United States of America

The United States of America (abbreviated USA), abbreviated United States and often colloquially abbreviated to America, is a federal republic. It consists of 50 federal states, a federal district (the capital Washington, D.C.) five large territories directly dependent on the Union and nine island territories. The contiguous 48 United States (often referred to as the Lower 48) and Alaska are located in North America and together form the continental United States, while the state of Hawaii and the smaller outer areas are located in the Pacific and Caribbean respectively. The country has a very high geographical and climatic diversity with a wide variety of animal and plant species.

The United States of America is the third largest country in the world, measured by an area of 9.83 million square kilometers (after Russia and Canada) and measured by a population of about 331.4 million (after China and India). The largest city by population is New York, the main metropolitan areas are Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Philadelphia, Washington, Miami, Atlanta, Boston and San Francisco, each with a population of more than 5 million. The degree of urbanization is 82.46% (in 2019).

Popular national myths of the United States say that the United States is one of the most ethnically multicultural countries; However, empirical studies show that the United States performs only average in the global comparison of national ethnic and cultural diversity. Unlike 32 states, there is no official legal language at the federal level, but English is the de facto official language. In the southwest as well as in Miami, the Spanish language is also widespread. In total, more than 350 languages were of domestic use in 2015, of which only 150 were Indigenous. Among them were the Yupik in Alaska, the Dakota of the Sioux language family and the various Apache languages in use, then the Keres, the language of the Pueblo Indians, and the Cherokee.

More than 13,000 years ago, Paleoindians migrated from Asia to the North American continent of today’s United States (Buttermilk Creek Complex), having settled several millennia earlier in Alaska, which is now part of the United States. European colonization began around 1600 mainly from England, but in a prolonged conflict with France.

The United States emerged from the 13 colonies on the Atlantic coast. The dispute between Britain and the American colonies led to the American Revolution. On July 4, 1776, the delegates of the 13 colonies adopted the Declaration of Independence of the United States and thus the founding of the United States of America. The American War of Independence, which ended with the recognition of independence, was the first successful war of independence against a European colonial power. The current constitution was adopted on September 17, 1787. So far, 27 additional articles have been added. The first ten amendments, collectively called the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and guarantee a variety of inalienable rights.

Driven by the doctrine of Manifest Destiny, the United States began an expansion across North America that expanded into the 19th century. This included the forced eviction of indigenous Native American tribes, the acquisition of new territories in the Mexican-American War, among others, and the creation of new states. The American Civil War led to the end of legal slavery in the United States in 1865. At the end of the 19th century, the state achieved expansion in the Pacific, its economy became the largest in the world.

The Spanish-American War and World War I confirmed the role of the United States as a global military power. Beginning with World War II, the United States emerged as a superpower and the first nuclear-weapon country, becoming one of five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. After the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States was the only remaining superpower. You are a founding member of the United Nations, the Organization of American States (OAS) and many other international organizations. Their political and cultural influence is great throughout the world.

The United States is an industrialized state and its economy is the largest economy in the world, with a gross domestic product of $23.0 trillion in 2021, accounting for 24% of nominal global economic output and 16% of global economic output adjusted for purchasing power, respectively. The country had the eighth-highest per capita income in 2020.

The country’s economic performance is enhanced by its wealth of natural resources, well-developed infrastructure and high average productivity. Although the economic structure is generally considered post-industrial, the country remains one of the world’s largest producers of goods. The United States was responsible for 36% of global military spending in 2016, ranking first, followed by China with 13% and Russia with 4.1%. Following the terrorist attacks of the 11th. The state of emergency declared in September 2001 has been in force since 2001.

Conceptual history

In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map of the world on which he named the landmass of the Western Hemisphere “America”, after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci. This term originally encompassed the double continent of America, which became known to Europeans as the New World. Since the founding of the United States of America, the use of the term America has focused on the United States to varying degrees for various historical reasons and depending on the linguistic region.

The first documented reference to the Designation United States of America was an anonymous essay published in The Virginia Gazette in Williamsburg on April 6, 1776. In June 1776, Thomas Jefferson added the designation “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA” in verse to his original draft Declaration of Independence. In the final version, the title was changed to the Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America.

The short form United States is commonly used. Other commonly used forms are “U.S.” or “US”, “U.S.A.” or “Usa” and “America”. Other familiar names are “U.S. of A.” and – internationally – “states.” ” Columbia,” a popular name in late 17th-century poetry and songs, is derived from the name of Christopher Columbus. It is part of the District of Columbia.

The official German term for U.S. citizens is “Citizen of the United States (of America)” or “American.” “American” and “US-American” are used in German usage for the adjective term (“American values”), the prefix “US-” (“US-Armed Forces”) is also widespread. “American” is the recommended form in the official language user guides in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

In the German guidelines, it is preceded by the alternative term “United States (of America)”. Only for the United States, there is no clear name in the German guide. The re-reading of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung advises against the use of the new formation “AMERICAN” recorded for the first time in the Duden in 1951, as it is as useless as it is artificial, and recommends replacing it with “American”.

In the English-speaking world, the “American” counterpart is rarely used to designate subjects that have no direct connection to the United States. The term “United States” was also originally treated as a plural in the English-speaking world, a description of a set of independent states, for example, the United States are ratified in the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1865.

It became normal in the United States after the end of their civil war to treat the term as a singular, for example, the United States is. The singular form is common today. However, the plural form is still used in discourse and literature, for example, this United States. Difference is more important than mere freedom of choice of words, because it reflects the difference between a set of states and a unit.

Outside of the English language, the name is often translated as a literal translation of “United States” or “United States of America”. In French, German, Italian, Japanese, Hebrew, Arabic, Portuguese and Russian, self-designations have emerged that distinguish the United States as part of the continent of America, for example as in the aforementioned term American or in American French. However, these forms are not as commonly used as polysemAmerica or polysem America. American. The U.S. Embassy in Spain refers to itself as the embassy of the “Estados Unidos” and also uses the initials “EE. UU.The double letters indicate the use of the plural in Spanish. “Estados Unidos de America” is used elsewhere on the official website.

