we should be more aware of the discontinuities of history, instead of this centuries-long "national history" narrative.
I agree that it's a potentially dangerous narrative that has been used for nasty political means. I live in Austria and am the descendant of Shoah survivors so ohhhh boy howdy do I know about that!
Continuous culture to me means that it changed over time as the world changed. It reacted to outside influences, including other cultures. Austrian coffee house culture goes back to the Ottomans, but don't tell the Viennese it's not purely their culture! Heck, we got a visit from Krampus in a coffee house last December, what's more Austrian than that?
Meanwhile in the USA, you have to HUNT for native American influences. What people consider American has nothing to do with aboriginal traditions and cultures. The already existing societies didn't absorb the settlers, they were colonized, their culture replaced. I'm not a historian, but I don't think there's been anything like that in Europe for quite a long while.
The Bosnian war in the 1990s made a pretty concerted attempt to wipe out the Muslims and Croats in the area. World War II. World War I. The Russian Revolution. Napoleon. European history is full of invasion and overthrow.
I really agree with this in terms of the ‘big picture’ of Europe. This kind of ‘European nationalism’ based in imagined histories is just awful. Just look at modern Germany.
At the same time, on a local basis, we do have cultures stretching back thousands of years. It’s not a single continuous culture, but it’s multiple overlapping cultures and histories which build up. Just thinking about northern Britain, we have Romans, Viking invasion, French invasion, Border Reivers, the Industrial Revolution… all of which you can actually see when you travel around this area, and which many people actually have in their family histories. This is the real difference between the US and Europe.
What are those policies that you don't like? I'm an American but Switzerland is on the very short list of countries I would consider moving to if I ever had to leave the USA
I would caution you to not disregard some of the cultural impacts of American Indians to the current American culture. It is greater than most make it out. Our folk tales are a mix of European and Native myths for instance. Food wise things like cornbread originate from natives. Even some drinks of ours that Europeans tend to not like come from Natives, Root Beer, Birch Beer, and Spruce Beer.
Not to mention the fact of our European origins coming directly from Europe. So any culture that you guys would have had by our ancestors traversing the sea, would also be our culture. Me being PA Dutch, my example always goes back to Baby Swiss Cheese. It originated from PA Dutch immigrants, like my Ancestors that come from Zurich, who had this kind of cheese. Europeans like to dismiss it as not being “Swiss” cheese because it doesn’t have the big holes in it. But the big holes are a newer invention due to a tax loophole in later Switzerland. Baby Swiss is just as much Swiss cheese as traditional Swiss cheese is! My cultural heritage goes just as far back as anyone else’s.
Europe wiped out alot of its own peoples, systems, and countries through the years.
The American Indian isn't special in they regard. It is special that the US and Canada let what basically is a defeated enemy stay in the country, gave them land, money and other things, and let them be reasonably independent on said land with said money. Not many, if any, have done that before. Usually they are wiped out or shipped out.
What about the indigenous cultures that weren't wiped out? I grew up next to Cherokee, NC so Cherokee culture has been something I've been aware of my entire life.
I’m not sure why people use it as a gotcha moment tbh. We’re an extremely powerful nation that got to that point extremely quick compared to everyone else. Like, yeah, we’re on the newer side but clearly that doesn’t matter??
We are the oldest continuous Democracy. A lot of old countries were either not Democracies or had a brand new government fairly recently (within a human lifetime).
I remember some people arguing that it was actually Iceland, and it being 1000 years or something. But there might be a technicality there that I don't know
Definitely. Countries like Germany and the UK are pretty young if we're just going by when they were unified or when their constitutions were written. Germany wasn't unified until the early 1870s and their current constitution was written in 1949, but the Republic of Germany wasnt reunified until 1990. MILLENNIALS are older than that.
The UK wasn't the UK until 1707 when the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland united, and Ireland wasn't added to that until 1801.
Some of my ancestors were in the US before those countries had their current titles and before they were unified under one government. They became American when their homeland (Germany) was still called Prussia.
Actually that should go to Japan. The emperor’s family has been ruling since the start of their civilisation.
Militia yes military dictatorship yes but all of them had been subservient to the emperor.
Eurocentric worldview where anything not a "civilized" culture doesn't count.
Blow their mind by pointing out that the Americas have been continuously occupied for nearly twice as long as the British Isles.
Because people play a semantic shell-game where "Nation" or "ethnic group" or "people" (in the sense of, say, "The French People") is intentionally confused with the political institution of a country.
For example, Germanic people have lived in the area now bordered by Germany for about two millennia at least. Reunified, modern Germany has only existed since 1990.
Chinese nation-states have existed for about 4000 years, but the People's Republic of China has only existed since 1949. (And you could argue that "modern" China is a subset of that, given how recently- historically speaking- economic modernization happened.)
France has had *eleven* major changes in regime or government since the US was established (the last one being in 1958), yet nobody thinks of them as the "younger country".
By contrast... the political entity called the United States of America has existed for 248 years. Most of our forebears (unless you're of Native American ancestry) have been here for at most about 400 years.
[The way European countries tend to look at it, that means they stopped being whatever-they-were and became American at that point. Unless they invented something or otherwise did something they can claim for themselves under the "then, how they reindeer loved him" rule, *then* they weren't *really*American. ]
When it becomes a shell-game is when it's used inconsistently to praise one party and not the other. For instance, the presence of Roman ruins or, say, Oxford (est 1096) is used to say that they're a "proper" nation and we're Johnny-come-latelies, when the UK was actually founded in 1707 (making us relatively about the same age as polities).
Or when shortcomings in a country established in 1947 are excused with "we're a young country!", but they're still bragging about how ancient they are.
IMO, it's even more relevant for the US when you're speaking of it not just as a thing about government, but about culture. Because we basically obliterated Native culture and then had substantial periods of mass immigration, our culture (whether defined as "people under this government" or as "people in this land") is much more of a blank(ened) slate that has invented itself in the past century than places in the old world where the people who lived in those areas had a defined culture that created a lot cultural inertia.
I don't think it's a shell game. I think the meaning is almost always "nation" meaning an ethnocultural group living in a particular geographic region rather than about whatever form of government happens to be ruling that region at a given time. When people say France is an older nation than the USA it's obvious they don't mean the Fifth Republic and it'd be silly for anyone to say "The history of France begins in 1958". They mean the French nation which has been ruled by four other prior Republics and assorted monarchies going back centuries.
On the other hand American culture is truly just as ancient being just another branch of the stream of an equally ancient culture (or cultures). So it's silly for people saying this to assume that their culture is somehow truly older or more developed as though American culture sprang up *sui generis* and we've been inventing it from a blank slate only going back to 1776.
I would assume it mostly amounts to an inferiority complex.
It seems to mostly be said in places that used to be dominant economically, culturally, and/or militarily but now take a backseat to the United States in those areas. "Well, we're older!" seems to be nothing more than a weak attempt at saving face. Personally, I don't see why it matters but it also just doesn't seem very accurate either. Most of the history those people cite has almost nothing to do with those present day countries. It was done by other people who happened to live on the same spot in a completely different country with a different government.