Geography

Limitations and scope

The United States shares a border with Canada, which is a total of 8,895 kilometers long (with about 2,477 kilometers stretching between Alaska and Canada), and one with Mexico, which is 3,326 kilometers long. The total length of the U.S. land borders is 12,221 kilometers. The Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf of Mexico coastline covers a total of 19,924 kilometers.

The State covers an area of 9,161,924 km², plus 664,706 km² of water surfaces, for a national territory of 9,826,630 km².

The north-south extension between the Canadian and Mexican borders is about 2,500 kilometers, the extension between the Atlantic and the Pacific is about 4,500 kilometers. The main part of the country is approximately between latitude 24 and 49 north and between longitude 68 and 125th west and is divided into four time zones (see Time zones in the United States).

The northernmost city in the United States is Utqiaġvik in Alaska, the southernmost place is Hawaiian Ocean View in Hawaii.

Geology and landscape structure of the United States

The area has a clear structure. Mountain ranges such as the Volcanic Waterfall Range, the Pleated Mountains of the Rocky Mountains, and the Appalachian Mountains stretch from north to south. Although there are vast forests on the weather side, huge arid lands with deserts or meadows (meadows) stretch in their wake. The river systems of the United States, such as those of Mississippi and Missouri, allowed for dense colonization from the beginning, while the surrounding dry regions are still sparsely populated today.

The highest mountain in the United States is Denali in Alaska with 6190 m, the lowest point is the Badwater Depression in Death Valley with 85.5 m below sea level. Denali and Badwater are also the highest and lowest points on the North American continent.

Climate

The most important factor influencing climate is the polar jet stream, which brings large areas of low pressure from the North Pacific. If the troughs combine with those of the Atlantic coast, they bring heavy snowfall in winter like Nor’easters. Since no mountain ranges stretch from west to east, winter storms often bring large amounts of snow far south, while in summer, heat reaches Canada’s far north.

The areas between the mountain ranges have high extreme temperatures as a result, in addition to a more or less significant drought, which increases towards the south and west. The Pacific coast, on the other hand, is a very rainy, often foggy area in the north. The region around the Gulf of Mexico is already subtropical with high temperatures in summer and often high humidity. In addition, the region is often affected by tropical cyclones.

Alaska has an arctic climate, the mountains are also the highest in the United States (Denali, 6190 meters). Hawaii, whose Mauna Kea measures 4205 meters above sea level, has a tropical climate.

Flora and fauna

The areas from the east coast to the Great Lakes were very heavily forested until the 19th century, the west coast in the temperate rainforest area of sometimes extremely tall trees with growth heights of more than 100 meters. Of these areas, only a few, such as redwoods or the Hoh rainforest, remained. Large areas have been converted to arable or cultivated land, the vast majority of which is now occupied by commercial forests. The biodiversity of drier grasslands has also been significantly reduced during agricultural use. However, protected areas and measures have saved many of the more than 17,000 species of vascular plants. Hawaii alone has 1,800 flowering plants (covered seeds), many of which are endemic.

About 400 species of mammals, 750 birds and 500 species of reptiles and amphibians as well as more than 90,000 species of insects are part of the fauna, with a separate law protecting endangered species since 1973. 58 national parks in the remaining wilderness areas and several hundred other protected areas have mainly high biodiversity, which contrasts sharply with widespread monocultures. With biodiversity and diverse ecosystems, the United States is one of the countries of megadiversity on earth. Only the Mediterranean deciduous vegetation of the floral province of California is listed internationally as a biodiversity hotspot due to the great threat to nature.

Protection of nature and the environment

Historically, some important developments in nature conservation come from the history of the United States: the idea of the national park and with it Yellowstone National Park, the first large-scale protected area of its kind in the world, originated in the United States. As a national authority, the Senate established the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) to serve all national protected areas. On the one hand, American NGOs such as Conservation International are world leaders in nature and resource conservation. On the other hand, the United States is one of the few countries that has not yet signed the most important international agreement, the Convention on Biological Diversity.

Agglomerations

In 2020, 83% of the U.S. population lived in cities. In 2016, 307 localities had more than 100,000 inhabitants and there were 54 metropolitan areas with more than one million inhabitants (with only ten cities). The largest metropolitan areas in 2016 were New York (20.1 million), Los Angeles (13.3 million), Chicago (9.5 million), Dallas (7.2 million), Houston (6.7 million), Washington, D.C. (6.1 million) and Philadelphia (6 million). The main metropolitan areas are located between New York and the Great Lakes, California and Arizona, as well as Texas and, to a lesser extent, Florida. With 33 inhabitants per square kilometer, the United States is a rather sparsely populated country. The east of the country is much more densely populated than the west.

Rank	Town	Inhabitant		Rank	Metropolitan area	Inhabitant
1	New York City	8.537.673		1	New York-Newark-Jersey City	20.153.634
2	Los Angeles	3.976.322		2	Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim	13.310.447
3	Chicago	2.704.958		3	Chicago-Naperville-Elgin	9.512.999
4	Houston	2.303.482		4	Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington	7.233.323
5	Phoenix	1.615.017		5	Houston-Les Bois-Sugar Land	6.772.470
6	Philadelphia	1.567.872		6	Washington, D.C.-Arlington-Alexandria	6.131.977
7	San Antonio	1.492.510		7	Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington	6.070.500
8	San Diego	1.406.630		8	Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Palm Beach	6.066.387
9	Dallas	1.317.929		9	Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell	5.789.700
10	San José	1.025.350		10	Boston-Cambridge-Newton	4.794.447

The United States demography

Ethnicities and immigrant groups

White	60,4%
Hispanic and Latino	18,3%
African Americans	13,4%
Asian Americans	5,9%
Multi-ethnic Americans	2,7%
North American Indians and Alaska Natives	1,3%
Natives of Hawaii and Oceania	0,2%

The country’s first inhabitants, the Native Americans (“Native Americans” or “American Indians”), now make up only about one percent of the population. It is only in Alaska that they reach a double-digit percentage of the population. Other focal points are Oklahoma, California, Arizona, New Mexico and South Dakota. They do not form a unit; Culture, language and religion differ from one people to another. In total, there are 562 recognized tribes, plus 245 groups that are not currently recognized as tribes.