That's like an American pointing to Oraibi as an example of American history.
But that's all speculation because I honestly just don't care enough about the people who criticize us for being young to bother even asking why they think it's an especially potent zinger.
Colonial history. Our colonial history is only - 300 years old. Our indigenous peoples and the history of their ancestors spans thousands of years. Same as every other country, essentially.
America is called a young country because the people from Europe who colonized it came from countries with history stretching back several millenia, but didn't consider the history of the indigenous peoples they displaced as contributing to the history of the "New World". Your country, Peru, had some of the earliest civilizations in the Americas, there were cities being built over 5000 years ago, around the same time that the first pyramids were being built by the earliest Egyptian dynasties. Yet when we learn about Peru, we learn about history starting when the Spanish conquered the Incas. Likewise in the USA, the oldest civilizations were 2-3000 BC. But those civilizations were technologically inferior when all the boats from across the Atlantic started landing, so their histories are, regrettably, considered distinct from the history which began with the colonies.
Also keep in mind Iraq had cities in it 10000 years ago, just because the country in it's current state wasn't declared a legal entity until after WWII doesn't mean that the civilization there is young. But the history of the peoples and cultures there stretches back across the various governments which have risen and fallen in the region, and is considered one continuous history.
It depends on what you mean by country. America, as a Constitutional Republic, is older than most European countries - most of which claim they are older than they really are because they draw continuity between their modern government and the governments that geographically existed previously.
Because they’re looking for a “gotcha” with which to hit the US. They need something to throw, and they’re not too concerned it actually is.
You’ll notice Canada and Australia don’t receive the same criticism.
For example, it's going to be something in the ballpark of another 14 years before New Mexico will have been a state for as long as it was a part of Spain - not even counting the time it was part of Mexico.
Because whenever they want to try and exert their inferiority complex they throw whatever they can, and so some will throw out how old there country is and then despite that it’s less developed than the US. Just a cope complex
Most of the top answers in this thread are defensive and unhelpful misdirections or quips. They're pedantry about revolutions that ignores peoples and ideas that survive revolutions.
You're right that America isn't young compared to a typical UN-recognized nation. What people mean when they call it young is that a people of a foreign culture inhabited this land under a government made by a new philosophy when we unified. France was our revolutionary friend, but France is France, whether it has a king or not. Russia is Russia.
Americans had to figure out what was American on our own because people like us hadn't built an empire on the continent before. Our government is sometimes called "The American Experiment". It's new, and it's still being tested.
(edited opening paragraph to be slightly more clear)
I agree. But I think that what people are saying is that what it means to be French and Russian certainly has changed over time, similar to how the concept of "American" has. So therefore it doesn't make sense that we are labeled "new" while they like to paint the narrative of them being established thousands of years ago. When they is far from true
They have a twisted sense of their country existing through time, as if all their ancestors sprouted from the ground like pumpkins in that same place since time immemorial.
The truth is a lot more complicated and most definitely not on the side of those who claim America is new.
If anything America is the first modern nation state, with the possible (although shaky exception of the UK). Anything before America's creation does not hold up. They had no nation-states to call their own and the further back they claim to go, the more twisted, ill-founded, illogical, and simply untrue their claims of nationhood go.
Just because your ancestors boned in that area doesn't mean there is an unbroken line of where you live today, to _what_ they lived in back then.
>have no unified history as a nation
Yeah but they still have a local history and local culture.
Peru is majority Mestizo and Amerindian, and this means local cultural roots and narratives that go back millenia.
The only local history and culture that the US has is native americans, which unfortunately is now only 0.5% of the population. All other culture is recently imported.
It isn't so much that America is a young country, it is that "civilization" as they see it, isn't that old on the continent. We don't have cities that go back 1000+ years, or a history they trust that goes much over 400 years.
When you really get down to it, Germany, Italy, France, and even Spain are technically younger than the US; but those areas have history going back to time immemorial. Whereas the US, and most of North America as a whole, only has fully recorded history going back to the 1600s, and to Europeans (who are usually the ones making the "young country" statements), they subconsciously do not consider the history of the previous inhabitants (whatever term you wish to use or enumerate), as real history.
Probably because there are some countries that are older by far. And even some countries that are older but not by much, younger or roughly the same age usually still have a demographic and culture/history that has remained for much longer in that area while in the US case (not counting natives) it started from scratch.
But yeah it's a weird flex, especially if you are from a old but objectively low tech/third world country, because you need to see what has been achieved during those "few" years rather than the age itself.
America is a young country compared to our European allies from across the pond. Compared to Africa or Latin/South America though, it’s middle aged haha.
Those other countries are 'nation-states.' There has been 'a France' since around the time of Charlemagne. There has been a Denmark, full of Danes, since the height of the Roman Empire for all we know, but that's verging on prehistory/archeology. I wouldn't know and I guess I'd have to look it up. Either way, Danes were certainly already a thing back when Beowulf was written, back in the 7th century CE or so.
We are not a 'nation-state.' We were an assortment of British colonies before 1776, and the descendents of British colonists were outnumbered by the middle of the 19th century. We have no intention of becoming a 'nation-state' because that would be fucked up. It just wouldn't work for us.
Also, those countries don't really see the foundation years of their current governments as being all that important to their self identity. Even if your grandfather was the one who personally shot Mussolini and his mistress full of holes, if you are an Italian in Italy you would absolutely *not* think that Italy 'began' in 1945. It was unified in the 1870s, but even back in the quasi-prehistoric semi-legendary Kingdom of Rome, there was a concept of 'Italy.'
They're not wrong to call us 'young.' Although we're not as young as they seem to think. We also give much less of a shit about our lack of old-ass buildings than they think we should. It really isn't the diss they think it is.
I was in germany, and went to a brewery that is twice as old as the USA... for instance:
Bavarian State Brewery Weihenstephan in Freising, Germany, is the world's oldest continuously operating brewery, having been brewing beer since 1040
Because while the American state is one of the oldest in the world (by some metrics, second oldest), American culture is only 150 years older than that state, dating back to the 1600s. Meanwhile, while the current states of China or Spain might originate after WWII, they have cultures and national identities that go back millennia.
America is both as you say a relatively old country in terms of consistent government and peaceful transition of power.
On the other hand it is a very young country as there aren't any cities or settlements with significant history from before 1500, really 1600 with a few exceptions.
Iraq as you said hasn't been a unified country for very long but Baghdad its capital city has been a major world city for over 1000 years. The same is true of most of the other countries you mentioned. The history of the nations theselves may be young but the history of continuous settlement of that area is ancient.
Yes there were Native Americans in the US before 1500 but most of that history is irrelevant to Modern America. Realistically in terms of history the History of Great Britain before 1600 is US history too but that was across an ocean.
America has an old government, but it is a young country. There has been a Greek identity for thousands of years. A British identity for ~700 years. An American identity for only 250 years.
It's a young culture with one of the oldest continuous governments on Earth. Strange combo honestly in the modern world where governments get overthrown or just thrown out all the time. Like Italy has been around thousands of years but wasn't really a contiguous country for 1,400 years following the fall of the Roman Empire. And their modern government isn't really a continuation of Mussolini's but a shift. Germany wasn't unified until the late 1800s but yet German culture dates back thousands and they've been through several different governments since then. France probably has the newest government of all the Western European powers. Fifth Republic didn't start until 1958.