The first colonial immigrants to the Indian-inhabited continent were Europeans, initially of Spanish, French and English descent. With them came slaves of the 17th century, mainly from West Africa. From the middle of the 18th century and increasingly towards the middle of the 19th century, Europeans of German-speaking and Irish origin followed.

Later, immigrants from other parts of Europe were added, mainly Italians, Scandinavians, and Eastern Europeans, including Jews from Eastern Europe. In the second half of the 19th century, immigration occurred from East Asia and the Near East. In addition to economic motives, religious or political persecution has also played a role for many.

Americans of European descent now make up 72% of the total population. African Americans make up just over 13 percent. They live mainly in the south and in the large industrial cities of the north. Asian immigrants, largely from China, Japan, Korea, India and the Philippines, account for about five percent. In the last census, more than 50 million people declared themselves to be of German origin. This makes German Americans the largest population group in the United States.

Especially in the southwestern United States and Florida, there is a high proportion of the population of Latin American origin, which is generally referred to as “Hispanics” or “Latinos.” Many of them firmly adhere to their culture and language. Their share in the United States has steadily increased in recent decades (reaching 17% in 2013), as many Latin Americans flee economic hardship to the north. They often come as illegal immigrants.

There are large differences in the social structure between white and black populations. Blacks have, on average, lower incomes, shorter life expectancies and lower education. They are both more likely to be victims and perpetrators of homicide and are more likely to be sentenced to death. The causes of this and the possible ways to solve the problem are controversial. Not only in southern states, residential areas and non-public institutions – such as churches or private organizations – are often de facto separated by ethnicity, although formal separation is now illegal and frowned upon.

Population development in the United States

The population has been growing steadily since 1610. Forecasts predict a further increase by 2050: According to United Nations forecasts, the population will reach 358 million by 2025 and by 2050, more than 408 million people will live in the country.

Since 1790, the constitution has provided for a census that takes place every ten years, the so-called Census of the United States. Immigrants accounted for a significant proportion of population growth. Since the Immigration and Naturalization Services Act of 1965, the number of foreign-born people has increased fivefold, from 9.6 million in 1970 to about 49.8 million in 2017.

In the 1990s, the number of immigrants increased to one million per year. In 2000, the proportion of foreign-born persons was 11.1 percent of the total population. By 2017, it had risen to 15.3%. At the same time, nearly 3 million Americans were living abroad. Most of them in Mexico (900,000), Canada (310,000), the United Kingdom (190,000), Germany (140,000) and Australia (120,000).

In 2020, the population grew by 0.4%, or about 1.3 million. The number of births per woman was statistically 1.8 in 2020. The birth rate of Hispanics and Latinos is higher than that of the rest of the population. For every 1000 inhabitants, there were 12.5 births and 8.2 deaths in 2016. The median age of the population in 2020 was 38.3 years. Among industrialized countries, the United States has one of the youngest and most dynamic populations.

Year Population 1770: 2.148.100 1780: 2.780.400 1790: 3.929.214 1800: 5.308.483 1810: 7.239.881 1820: 9.638.453 1830: 12.866.020 1840: 17.069.453 1850: 23.191.876

Year Population 1860: 31.443.321 1870: 38.558.371 1880: 50.189.209 1890: 62.979.766 1900: 76.212.168 1910: 92.228.496 1920: 106.021.537 1930: 123.202.624 1940: 132.164.569

Year Population 1950: 151.325.798 1960: 179.323.175 1970: 203.211.926 1980: 226.545.805 1990: 248.709.873 2000: 281.421.906 2010: 308.745.538 2020: 331.449.281

Languages

English (only)	231.1 million
Spanish or Creole languages based on Spanish	37.4 million
Chinese	2.9 million
Tagalog (Philippines)	1.6 million
Vietnamese	1.4 million
French, incl. Cajun	1.3 million
Korean	1.1 million
German	1.1 million

The most widely spoken language in the United States is American English. In addition, many languages of Indians or Hawaiians and the languages of immigrants are spoken. In total, the latest census identified 382 languages, 169 of which are Native American. The latter, however, have only about 400,000 speakers, about half of whom are Navajo.

In Apache County in Arizona alone, there were 37,000, in McKinley County in New Mexico, 33,000. 227 million people speak exclusively English, all other languages together represent more than 60 million speakers. The proportion of Spanish speakers is particularly high, with many immigrants speaking only their native Spanish language and some of them living in their own neighborhoods in the cities (e.g., East Los Angeles or Union City). In California, their share is about 30%, but many, especially younger ones, are bilingual. About 30 to 40 million people live in the United States, a number illegally under immigration law. While there were many newspapers in German in the 19th century, Spanish is the language in which newspapers appear most frequently today.

In addition to German (→ German-American), French, Chinese, Koreans, Vietnamese and Tagalogs are also common. Especially in cases where the mix with the rest of the population is weak, the language brought is retained in subsequent generations (for example, by the Amish in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois).

Despite some advantages of a common language, the United States has not established a uniform official language. However, all official documents are written in English. In thirty-two States, English is the official language; Individual states and territories define themselves as bilingual, trilingual or multilingual, such as Hawaii, Alaska, Guam or Puerto Rico. Increasingly, documents and signage are translated into Spanish, but this phenomenon is usually limited by region. Nearly 18 percent of Americans did not speak English at home in 2006, and 10 percent cited Spanish as their mother tongue in the 2000 referendum.