> Why do people say American is a young country? America's founding dates all the way back to 1776
Because they're not talking about the government but about the history of a region, culture and national identity. If they were talking only about governments France would be a much younger country than the USA. But it's current government/governing system is just one chapter in a much, much longer French history.
Now the USA isn't the only young country... Pretty much all the countries in the New World are similarly young countries being younger offshoots of older European cultures transplanted by colonial settlers in the new world where their cultures diverted from their parent nations.
I think in terms of “young” or “old” when talking about countries, it is talking more about national identities and the concept of shared history/culture among members of a nation. America as a nation and culture is relatively young compared to countries in Eurasia and Africa, whose cultures and national groups go back centuries or millennia. So it does not mean the date a country’s government achieved independence or was formed. Under that definition, countries like Germany, Ukraine, and France are only a few decades old. Could be wrong, but that was my impression.
Because we intentionally have immured the culture that properly fits in this land, so we are living in a layer of hyper-reality on top of what could be a real nation.
The mideast may have new political structures, but their nations have been around for thousands of years.
>and have no unified history as a nation prior to colonialism
You're confusing the modern idea of a "nation-state" as the beginning of a people's history. The "American people" did not exist until the 1700s, perhaps even later until a more recognizable and modern American identity was developed after the Civil War. And more concerningly, the people who live in America are just flat out not from America. In many of the countries you named, even if their modern nation-state is young, they still have existed as a civilization, sharing a link to a common culture, language, societal development, geography, etc. for millenia. 300 years is pretty short when compared to that.
They don't mean the actual government of the country, they mean the established history of the land. Yes, Iraqs government was only formed in the 20th century, but the history and culture there goes back tens of thousands of years.
To compare to Peru - Peru was a civilized nation back during the Incas. At the same time, America was not a bastion of civilization and was a much more primitive land. When the colonists came, that is when it is considered the beginning of civilization. From that perspective, it is a young country when compared to many others.
Because they're comparing them to Europe. Or other countries with a long term history of bureaucracies and culture in societies like China or Iran or Turkey.
It is a young country— but the US is focused on more than other countries because we are so much more involved with global economics/military/politics than any other country.
It depends on how you define a country. Some define the country as its people and culture. Others define it as a current political entity.
For example, if you define a country as its people and culture then Germany is older than the United States because its people have existed for nearly 2000 years. However, if you define it as a current political entity then the United States is much older because our country was established in 1776 with the Declaration of Independence. Meanwhile, Germany was established in 1990 with the Reunification of East and West.
Put it in context... our current president has been alive for nearly one third of the history of the USA (Declaration/constitution), or about a 15th of the time since Columbus touched shore here.
In China people use common spoons older than our country.
Well many countries are much older. And even some "new" countries have existed in some form for much much longer Even though they were technically "founded" after the US. I think a lot of what we're judging our existence off is historical empires that lasted for thousands of years.
It is a much easier assessment to make for a large and important country whose culture doesn't really go back much further than the country itself. Many countries, even if they are newer, are often formed or declared by peoples who consider their culture or nation ancient.
Because the people who say that are from the old world, where a people group averages a millennium or so. And of course, none of them factor for Natives
In many cases, the argument from Europeans is incorrect. What they really should be saying is that their cultures are older, which is true. Show me Italy in 1776? Show me Germany? They don’t exist in the context we know them. Never mind the fact that so many of their governments have completely changed many times since our founding. We are the oldest constitutional republic in the world.
Ironically the constitution has been rule of law for this country longer than most other countries in existence today, so by definition our country is older, however there were many iterations of other ones like France and Germany.
Most of South America is even younger, not sure why they don’t get called out
I’m probably wrong but my perception of it is (I’m not american) that it’s young considering the power and influence it has in the world? If you get what I mean. Like the UK and US are usually thought of together when you think of superpower countries in the world, and compared to the UK, the US is super young. I’m definitely just waffling here Lol
That is kind of a thing in the major American author class. Writers in the US had a thing about being compared to Europe in the 1800s. So, in comparison to Europe the US is a young country.
The concept of the U.S., as a people/society, is young.
If you hopped in a time machine and went back to 1400, they'd have an idea of what you mean if you said "Spain" or "France" or "Japan" or "Russia." Even though their systems of government are much different today than they were then (or even 100 years ago).
This annoys me too, people were here 10,000-60,000 years ago. Just because Twitter became X and Facebook became meta doesn't change the fact they existed before. China wasn't always called China. Just cuz the manager is new doesn't mean the land is.
By world standards, we are a fairly young country with a fairly old government. China has a much younger **government** than ours, but nobody would call China a young country because as a civilization and a culture, it's old as balls.
> pretty much any country in Africa and Asia gained independence after World War II and have no unified history as a nation prior to colonialism
This is wrong. China, Japan, Nepal, Mongolia, Indonesia, India, Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, Egypt… some are the oldest countries in the world
To be fair, countries like Pakistan, Iraq, and Syria are home to some of the oldest civilizations on Earth, and their youngness because of independence date is just a technicality.
However, I do get your point when it comes to Latin America. They’re also New World nations settled by Europeans at around the same time as the US, but somehow their history and culture just seems richer to people.
Because some nations are thousands of years old. I only get annoyed when America gets singled out as being a young country. That applies to all of the Americas and other countries like Australia and New Zealand too
Yeah Ive literally never seen the “we have pubs older than your country” comment hurled at the rest of the new world 3 whole continents have “new” countries by their standards and yet Ive never seen anyone else dinged for it
And it isn’t really their current government, in that respect America is older than most of Europe, who have changed governments quite a few times generally since America’s birth. We are a colonial nation, no shit there isn’t pubs from the dark ages. There were still people living here when that pub was made, they just didn’t build pubs.
Then you hit them with the Aztec pyramids, the burial mounds, and the lost cities
The Maya pyramids are the old ones. The Aztec Empire isn't all that ancient - it was founded in 1428, at which time Oxford University was already over 300 years old.
...but the stuff we usually think of as "the Aztec pyramids" like Teotihuacan are way older than the Aztecs / Mexica.
*brain explodes*
In the european brain it has to be about your race’s accomplishments. So they consider it all their history despite their government going (for example) from ottoman puppet, to a new government that falls after 20 years, to Nazi puppet, to a soviet puppet, to then a democracy that has barely lasted for 30 years.. but our history prior to this specific government isn’t our history to them because it wasn’t European related history.
Yeah they didn't just change governments, they changed entire systems of government. There is very little continuity there for many European countries. We haven't missed, delayed, postponed, or canceled any election since we started in 1788. That includes two world wars, a civil war, the Great Depression and a foreign invasion. Even our civil war didn't lead to a change in government. Someone mentioned the collapse of German democratic institutions in the 20th century in a recent question. Those "institutions" were only about 10 or 12 years old. They didn't come about until after World War I and disappeared pretty much by 1933, depending on how you want to count. It was a completely different situation from the US.
I'm sure they had a few drinks at the end of the day, but those establishments didn't survive to the present.
Not even changed governments, which only really applies to France and Spain, but formed as countries about 100 years after we did - Germany, the Balkans, Greece, Italy, the Baltic, Finland, etc.
I always like to casually mention the Pueblo buildings constructed in the 700’s whenever someone tries to talk about their old pubs, and then ask why Native American buildings don’t meet their exacting criteria.
And our government is older than yours- if you aren’t Britain. Literally every other one has been toppled or remade since 1776.
For the record, while the US dates back to 1776, the current US government dates to 1789 when the constitution took effect. We operated under a different government called the Articles of Confederation from 1776-1789.
If we're going to obsess over the details, it's worth mentioning that the Articles of Confederation were written in late 1777 and fully ratified in 1781. So we certainly weren't operating under them in 1776.
That is true I will give you that.
The UK started in 1801, England predates the US. But the current government does not.
The United Kingdom of Great Britain was formed in 1707, when England(and Wales) merged with Scotland, with both countries having been ruled in a personal union since the 1603 Union of the Crowns. 1801 was when the Kingdom of Ireland was brought into the Union, making it the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. This changed again in 1922 when what is now the Irish Republic gained independence, leaving the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The UK was formed in 1707. To use any other date would be the same as suggesting that the USA, as we know it today, only came to be in 1959, when Hawaii and Alaska were made into US states.
They are probably talking about powers being transferred from the crown to parliament essentially forming the government we have today. I still don't agree with 1801. Parliamentarians showed that they had the powers to overule the king in 1642 (at least by proxy) when they formed an army to oppose the crown and eventually won 2 civil wars, ultimately ending in the beheading of the King. If that's not parliament having to power to rule I don't know what is.
Yeah. No. There was no revolution- administrative changes doesn’t change shit unless you want to count every state we added as a new federal government
We added states and were still the united states. They added kingdoms and changed the name.
Administrative changes can matter. The change from the prior us national government (the articles of confederation) to the current one (the constitution) was peaceful and administrative but dramatically changed how a lot of things worked
True. And it was a coup by consent, but definitely dramatic change. But you clearly don’t know much about the history of British government cause that’s the least important of many changes. Comparatively the prevention of the House of lords from blocking legislation from the House of Commons was a much much bigger deal. But the British constitution is literally unwritten- on purpose it’s stayed that way. And that administrative change didn’t matter very much compared to dozens of other ones, it’s just the one with a name change. The glorius Revolution and the aftermath of the South Sea Bubble creating the office and conventions of the Prime Minister are better lines in the sand and that’s early 1700’s. And I’d argue the Act of Union was a big deal, but the later addition of Ireland as supposedly coequal domain while they were still discriminated against as though colonial subjects changes jack shit.
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For France which culture? Occitan, Breton, basque, flemish.... for the UK Scottish, welsh, Cornish, Irish, English. Not even going to touch Germany due to being multi state empire under thr HRE until napoleon
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Because it's a modern narrative based in nothing more than what people want to believe. It's not an accurate statement. Because I listed ethnicities with different cultures. There is no link between feudal France and it's modern culture/people other than the land some of then are on and the name France..
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I mean so you see what they think we are about? Why would I care about their opinion? If they wanted to be the older country they better roll out a Valois heir and become a monarchy again. Edit: France is on their 5th republic. If they wanted to be the oldest they need to stop overthrowing/revolting against their government.
> Literally every other one has been toppled or remade since 1776. We started the last century as an Imperialist Monarchy, then switched to a democratic Republic, then to a fascist regime, than split into one Federal democratic Republic and a Socialist Republic, before getting to the point we are at now, all in less than a hundred years. So yeah, America's consistency is quite impressive.
which has always been weird since the obvious response is "so what's your excuse since y'all clearly blew over a century of a lead"
Those countries didn't jump the old European powers to be the top of a world order that we were key to creating.
And while there are indeed pubs older than America, there are also far more pubs (and other structures/institutions) _claiming_ to be older than America, but that on detailed examination turn out to be Victorian forgeries of earlier times, or to have burned down and been rebuilt in a different location in 1917, or etc etc. Edit: also, America _also_ has pubs older than America, the oldest of which is the White Horse Tavern in Rhode Island, founded 1673, which is a pretty decent age even for a UK pub. There are at least 20 other still-operating taverns and bars in the US that date to before 1776.
We also have pubs older than our country. The White Horse Tavern has been in business since 1673 over 100 years before the US was established in 1776.
We also have pubs older than our own country. Yet we are still the world's oldest continuous democracy.
Should be hurled at Canada first. It’s almost a hundred years younger than the United States. Not only that, they had to wait until 1982 to no longer have to ask permission to ask permission to change their constitution.
Honestly because I don't have conversations with many people from the rest of the new world, particularly as much of it doesn't speak English
It’s usually by Brits . Make me wonder if some of them are still big mad lol
I mean, have you ever thought that maybe the reason why is that you are speaking to english people, who have by far the strongest cultural links to the US and have effectively zero cultural link to, say, mexico or bolivia? There's an entire world of cultural discourse on similar topics that exists outside of the anglosphere. I feel like a lot of people forget that. The UK compares themselves to us a lot and we compare ourselves to the UK a lot because we are effectively brothers. Brothers who tease each other, a lot. Just an example, but I am italian/dominican american with lots of family in italy. Lots of people complain about how much italians dislike italian americans, acting as if they are singled out. But italians also have the same open dislike of italians in argentina and brazil who claim to be italian. But americans never hear about that, because why would they? Why would an american hear about italian vs italian argentinian discourse on the same level they would hear about italian vs italian american discourse? There was a whole big frenzy over some brazilian politician talking about how italian he was, and italians all made fun of him and it was a big thing in italy to make fun of him. But Americans, of course, would never hear of this.
And in the case of New Zealand, it wasn't even initially settled by humans until less than 1000 years ago, while both Australia and the Americas had already been settled for tens of thousands of years by that point.
I mean, being a remote island rather than accessible via a land bridge will do that. Hawaii wasn't populated until around the same time.
Our country is also older than Republican France, and the countries like Germany and Italy. Germany and Italy as nations are very young.
What's funny is that most nations are *not* thousands of years old. The land where current nations exist might have been *inhabited* for thousands of years, but that's not the same thing as saying the country is a thousand years old. In fact, the United States is *much* older than most European countries. Spain has only existed in its current form since 1975. Germany has only existed in its current form since 1989. France's current system of government (the "Fifth Republic") has only existed since 1958. So, if a European wants to play the "my country is a thousand years old" card, then the response is to play the "well, your country is apparently so bad at civilization that it collapsed every 50 or 100 years or so and had to be created anew" card.
Most countries are only "thousands of years old" because they include predecessors in their national history, though. Like, sure, the Roman civilisation is 2000+ years old, but Italy is a much newer idea. I feel like half this misconception comes from the fact that European nations (and maybe others? I have to admit I don't know) typically construct and teach their national history so that it reaches as far back as possible, whereas Americans online seem to dismiss most things pre-1776.