In 1847, a law authorized the teaching of French in Louisiana, and in 1849, the California Constitution recognized Spanish. With the Civil War, the rights of Francophones disappeared, in 1868 it was recommended to instruct Indians in English, in 1896 this should also apply to Hawaii. From 1879, California laws were published only in English, during World War I the use of German was restricted. Some states, such as Virginia in 1981 and California in 1986, have declared English an official language.

On 8 May 2007, a resolution was submitted to the Senate declaring English a ” national language “. This project was rejected.

Religion in the United States

Protestants	43%
Non-denominational	26%
Catholic	20%
Mormons	2%
Jews	2%
Muslims	1%
Hindu	1%
Buddhist	1%
Other	3%
Not specified	2%

The government does not keep a register of the religious status of the inhabitants. The U.S. Census Bureau itself is not allowed to ask questions about religious affiliation, but publishes the results of other surveys. In a 2014 Pew Research Center survey, about 25.4 percent of the population identified as evangelical Protestant, 20.8 percent as Roman Catholic, 14.7 percent as traditional Protestant, and 6.5 percent as traditional black Protestant churches. Of the smaller Christian churches, 1.6% are Mormon and 0.8% are Jehovah’s Witnesses, and 0.5% were members of an Orthodox church. Non-Christian religious communities include 1.9% Jews, 0.9% Muslims and 0.7% Buddhists. 22.8% of respondents reported no religious beliefs, of which 3.1% were explicitly atheists and 4.0% were agnostics.

In summary, about 70.6 percent of Christians and 5.9 percent of followers of non-Christian religions lived in the United States in 2014. In a 2008 survey, 82% of Americans described religion as important or very important to their lives (55% very important). 65% of women described religion as very important to their lives, compared to 44% of men. According to this survey, 54% of the American population prays at least once a day, or 10% in France, 19% in Germany, 32% in Poland, 42% in Turkey and 69% in Brazil.

According to a study by the Gallup Institute, in 2016, about 73% of the population was Christian (48.9% Protestants of various currents, 23% Catholics and 1.8% Mormons). Judaism continues to be the largest non-Christian religion in the United States, accounting for 2.1% of the population. 0.8% of the population is Muslim, 2.5% belong to other religions. 18.2% of respondents belonged to the non-denominational/atheist/agnostic group.

The regional distribution of names varies; while New England is predominantly Catholic, the southern states are evangelical. The center of Mormons is located in Utah and the surrounding states (Nevada, Idaho); especially in the southern United States on the border with Mexico and due to Cuban emigration to the greater Miami area live mainly Catholic Latinos. The centers of the Jewish population are metropolises such as New York and its surroundings, Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Southeast Florida.

Social structure

According to sociologists such as Dennis Gilbert of Hamilton College, in 1998, society consisted of six social classes with an identifiable proportion of the total population: an upper class (about 1%), which consists of the most prominent, wealthy and powerful citizens; an upper middle class. (about 15%), which consists of highly qualified professionals such as doctors, professors, lawyers; the lower middle class (about 32%), which consists of well-educated professionals such as teachers and artisans; a working class (about 32%), which consists of industrial and blue-collar workers and ordinary employees, and finally an underclass (about 20%), which is divided into two groups.

Their upper group is the “working poor,” the working poor who work in low-paying jobs without insurance or only part-time. The lower group does not work and depends on social assistance – in the United States very minor – (unemployed poor).

It is striking that members of these lower classes generally live in certain neighborhoods of large cities, whereas in the 1960s to 1980s, the middle class moved to the suburbs, which lie beyond the borders of major cities, but still in metropolitan areas. The proportion of blacks and Hispanics in the poor is disproportionately high (about 30%).

Between 1977 and 1999, the incomes of the richest hundredth of the population increased by 115% after tax deduction. The real wages of 60% of workers fell by 20% during this period. The number of Americans living in poverty increased by 1.7 million people in 2002 to a total of 34.6 million. The number of people living in extreme poverty (less than half of the official poverty line) increased from 13.4 million in 2001 to 14.1 million in 2002. Poverty and child poverty rates vary considerably from one ethnic group to another. In 2009, 7.1 million (18.7%) of people over the age of 65 were affected by the SIN definition of poverty.

In 2013, 47 million people in 23 million households in the United States received state food stamps, or 20% of U.S. households. 90% of Americans earn $30,000 in income, which is the 1965 level. An evaluation of 2010 census data also showed that about 1.5 million households have to live with virtually no money. They have incomes of less than $2 per person per day, but some receive food stamps or in-kind assignments, and others live in state-paid housing. However, a significant proportion is completely cut off from the monetary economy.

Even households with incomes well above the federal poverty line can often be considered working poor because of the high cost of living in their area if and to the extent that they are unable to build up reserves or savings. About 25% of households with middle-class incomes between the ages of 40 and 55 had a net worth of less than $17,500 at the end of 2014 (excluding owner-occupied dwellings and pension rights).

Overall, the gap between the poorest and richest in society has widened considerably in recent years: the upper class, the richest 1 percent of the population, owned 37.1 percent of the total wealth of the United States in 2009, according to estimates by the Levy Economics Institute at Bard College (United States), an increase of 3.7 percent over 2001. The poorest 80% of the population, on the other hand, own only 12.3% of total wealth, a decrease of 3.3% for the same period.

In 2017, according to Forbes, there were 585 billionaires in the United States (27% of all billionaires in the world), making the United States the country with the most billionaires in the world. 7 of the 10 richest people in the world were Americans in 2018. The richest man in America and the world was Jeff Bezos, whose $112 billion fortune was greater than Kenya’s economic output (as of February 2018). The richest percentage of the U.S. population earned $524 billion in 2005, 37 percent more than that of the poorest 20 percent of the population ($383 billion). Thus, the average wealth of all American families was $692,000; the most significant median value of assets was $97,300.