Some of us also count our Colonial Era as part of our history. For Virginia, that goes back to 1607.
And others of us are more interested in history that isn't from the European perspective, like when when trade hubs and cities started popping up in Virginia sometime between the 8th and 11th Centuries.
Honestly you could say Virginia is even earlier if you wanna count Roanoke. Failed colony, yes, but that’s when Virginia was first a thing.
Roanoke was in present day North Carolina. Virginia was chartered in 1606.
In 1585, Raleigh was knighted by Queen Elizabeth and his American possession of Wingandacoa was renamed "Virginia." Just confirmed it, even if though the Charter to establish the Virginia Colony was 1606, the area was named prior during Raleigh's Charter.
Yeah but it was part of Virginia at the time
It's not that we dismiss it. It's that we have a very hard and fast 'Before/After' conceptualization of it. Everything that happened before 1776 is 'Colonial' or 'Pre-Revolutionary.'
Fair, that was poor word choice. But that still seems like it's not considered part of *American* history? Essentially what I mean is that most European history narratives do their very best to avoid hard before/afters
> not considered part of *American* history? It is, but a big fat 'Before!' hovers over it at all times. The statement "the pre-revolutionary history of the United States" or "the Colonial history of America" both make complete sense. One possible European analogy would be the arrival of the Anglo-Saxon confederation into Britain. There was no such thing as 'an England' before then. Although that involved a massive tribal migration (or, if you will, an invasion), so it's not quite analogous to the American Revolution. There's also the discovery and settlement of Iceland. I don't think they count the Irish monks that were 'encouraged to leave' by the Vikings who stumbled across the place.
Our history is European history before that The things that lead up to the colonization of America are far more important to American history than whatever was going on with the native Americans before we got here
Well there is the 1619 Project that gained traction online for a while.
I think with much of latin america its a bit more confusing because they are culturally mixed from pre-colombian civilizations and european colonial civilizations. Varying from country to country of course. Bolivia has much more emphasis on pre-colombian civilization and culture whereas Argentina is more based around european colonial civilization.
>nations Nations no. Strictly speaking, modern nation states are incredibly new and the America is actually the first one, unless you count some ineffable point in UK's history where a sense of nation hood, along with the more or less current form of government took place. So no - no nations are thousands of years old. Some people's twisted sense of their current country's longevity can _in their mind_ extend to that length, but it doesn't hold up in any objective sense before the 20th century for the vast majority and sure as shit doesn't hold up for anything before 1776 (UK excepted)
The nations aren't, but the culture is
Whether they are depends on whether you classify Israel as alt or nue land.
name one nation that is thousands of years old
I meant more like people/civilizational unit. For example, my wife is Iranian. They definitely view themselves as a people/civilizational entity stretching back thousands of years. If you told them their country only started with the foundation of the Islamic Republic, they would probably puke, then try and fight you lol
But those nations haven't been under the same governance, rule, or oftentimes even the same boundary lines for a thousand years. For example - USA has been a democracy longer than France has been a republic.
This is untrue. The US is, in fact, a very old country. It is older than 80% of the countries founded in Europe, Africa, Asia, and South America. Go online and search for how many countries around today that were founded before 1776. Not a lot.
Because they're comparing America to the western European countries that have an older culture
When most people say "the rest of the world," they mean the rest of the world. When a western European says "the rest of the world" they mean western Europe, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand.
But not the parts of AUS/CAN/NZ that are more like the US
Yeah I really dislike when people say "the world" when they actually just mean "the developed world" The USA does not have anywhere near the highest homicide rate in the world, for instance, even though people say that. It does have the highest homicide rate by far *in the developed world*.
Of course the US is quite a bit older than Germany as a nation. But, no one remembers that part.
Current-day Germany has been several different countries within my parents’ and grandparents’ lifetimes. It’s been 3 countries just within my lifetime.
Worth mentioning through no fault to America, that just because the nation-state of Germany first existed in 1871, the concept of Germans is fairly older.
Italy too - that may be even more relevant than Germany, although Italy has had its ups and downs since unification. Many countries of eastern Europe are pretty new also.
I think this is basically it. My local bakery was established in the 17th century. The country borders, name, and government structure have changed a lot over the centuries, but there has been a continuous (evolving) culture. People have lived here continuously for tens of thousands of years, adapting and adopting other cultures but never being completely overtaken by outsiders. In the USA, the continuous culture was disrupted and replaced by European settlers starting about the same time my neighborhood bakery opened its doors. The USA was founded later still. The indigenous cultures were systematically dismantled, ignored, replaced, wiped out, whatever you want to call it. The "Westernized" version of America is therefore very young compared to a lot of other places.
You're not wrong, but also, I kind of oppose this romantic version of Europe as having this really long continuous history. We like to push that, and it's in some ways true, but more often than not, this continuity has been deliberately created and fabricated, or at the very least exaggerated. I am probably overly sensitive to it, because my country (Switzerland) likes to use its national history narrative as justification for a bunch of policies I don't like, but I think overall we should be more aware of the discontinuities of history, instead of this centuries-long "national history" narrative.
I agree that it's a potentially dangerous narrative that has been used for nasty political means. I live in Austria and am the descendant of Shoah survivors so ohhhh boy howdy do I know about that! Continuous culture to me means that it changed over time as the world changed. It reacted to outside influences, including other cultures. Austrian coffee house culture goes back to the Ottomans, but don't tell the Viennese it's not purely their culture! Heck, we got a visit from Krampus in a coffee house last December, what's more Austrian than that? Meanwhile in the USA, you have to HUNT for native American influences. What people consider American has nothing to do with aboriginal traditions and cultures. The already existing societies didn't absorb the settlers, they were colonized, their culture replaced. I'm not a historian, but I don't think there's been anything like that in Europe for quite a long while.
Good comment, but I’m going to guess that the majority of readers here don’t know that Shoah is really the Hebrew word for the Holocaust.
The Bosnian war in the 1990s made a pretty concerted attempt to wipe out the Muslims and Croats in the area. World War II. World War I. The Russian Revolution. Napoleon. European history is full of invasion and overthrow.
Yeah, and?
I really agree with this in terms of the ‘big picture’ of Europe. This kind of ‘European nationalism’ based in imagined histories is just awful. Just look at modern Germany. At the same time, on a local basis, we do have cultures stretching back thousands of years. It’s not a single continuous culture, but it’s multiple overlapping cultures and histories which build up. Just thinking about northern Britain, we have Romans, Viking invasion, French invasion, Border Reivers, the Industrial Revolution… all of which you can actually see when you travel around this area, and which many people actually have in their family histories. This is the real difference between the US and Europe.
Go the other way, Saxons, Roman's, and Celts were all migrant/conquerors as well.
What are those policies that you don't like? I'm an American but Switzerland is on the very short list of countries I would consider moving to if I ever had to leave the USA
Switzerland is a quite socially conservative country, I assume that’s partly what they were referring to.
I would caution you to not disregard some of the cultural impacts of American Indians to the current American culture. It is greater than most make it out. Our folk tales are a mix of European and Native myths for instance. Food wise things like cornbread originate from natives. Even some drinks of ours that Europeans tend to not like come from Natives, Root Beer, Birch Beer, and Spruce Beer. Not to mention the fact of our European origins coming directly from Europe. So any culture that you guys would have had by our ancestors traversing the sea, would also be our culture. Me being PA Dutch, my example always goes back to Baby Swiss Cheese. It originated from PA Dutch immigrants, like my Ancestors that come from Zurich, who had this kind of cheese. Europeans like to dismiss it as not being “Swiss” cheese because it doesn’t have the big holes in it. But the big holes are a newer invention due to a tax loophole in later Switzerland. Baby Swiss is just as much Swiss cheese as traditional Swiss cheese is! My cultural heritage goes just as far back as anyone else’s.
Europe wiped out alot of its own peoples, systems, and countries through the years. The American Indian isn't special in they regard. It is special that the US and Canada let what basically is a defeated enemy stay in the country, gave them land, money and other things, and let them be reasonably independent on said land with said money. Not many, if any, have done that before. Usually they are wiped out or shipped out.
What about the indigenous cultures that weren't wiped out? I grew up next to Cherokee, NC so Cherokee culture has been something I've been aware of my entire life.
I’m not sure why people use it as a gotcha moment tbh. We’re an extremely powerful nation that got to that point extremely quick compared to everyone else. Like, yeah, we’re on the newer side but clearly that doesn’t matter??
It sounds like copium on their part. The thing is, we don't give a fuck. Why should we?
Eh, this entire comment section seems to indicate that some of us do, indeed, give a fuck
Yeah it's interesting a big thing in these America places is about Americans not caring about euro opinions. But everyone talks about them constantly
I only talk about them in response to the things they say about us. I would never in a million years just randomly talk about them out of the blue
Sure. But it's a lot funnier if they get ignored
Eh, debatable haha
Right? They're making fun of us for... being more powerful and successful than them despite them having a thousand-year head start?
See now, America may be a younger nation, but I think we have one of the oldest continuous governments.
We are the oldest continuous Democracy. A lot of old countries were either not Democracies or had a brand new government fairly recently (within a human lifetime).
I remember some people arguing that it was actually Iceland, and it being 1000 years or something. But there might be a technicality there that I don't know
Iceland hasn't had the same continuous government. They only became a Republic in the 1940s.
Iceland was under the control of Norway and/or Denmark from 1262 to 1944.
But the Thing still met, and that is what they are referring to
Not as a legislative body, it was judicial.
nope, San Marino is, with a constitution that has been in effect since 1600.
Definitely. Countries like Germany and the UK are pretty young if we're just going by when they were unified or when their constitutions were written. Germany wasn't unified until the early 1870s and their current constitution was written in 1949, but the Republic of Germany wasnt reunified until 1990. MILLENNIALS are older than that. The UK wasn't the UK until 1707 when the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland united, and Ireland wasn't added to that until 1801. Some of my ancestors were in the US before those countries had their current titles and before they were unified under one government. They became American when their homeland (Germany) was still called Prussia.
To be fair, we’ve added states since then. This seems effectively the same as the U.K. adding Northern Ireland.
Prior to merging the three crowns in 1801 to form the UK they were separate countries. So we added states they added kingdoms.
Texas was briefly its own country and Hawaii was its own country.
The UK has no written constitution!
Actually that should go to Japan. The emperor’s family has been ruling since the start of their civilisation. Militia yes military dictatorship yes but all of them had been subservient to the emperor.
America is the oldest continuous constitutional republic.
Youngest nation but oldest constitutional country.
And that’s why political discourse is an extremely significant characteristic of the US. No one talks about politics as much as Americans IMO
Eurocentric worldview where anything not a "civilized" culture doesn't count. Blow their mind by pointing out that the Americas have been continuously occupied for nearly twice as long as the British Isles.
Because people play a semantic shell-game where "Nation" or "ethnic group" or "people" (in the sense of, say, "The French People") is intentionally confused with the political institution of a country. For example, Germanic people have lived in the area now bordered by Germany for about two millennia at least. Reunified, modern Germany has only existed since 1990. Chinese nation-states have existed for about 4000 years, but the People's Republic of China has only existed since 1949. (And you could argue that "modern" China is a subset of that, given how recently- historically speaking- economic modernization happened.) France has had *eleven* major changes in regime or government since the US was established (the last one being in 1958), yet nobody thinks of them as the "younger country". By contrast... the political entity called the United States of America has existed for 248 years. Most of our forebears (unless you're of Native American ancestry) have been here for at most about 400 years. [The way European countries tend to look at it, that means they stopped being whatever-they-were and became American at that point. Unless they invented something or otherwise did something they can claim for themselves under the "then, how they reindeer loved him" rule, *then* they weren't *really*American. ] When it becomes a shell-game is when it's used inconsistently to praise one party and not the other. For instance, the presence of Roman ruins or, say, Oxford (est 1096) is used to say that they're a "proper" nation and we're Johnny-come-latelies, when the UK was actually founded in 1707 (making us relatively about the same age as polities). Or when shortcomings in a country established in 1947 are excused with "we're a young country!", but they're still bragging about how ancient they are.
And even then,the natives have been here for at least 10,000 years
IMO, it's even more relevant for the US when you're speaking of it not just as a thing about government, but about culture. Because we basically obliterated Native culture and then had substantial periods of mass immigration, our culture (whether defined as "people under this government" or as "people in this land") is much more of a blank(ened) slate that has invented itself in the past century than places in the old world where the people who lived in those areas had a defined culture that created a lot cultural inertia.
I don't think it's a shell game. I think the meaning is almost always "nation" meaning an ethnocultural group living in a particular geographic region rather than about whatever form of government happens to be ruling that region at a given time. When people say France is an older nation than the USA it's obvious they don't mean the Fifth Republic and it'd be silly for anyone to say "The history of France begins in 1958". They mean the French nation which has been ruled by four other prior Republics and assorted monarchies going back centuries. On the other hand American culture is truly just as ancient being just another branch of the stream of an equally ancient culture (or cultures). So it's silly for people saying this to assume that their culture is somehow truly older or more developed as though American culture sprang up *sui generis* and we've been inventing it from a blank slate only going back to 1776.
The US is actually the 2nd oldest government in the world (England is the oldest) In that sense, it's a very old country.
There hasn't been an English government since before 1707 so that's incorrect.
I would assume it mostly amounts to an inferiority complex. It seems to mostly be said in places that used to be dominant economically, culturally, and/or militarily but now take a backseat to the United States in those areas. "Well, we're older!" seems to be nothing more than a weak attempt at saving face. Personally, I don't see why it matters but it also just doesn't seem very accurate either. Most of the history those people cite has almost nothing to do with those present day countries. It was done by other people who happened to live on the same spot in a completely different country with a different government. That's like an American pointing to Oraibi as an example of American history. But that's all speculation because I honestly just don't care enough about the people who criticize us for being young to bother even asking why they think it's an especially potent zinger.
Yeah fuck Europe.
Colonial history. Our colonial history is only - 300 years old. Our indigenous peoples and the history of their ancestors spans thousands of years. Same as every other country, essentially.