Immigration policy in the United States

Rank	State	Number of migrants
1	Mexico	12.050.031
2	People’s Republic of China	2.103.551
3	SI	1.969.286
4	Philippines	1.896.031
5	Puerto Rico	1.744.402
6	Vietnam	1.302.870
7	El Salvador	1.276.489
8	Cuba	1.131.284
9	South Korea	1.119.578
10	Dominican Republic	940.874

From 1951 to 1960, 2.5 million people immigrated each year, between 1971 and 1980 a total of 4.5 million and in the 1990s a total of more than 10 million. In 2003, 463,204 people obtained U.S. citizenship, and from 1997 to 2003, the average was about 634,000. In 2015, there were 46,627,102 foreign-born residents who made up 14.5 percent of the population, making the United States the largest number of migrants in the world. A large proportion of the foreign-born inhabitants were of Latin American origin, mainly from Mexico and Central America. In recent years, migration has increased from Asian countries such as China, India, Vietnam, South Korea and the Philippines.

As early as 1790, the United States regulated immigration with the Naturalization Act, a law designed to encourage immigration from Europe, but excluding blacks and the “non-free” and requiring “good moral character.” In 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act explicitly excluded the Chinese, a rule that was repeated in 1943 in a slightly modified manner. In 1891, an immigration commission was established that set annual quotas for countries.

In 1921, the Emergency Quotas Act first regulated immigration in such a way that Northern and Western Europeans were favored by freezing their share of the population according to the census – a trend consolidated by the Immigration Act of 1924. Immigration policy was particularly restrictive towards Asians in the early 20th century.

It was not until 1965 that the date of application and the region of the world were taken into account; in addition, there have been cases of family reunification. Since 1978, a uniform quota has been in place for immigration to the United States. In 1970, 62 percent of foreign-born Americans were European, but by 2000 that proportion had fallen to 15 percent.

Hispanics are the largest minority in the United States. In 2000, there were 35.2 million Hispanics living in the United States, up from 54 million in 2013, resulting in a 54 percent percentage increase. Of the 54 million, 34.5 million were of Mexican origin. Estimates of illegal immigrants range from 7 million to 20 million, with most estimating their number at around 12 million. Every year, hundreds of thousands of people cross the southern border illegally, including tens of thousands of minors, some of them unaccompanied. Mexico’s State Commission on Human Rights said that in 2007 alone, 500 illegals were killed while trying to cross the border, often out of thirst. Between 1995 and 2007, there were 4,700 Mexicans.

To combat illegal immigration from Mexico, President Bush signed the Secure Fence Act in October 2006, which provided for the construction of a 1,100-kilometre border fortification. In addition, supporting illegal immigrants has become a criminal offense.

As early as 1954, the government had attempted to deport 1.2 million Hispanics with the operation – with the swear word Wetback was derived from Mexicans who had swam across the Rio Grande. In 1965, Mexican immigration was restricted and the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986 legalized illegal immigrants for the first time.

In 2015, about 627,000 German-born people lived in the United States.

Crime and Justice in the United States

According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, the crime rate in the United States has been declining since the early 1990s. Violent crime peaked in 1991 with 758 cases per 100,000 population. In 2000 there were 507, in 2010 405, and in 2018, 381 cases were recorded.

To compare the propensity for violence over long periods of time and great spatial distances, the homicide rate is used as an index. The United States had 5.3 cases per 100,000 population in 2017. A peak was reached in 1991 with 9.7 cases. The current rate of 5.3 is much higher than that of Germany, which is one. The average in Europe is 3 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, the global average is 6.1. East Asian countries average 0.6, Singapore only 0.2 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.

The United States has the largest prison population in the world, both in absolute terms and relative to the population. In 2008, more than 2.4% of the U.S. population was either in prison (2.3 million), parole (4.3 million) or suspended (0.828 million). By 2011, the number of prisoners had risen to more than 2.4 million. This puts the United States at the top of the world by far in the relationship between inmates and the population. The crime rate, on the other hand, initially remained constant and even declined thereafter.

By the 1960s, the proportion of prisoners had declined by about one percent per year, reaching its lowest point in 1975 at 380,000. Since about 1980, this number has increased considerably, so that there were already 740,000 in 1985 and even two million at the end of 1998. Two-thirds of the inmates come from households whose income was less than half the poverty line.

In 2000, 133,610 people under the age of 18 were incarcerated in prisons and juvenile detention centers in the United States. Criminal liability begins much earlier in the United States than in Germany. In many states, even 7-year-olds can be held responsible for violating a criminal law, in most others this is the case from the age of 11. In 2005, 1,403,555 young people under the age of 18 were arrested. In 2003, it was possible in 33 States to detain children and adolescents with mental illness even if they had not violated criminal law.

African Americans make up about 13 percent of the total population, but 38 percent of inmates. Half of all murders in the United States and about one-third of all rapes are committed by African Americans. A disproportionate proportion of blacks and Latinos are found in the number of armed aggressors. Between January and June 2008, a total of 98 percent of all gun-armed attackers in New York City were black or Hispanic. As of March 2015, 16% of inmates in U.S. prisons were Mexican citizens, and 7.5% of inmates had non-U.S. or Mexican citizenship.

Unlike almost every other state in the Western world, the death penalty is applied in many states in the United States, which has been controversial for years, including the United States itself. A total of 23 states have abolished the death penalty, most recently Virginia in March 2021. In other States, death sentences continue to be carried out, even against persons with intellectual disabilities and those who were minors at the time of the alleged offense. There are more than 3,200 men and women on death row, and nearly 42 percent are African-American.

The United States History

Ancient history

In Alaska, the oldest confirmed human traces date back 12,000 to 14,000 years. The oldest culture has long been considered the Clovis culture, but discoveries in the Paisley Caves, which are about a millennium before the Clovis finds, have shown that North America was inhabited earlier. The oldest human remains are the more than 10,500-year-old relics of Idaho’s Buhl woman. This first phase was followed by the Archaic period.