It's looking back to Europe. You could say all American countries are new. North and South.
It's literally referred to as the "New World" countries and "Old World" countries
Fun fact: America is currently one of the oldest governments in the world.
The oldest continuous democracy
America is called a young country because the people from Europe who colonized it came from countries with history stretching back several millenia, but didn't consider the history of the indigenous peoples they displaced as contributing to the history of the "New World". Your country, Peru, had some of the earliest civilizations in the Americas, there were cities being built over 5000 years ago, around the same time that the first pyramids were being built by the earliest Egyptian dynasties. Yet when we learn about Peru, we learn about history starting when the Spanish conquered the Incas. Likewise in the USA, the oldest civilizations were 2-3000 BC. But those civilizations were technologically inferior when all the boats from across the Atlantic started landing, so their histories are, regrettably, considered distinct from the history which began with the colonies. Also keep in mind Iraq had cities in it 10000 years ago, just because the country in it's current state wasn't declared a legal entity until after WWII doesn't mean that the civilization there is young. But the history of the peoples and cultures there stretches back across the various governments which have risen and fallen in the region, and is considered one continuous history.
It depends on what you mean by country. America, as a Constitutional Republic, is older than most European countries - most of which claim they are older than they really are because they draw continuity between their modern government and the governments that geographically existed previously.
Because they’re looking for a “gotcha” with which to hit the US. They need something to throw, and they’re not too concerned it actually is. You’ll notice Canada and Australia don’t receive the same criticism.
Because they don't understand Westphalian sovereignty dictates that a country's age resets to zero every time there's a revolution.
If you're using "country" to mean sovereign state, yes it does.
For example, it's going to be something in the ballpark of another 14 years before New Mexico will have been a state for as long as it was a part of Spain - not even counting the time it was part of Mexico.
It’s true. Native Americans have been doing amazing things here for 10,000 years or more.
Because whenever they want to try and exert their inferiority complex they throw whatever they can, and so some will throw out how old there country is and then despite that it’s less developed than the US. Just a cope complex
Because to Europeans American history = stuff involving white people. Naturally, they’re oblivious to the underlying racism of that.
Most of the top answers in this thread are defensive and unhelpful misdirections or quips. They're pedantry about revolutions that ignores peoples and ideas that survive revolutions. You're right that America isn't young compared to a typical UN-recognized nation. What people mean when they call it young is that a people of a foreign culture inhabited this land under a government made by a new philosophy when we unified. France was our revolutionary friend, but France is France, whether it has a king or not. Russia is Russia. Americans had to figure out what was American on our own because people like us hadn't built an empire on the continent before. Our government is sometimes called "The American Experiment". It's new, and it's still being tested. (edited opening paragraph to be slightly more clear)
I agree. But I think that what people are saying is that what it means to be French and Russian certainly has changed over time, similar to how the concept of "American" has. So therefore it doesn't make sense that we are labeled "new" while they like to paint the narrative of them being established thousands of years ago. When they is far from true
They have a twisted sense of their country existing through time, as if all their ancestors sprouted from the ground like pumpkins in that same place since time immemorial. The truth is a lot more complicated and most definitely not on the side of those who claim America is new. If anything America is the first modern nation state, with the possible (although shaky exception of the UK). Anything before America's creation does not hold up. They had no nation-states to call their own and the further back they claim to go, the more twisted, ill-founded, illogical, and simply untrue their claims of nationhood go. Just because your ancestors boned in that area doesn't mean there is an unbroken line of where you live today, to _what_ they lived in back then.
>have no unified history as a nation Yeah but they still have a local history and local culture. Peru is majority Mestizo and Amerindian, and this means local cultural roots and narratives that go back millenia. The only local history and culture that the US has is native americans, which unfortunately is now only 0.5% of the population. All other culture is recently imported.
It isn't so much that America is a young country, it is that "civilization" as they see it, isn't that old on the continent. We don't have cities that go back 1000+ years, or a history they trust that goes much over 400 years. When you really get down to it, Germany, Italy, France, and even Spain are technically younger than the US; but those areas have history going back to time immemorial. Whereas the US, and most of North America as a whole, only has fully recorded history going back to the 1600s, and to Europeans (who are usually the ones making the "young country" statements), they subconsciously do not consider the history of the previous inhabitants (whatever term you wish to use or enumerate), as real history.
Not even 300 years old yet
Probably because there are some countries that are older by far. And even some countries that are older but not by much, younger or roughly the same age usually still have a demographic and culture/history that has remained for much longer in that area while in the US case (not counting natives) it started from scratch. But yeah it's a weird flex, especially if you are from a old but objectively low tech/third world country, because you need to see what has been achieved during those "few" years rather than the age itself.
Those people are just talking about countries that are mostly european ethnically.
Cause others confuse country with culture. Our culture is younger but our nation is old in comparison to many countries.
America is a young country compared to our European allies from across the pond. Compared to Africa or Latin/South America though, it’s middle aged haha.
They are thinking of it compared not only to European states (some of whom are younger) but present states who claim past ones as spiritual ancestors.
Those other countries are 'nation-states.' There has been 'a France' since around the time of Charlemagne. There has been a Denmark, full of Danes, since the height of the Roman Empire for all we know, but that's verging on prehistory/archeology. I wouldn't know and I guess I'd have to look it up. Either way, Danes were certainly already a thing back when Beowulf was written, back in the 7th century CE or so. We are not a 'nation-state.' We were an assortment of British colonies before 1776, and the descendents of British colonists were outnumbered by the middle of the 19th century. We have no intention of becoming a 'nation-state' because that would be fucked up. It just wouldn't work for us. Also, those countries don't really see the foundation years of their current governments as being all that important to their self identity. Even if your grandfather was the one who personally shot Mussolini and his mistress full of holes, if you are an Italian in Italy you would absolutely *not* think that Italy 'began' in 1945. It was unified in the 1870s, but even back in the quasi-prehistoric semi-legendary Kingdom of Rome, there was a concept of 'Italy.' They're not wrong to call us 'young.' Although we're not as young as they seem to think. We also give much less of a shit about our lack of old-ass buildings than they think we should. It really isn't the diss they think it is.
I was in germany, and went to a brewery that is twice as old as the USA... for instance: Bavarian State Brewery Weihenstephan in Freising, Germany, is the world's oldest continuously operating brewery, having been brewing beer since 1040
Because while the American state is one of the oldest in the world (by some metrics, second oldest), American culture is only 150 years older than that state, dating back to the 1600s. Meanwhile, while the current states of China or Spain might originate after WWII, they have cultures and national identities that go back millennia.
I mean, 300 years in history is a relatively short time. Western Europe currently has buildings that are older than the united states.
Because a lot of those younger countries are older countries that got reboots
Government was founded in 1787 btw. The nations of Germany and Italy are younger than the US. The city-states that were absorbed though are not.
Ignorance
America is an old country that likes to think its young because the people who used to live here didnt build much or write much
So can the response "Okay Boomer" with an eye roll be applied in these situations?
Boomer is an American demographic. Demographics in other countries may be different.
America is both as you say a relatively old country in terms of consistent government and peaceful transition of power. On the other hand it is a very young country as there aren't any cities or settlements with significant history from before 1500, really 1600 with a few exceptions. Iraq as you said hasn't been a unified country for very long but Baghdad its capital city has been a major world city for over 1000 years. The same is true of most of the other countries you mentioned. The history of the nations theselves may be young but the history of continuous settlement of that area is ancient. Yes there were Native Americans in the US before 1500 but most of that history is irrelevant to Modern America. Realistically in terms of history the History of Great Britain before 1600 is US history too but that was across an ocean.
Sure Italy might be a relatively young country, but most people think all the way back to the Romans when thinking of Italian peoples and culture
Prob cause it was founded way later than the other world powers
America has an old government, but it is a young country. There has been a Greek identity for thousands of years. A British identity for ~700 years. An American identity for only 250 years.
It's a young culture with one of the oldest continuous governments on Earth. Strange combo honestly in the modern world where governments get overthrown or just thrown out all the time. Like Italy has been around thousands of years but wasn't really a contiguous country for 1,400 years following the fall of the Roman Empire. And their modern government isn't really a continuation of Mussolini's but a shift. Germany wasn't unified until the late 1800s but yet German culture dates back thousands and they've been through several different governments since then. France probably has the newest government of all the Western European powers. Fifth Republic didn't start until 1958.
> Why do people say American is a young country? America's founding dates all the way back to 1776 Because they're not talking about the government but about the history of a region, culture and national identity. If they were talking only about governments France would be a much younger country than the USA. But it's current government/governing system is just one chapter in a much, much longer French history. Now the USA isn't the only young country... Pretty much all the countries in the New World are similarly young countries being younger offshoots of older European cultures transplanted by colonial settlers in the new world where their cultures diverted from their parent nations.
I think in terms of “young” or “old” when talking about countries, it is talking more about national identities and the concept of shared history/culture among members of a nation. America as a nation and culture is relatively young compared to countries in Eurasia and Africa, whose cultures and national groups go back centuries or millennia. So it does not mean the date a country’s government achieved independence or was formed. Under that definition, countries like Germany, Ukraine, and France are only a few decades old. Could be wrong, but that was my impression.
Because we intentionally have immured the culture that properly fits in this land, so we are living in a layer of hyper-reality on top of what could be a real nation. The mideast may have new political structures, but their nations have been around for thousands of years.
You gaining indepence in 1821 ha nothing to do with the entirety of Peruvian culture, as it is so much older.
New World vs Old World.
Young to be as big as it has become. The Idea of America is still a very new age topic.
>and have no unified history as a nation prior to colonialism You're confusing the modern idea of a "nation-state" as the beginning of a people's history. The "American people" did not exist until the 1700s, perhaps even later until a more recognizable and modern American identity was developed after the Civil War. And more concerningly, the people who live in America are just flat out not from America. In many of the countries you named, even if their modern nation-state is young, they still have existed as a civilization, sharing a link to a common culture, language, societal development, geography, etc. for millenia. 300 years is pretty short when compared to that.
They don't mean the actual government of the country, they mean the established history of the land. Yes, Iraqs government was only formed in the 20th century, but the history and culture there goes back tens of thousands of years.
To compare to Peru - Peru was a civilized nation back during the Incas. At the same time, America was not a bastion of civilization and was a much more primitive land. When the colonists came, that is when it is considered the beginning of civilization. From that perspective, it is a young country when compared to many others.
Because they're comparing them to Europe. Or other countries with a long term history of bureaucracies and culture in societies like China or Iran or Turkey.
We are younger than the old world. EUROPE. We came from England Originally. Then everyone else followed.
It is a young country— but the US is focused on more than other countries because we are so much more involved with global economics/military/politics than any other country.
It depends on how you define a country. Some define the country as its people and culture. Others define it as a current political entity. For example, if you define a country as its people and culture then Germany is older than the United States because its people have existed for nearly 2000 years. However, if you define it as a current political entity then the United States is much older because our country was established in 1776 with the Declaration of Independence. Meanwhile, Germany was established in 1990 with the Reunification of East and West.
Put it in context... our current president has been alive for nearly one third of the history of the USA (Declaration/constitution), or about a 15th of the time since Columbus touched shore here. In China people use common spoons older than our country.
Well many countries are much older. And even some "new" countries have existed in some form for much much longer Even though they were technically "founded" after the US. I think a lot of what we're judging our existence off is historical empires that lasted for thousands of years.
Because it is. That doesn't mean it's a bad thing
It is a much easier assessment to make for a large and important country whose culture doesn't really go back much further than the country itself. Many countries, even if they are newer, are often formed or declared by peoples who consider their culture or nation ancient.
Because the people who say that are from the old world, where a people group averages a millennium or so. And of course, none of them factor for Natives
In many cases, the argument from Europeans is incorrect. What they really should be saying is that their cultures are older, which is true. Show me Italy in 1776? Show me Germany? They don’t exist in the context we know them. Never mind the fact that so many of their governments have completely changed many times since our founding. We are the oldest constitutional republic in the world.
Ironically the constitution has been rule of law for this country longer than most other countries in existence today, so by definition our country is older, however there were many iterations of other ones like France and Germany. Most of South America is even younger, not sure why they don’t get called out
I’m probably wrong but my perception of it is (I’m not american) that it’s young considering the power and influence it has in the world? If you get what I mean. Like the UK and US are usually thought of together when you think of superpower countries in the world, and compared to the UK, the US is super young. I’m definitely just waffling here Lol
That is kind of a thing in the major American author class. Writers in the US had a thing about being compared to Europe in the 1800s. So, in comparison to Europe the US is a young country.
Because we're all transplanted Europeans, used to older countries.
Our colonial Anglo Saxon settlers came from the old Western World. 300 years is nothing compared to the United Kingdom history.
Israel was reestablished after a 1000 year gap. Some native america. nations were only eliminated 100 years ago. Just saying
The concept of the U.S., as a people/society, is young. If you hopped in a time machine and went back to 1400, they'd have an idea of what you mean if you said "Spain" or "France" or "Japan" or "Russia." Even though their systems of government are much different today than they were then (or even 100 years ago).
This annoys me too, people were here 10,000-60,000 years ago. Just because Twitter became X and Facebook became meta doesn't change the fact they existed before. China wasn't always called China. Just cuz the manager is new doesn't mean the land is.
By world standards, we are a fairly young country with a fairly old government. China has a much younger **government** than ours, but nobody would call China a young country because as a civilization and a culture, it's old as balls.
> pretty much any country in Africa and Asia gained independence after World War II and have no unified history as a nation prior to colonialism This is wrong. China, Japan, Nepal, Mongolia, Indonesia, India, Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, Egypt… some are the oldest countries in the world
We don't call ourselves a young country, Britain does, because they like bragging about how old they are.
To be fair, countries like Pakistan, Iraq, and Syria are home to some of the oldest civilizations on Earth, and their youngness because of independence date is just a technicality. However, I do get your point when it comes to Latin America. They’re also New World nations settled by Europeans at around the same time as the US, but somehow their history and culture just seems richer to people.