Between 4000 and 1000 BC. J.-C., the use of ceramics, agriculture and various forms of graduated sedentary life developed. Hunting techniques were greatly improved by Atlatl and later by the bow and arrow. Population densification occurred in North America around the Great Lakes, on the Pacific coast around Vancouver Island (Canada), on the Mississippi River and in many places on the Atlantic coast, as well as in the southwest.

In the catchment area of the Adena and Mississippi crops, complex communities emerged, but they perished shortly before the arrival of the first Europeans. They radiated far north and west. In the southwest, clay subdivisions for up to 500 rooms were built. This pueblo culture dated back to the basket weavers who were already growing corn. Large fortified villages and permanent confederations developed around the Great Lakes. As in the West, these groups cultivated corn and pumpkins as well as extensive long-range commercial activities – for example with copper and certain types of rocks important for hunting weapons and jewelry – which can be found in British Columbia (Canada) from 8000 BC.

Effects of Colonization on Indigenous Peoples in the United States

Imported diseases have decimated the population to an extent that is difficult to measure. Many groups have disappeared because of imported epidemics without even a European seeing them. According to anthropologist Alfred Kroeber, the population north of the Rio Grande was estimated at only one million people. These estimates were easily taken up, as they perpetuated the myth that whites had conquered a largely deserted continent.

The Smithsonian Institute, known for being rather cautious, has tripled its estimate for North America to three million people. The thesis that the huge herds of buffaloes were grazing animals of the Indians shows how much the discussion began to move, so the size of the herds did not represent a natural balance, but was based on overproduction after the sharp decline of the human population.

Despite the effect of epidemics not to be overestimated – Hernando de Soto had already introduced devastating diseases to the region between Mississippi and Florida, in 1775 a smallpox epidemic devastated the Pacific coast – the effects of wars should not be underestimated. Probably the most costly wars in the East are the Tarrantine War (1607-1615), the two Powhatan Wars (1608-1614 and 1644-1646), the Pequot War (1637), the King Philips War (1675-1676), the French and Indian Wars (1689-1697, 1702-1713, 1744-1748, 1754-1763) and the three Seminole Wars. (1817-1818, 1835-1842 and 1855-1858). In addition, there were the inter-tribal uprisings led by Chief Pontiac (1763-1766) and Chief Tecumseh (c. 1810-1813).

The French were in the Beaver Wars from about 1640 to 1701, then in four wars with the Natchez (1716-1729), the Dutch in the Wappinger War and the Esopus Wars (1659-1660 and 1663-1664), the Spanish in 1680 against the Pueblos in the southwest and in many other battles. In the western United States, it was mainly the battles under Cochise (1861-1874), the Sioux (1862) and the Lakota War (1866-1867), or that of the Apaches under Geronimo (until 1886) that became known. Equally well-known were individual battles, such as the one on the Little Bighorn or the Wounded Knee massacre (1890).

The fur trade triggered completely different remote changes. This trade had an effect on the one hand on the tribes, who acted as hunters and suppliers, but also on their neighbors near and far, whether through the acquisition of weapons and the associated changes of power, whether through the development of commercial monopolies of the tribes stored near the (strong) commercial bases, or by triggering vast migrations of peoples, as by the Iroquois. The position of the leadership groups also became dependent on the fur trade.

From the first phase of colonization to independence

The first European colony on what is now American territory was founded in 1565 by the Spanish in St. Augustine, Florida. The first permanent English colony was Jamestown, Virginia, which emerged in 1607, shortly after the French established their first colony in what would later become Canada. The arrival of the emigration ship “Mayflower” in the Plymouth Colony (later merged with the Massachusetts Bay Colony to form Massachusetts) in 1620 is considered an important symbolic date. The Swedish colonies on Delaware and the Dutch colonies around New York (Nieuw Amsterdam) were taken over by England.

Apart from the British, only the French and Spanish were able to acquire lasting political significance. For Spain, its colony of Florida had only a secondary function compared to its large possessions in Central and South America. France, for its part, limited its settlement to its central colonial zone on the St. Lawrence River (New France), while maintaining a strong economic interest in its remaining territories between the Mississippi and the thirteen British colonies.

To cover the fur trade routes, these otherwise non-European populated areas were protected by a system of forts and alliances. The British colonies, on the other hand, were under strong immigration pressure, which led to a constant shift of the colony’s border westward. This was done partly according to the state plan (by a single colony) and partly in the savage colonization against British and Indian resistance.

During the French and Indian War from 1754 to 1763, conflicting interests collided. The war was a secondary spectacle in the global conflict between Britain and France, the Seven Years’ War. Most Indian tribes fought alongside the French.

In the peace treaty of 1763, all the French territories east of the Mississippi (with the exception of New Orleans) as well as the areas around Quebec and Montreal colonized by the French fell to the British side. Spain had sided with its French parents during the war. After the war, it had to cede Florida to the British and received as compensation the previously French territory west of the Mississippi.

The Government in London demanded that the settlers bear a higher share of the costs of the post-war order. At the same time, he tried to prevent wild colonization in the West in order to avoid conflict. The colonies opposed taxation, arguing that it violated English law, which states that there should be “no taxation without representation.” Thus, the settlers actually stated that the British Parliament was not empowered to give instructions (but not the Crown).

In addition, the homeland demanded higher taxes, but blocked the issuance of its own currency, which would have been necessary to financially strengthen the colonies. Parliament acted in this way because it did not want to promote the formation of an American state, but created a contradiction. Several taxes perceived as unfair, such as the Stamp Act, the Sugar Act and a tea tax, annoyed the settlers. There have been boycotts and resistance actions, such as the Boston Tea Party, which reached a first climax in the Boston Massacre. London eventually stationed more soldiers, which further fueled secessionist tendencies in the thirteen colonies.

In 1775, British soldiers started the War of Independence when they dug up a colonial arms depot. A Continental Congress met, which transferred the military high command to George Washington. On July 4, 1776, the thirteen colonies proclaimed the Declaration of Independence. France secretly supported the insurgents with weapons.

This contributed to U.S. military successes. In 1783, the British Empire recognized the state sovereignty of the United States in the Treaty of Paris.

From independence to the Civil War in the United States

The Articles of Confederation adopted in 1777 and ratified in 1781 had proved insufficient to ensure the survival of the young Confederation. Therefore, the Second Constitution of the United States was signed in Philadelphia in 1787. It is the second oldest republican constitution still in force – only the Constitution of the Republic of San Marino of 1600 is older. The first president of the United States in 1789 was George Washington, the general of the Revolutionary War, who was elected unanimously by a broad consensus.

The development of the new state in the early decades was essentially determined by two factors: on the one hand by rapid territorial growth and land grabbing at the expense of the Indians, and on the other hand by the dispute over slavery, which later marked the struggle for civil rights. descendants of former slaves. At the time of the Revolutionary War, about two million whites and 500,000 black slaves lived in the thirteen colonies.

During the European Coalition Wars, the Louisiana Territory (not to be confused with the present-day state of Louisiana) had fallen from Spain to France. Napoleon, however, refrained from rebuilding the French overseas empire for financial reasons. Instead, in 1803, he sold the entire area between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains for $15 million to the United States, which doubled their territory in one fell swoop. That same year, the first states of the Northwest Territory, located between the Ohio River and the Great Lakes, joined the Union, followed by parts of the Louisiana region in 1813.

The United States initially pursued a path of neutrality towards France and Britain. In 1812, however, the Anglo-American War broke out on Canada, which remained British. The conflict ended in a compromise, so the demarcation between the United States and Canada was completed in the East. The beginnings of American foreign policy were shaped by President James Monroe’s Monroe Doctrine, signed into law in 1823. He said European powers should stay away from the American continent, while not interfering with the UNITED States in the affairs of other states.

Indian politics became more aggressive from 1820 onwards: with the Indian Removal Act and the path of tears that followed, violent land grabbing and colonization for decades began, which led to new fighting. The Indians were deported to reserves. One of the few victories for the Indians was the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876, but it remained politically meaningless. The Indian Wars ended in 1890 with the Wounded Knee Massacre. In 1900, there were less than a quarter of a million Indians, to whom not only war, but also epidemics had contributed. It was not until 1924 that the Indians gained all civil rights.

The second central theme of American politics until 1865 was the issue of slavery. The importation of other slaves from overseas was prohibited by law in 1808. However, due to the widespread circumvention of this prohibition by slave traders and the natural growth of the population, the number of slaves had nevertheless increased to about four million by 1860. The issue of slavery increasingly separated the southern states from the northern states, as industrialization began in the northern states and the number of slaves slowly declined, while the owners of the huge rice and cotton plantations of the southern states continued to engage in slavery on an increasing scale.

The new States of the acquired territories were admitted only in pairs so as not to jeopardize the unstable balance. Slavery was at odds with the Declaration of Independence, which states that “all men are created equal.” As a result, movements such as abolitionism, which called for the abolition of slavery, gained strong support in the North. The war against Mexico (1846-1848) brought the United States another gain in territory that constitutes today’s Southwest. But it also increased domestic political tensions, as the northern states saw it in part as a land grab in favor of the spread of slave states.

After Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States in 1860 for the newly formed Republican Party, eleven southern states resigned from the Union. This marked the beginning of the Civil War (1861-1865). Initially, the constitutional question was at the forefront, namely whether the federal government had the right to decide elementary factual issues in federal states. The northern states emerged victorious from the civil war and slavery was abolished by law. Blacks officially received all civil rights with the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the 14th Amendment of 1868.

From the Civil War to the Great Depression

In 1890, the border was declared closed. This marked the end of the “Wild West” era. Immigration did not decrease, so that between 1880 and 1910, a total of 18 million people were admitted. Industrialization since the Civil War has led to the formation of large trusts that could influence politics through their economic power. Therefore, the antitrust law was passed in 1890, as a result of which several large companies such as Standard Oil and the American Tobacco Company were unbundled from 1911.

Following the Spanish-American War of 1898, the United States expanded its sphere of influence to the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, and Cuba. An interventionist policy was pursued by President Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909), who claimed a hegemonic position of power over the Latin American states (Big Stick). Thus, in 1903, the United States separated Panama from Colombia so that the newly formed state would cede its sovereignty over the Panama Canal.

During World War I, the United States remained formally neutral until 1917, but supported the Entente primarily by providing supplies. On February 1, 1917, Germany declared unrestricted submarine warfare as a countermeasure, after which the United States declared war on Germany on April 6 and introduced conscription on June 5. After its victory over Russia, the German Reich sent the liberated troops to the Western Front and organized a final futile offensive in the spring of 1918. U.S. troops arriving in France eventually shifted the balance of power in favor of the Allies.

After the military victory, President Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921) attempted to establish a stable post-war order in Europe by making the right of peoples to self-determination and the formation of a League of Nations the maxim on the basis of his 14-point program. This plan failed: on the one hand, the British and French refused to implement Wilson’s plan for peace of mind vis-à-vis the German Reich, on the other hand, the US Senate refused to join the League of Nations, so that the world’s greatest political power was missing from this body and returned to isolationism.

Because of the costly war and the reconstruction that followed, The Europeans had become debtors of the United States. The exceptional economic role of the United States was particularly evident when the stock market crash of October 1929 (Black Thursday with losses on the Dow Jones of up to 12.8% in one day) was followed by the Great Depression.

This led to a multi-year internal crisis (Great Depression) in the United States with about 15 million unemployed and about 125 million inhabitants in 1932. Under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the New Deal implemented far-reaching economic and social reforms. Among other things, financial markets were regulated (Glass-Steagall Act) and the Social Security Act of 1935 created the basis for an American welfare state. In addition, many public construction projects such as roads, bridges, airports and dams have been carried out.

From the Second World War to the end of the “Cold War”

At the beginning of World War II, the United States initially remained neutral, but overwhelmingly supported Britain and the Soviet Union with supplies of capital and weapons under the Loans and Leases Act. After the attack on Pearl Harbor by Japanese forces on December 7, 1941, they declared war on Japan and received declarations of war from Germany and Italy soon after. As in World War I, the industrial potential of the United States was decisive in the victory of the Allies. The surrender of the German Reich in May and the surrender of Japan in August 1945 ended World War II.

The United States had made high profits during World War II with small losses. Their total losses were 300,000 killed and 670,000 wounded, less than 0.5% of the population. The country emerged from the war as the only economically strengthened and at the end of the war had a single nuclear weapon of mass destruction. The United States had become a superpower with a global presence.

The Bretton Woods system, founded in 1944, established the dollar as an international reserve and reserve currency with gold standards. This was in line with American ideas of global free trade and open markets.

The United States was instrumental in the creation of the United Nations in San Francisco on June 26, 1945, which took place in agreement with the Soviet Union. Soon, however, a confrontation with former war ally Stalin loomed, leading to the Cold War. President Harry S. Truman pursued a policy of anti-communist containment that found expression in the Truman Doctrine. Rejecting the Monroe isolationist doctrine, he granted military and economic aid to all countries in order to preserve their independence. The United States supported Greece and Turkey and launched the Marshall Plan, which aimed to stabilize Western Europe economically.

The Cold War reached its first climax with the Berlin Blockade in 1948/49, to which the United States responded with the Berlin Airlift. In 1949, NATO was founded as a military alliance between the United States, Canada and Western Europe.

The nuclear arms race between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, which gave both sides a multiple “one-upmanship capability” from the 1960s, and which was also seen as a breed of social systems, led to clashes and proxy wars, such as the Korean War (1950-1953), the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), in which the world narrowly followed a third world war. escaped, or the Vietnam War. The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and the SALT negotiations (1968 and 1969) attempted to defuse the dangerous situation.

The Cold War, which was not openly waged only in industrialized countries, led many Americans to view communism as an enemy image. Nationally, this has led to a climate of suspicion and control known as the “McCarthy era .” Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy distinguished himself on the Senate Committee on Anti-American Activities (HUAC) by suspecting filmmakers, politicians and the military of being communists and expecting denunciations. Anyone who refused to testify had to reckon with a professional ban. Hearings were often televised. When McCarthy finally suspected President Eisenhower, he was ousted from power by the Senate in 1954.

The Vietnam War, in which the United States intervened in 1964 after the Tonkin Incident, after having previously sent military advisers, turned into a military and moral fiasco that ended with the withdrawal of American troops in 1973. Credibility as a propagator of democratic values has suffered here and also in other hot spots with the support of many military dictators or the support of military coups, such as those Mobutus in Congo then called “Zaire” or the military coups against the democratically elected governments of Guatemala (1954), Brazil (1964) and chile (1973)

In addition to social and political movements, three assassination attempts shook the nation and with it the world in the 1960s: the assassination of President John F. Kennedy (1963), the assassination of preacher and civil rights activist Martin Luther King, who was the figurehead of the nonviolent struggle for black rights (1968) – and the same year the assassination of the Democratic presidential candidate. Robert F. Kennedy, a younger brother of the assassinated president.

Although blacks were officially freed from slavery in 1865, during the reconstruction of the war-torn South, the southern states had enacted laws that again restricted their civil rights (Jim Crow laws). Although they emphasized the same rights, they also provided for racial segregation. Only the civil rights movement was able to eliminate the last formal inequality of treatment. A very important step was the abolition of racial segregation in public institutions by the Supreme Court in 1954. However, black school attendance had to be enforced in part with the help of the National Guard, as the governors of the southern states (especially George Wallace of Alabama) insisted on their state rights until the late 1960s, which included segregation.

In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy after his assassination in 1963, was himself elected in 1964 and remained in office until 1969, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, which declared racial segregation illegal in the United States. In 1965, Johnson signed into law another law, the Voting Rights Act, which had prohibited discrimination against African Americans in elections. Eventually, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1968, which prohibited any form of discrimination by law.

Although President Johnson experienced a decline in support in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, he was able to initiate other important reforms as part of his Great Society program, particularly fighting poverty, intensifying the education system, and protecting consumers. In fact, the number of U.S. citizens living in poverty has fallen by about half. In addition, a new immigration law was passed in 1965, which significantly eased the restrictions introduced in 1924 and led to an increase in immigration from Latin America and Asia, which, in the long run, led to a significant demographic change.

In addition to the movement against the Vietnam War, those directed against discrimination within society had a great influence. It was first the women’s rights movement, then the gay movement, which, however, was confronted with the legislation of the respective states. The so-called “sodomy laws,” which until 1962 had banned the practice of male homosexuality as well as the “deviant sexual practices” of heterosexual couples in many states, were partially repealed. When the Supreme Court upheld these laws in 1987, they still existed in the majority of states and were only struck down by the Supreme Court with the June 26, 2003 decision in Lawrence vs. Texas.

The Watergate affair, involving a burglary and eavesdropping on Democratic Party offices in the Watergate real estate complex, of which President Richard Nixon was likely aware and in which he tried to obstruct the FBI’s investigation, became the biggest scandal in postwar American history. To avoid impeachment, Nixon resigned in 1974.

The oil crisis of 1974 and the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979 as well as the consequences of the Vietnam War caused a lack of foreign policy orientation. An economic crisis has hit the heavy industry district in the states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Indiana and Michigan, the so-called Rust Belt. This led to ethnically motivated unrest in the southern states, which favored Republican Ronald Reagan’s electoral success.

Thus, the inauguration of the Reagan administration marked a paradigm shift in American politics, both at home and in foreign policy. Society has become very polarized economically. His eight years in power until 1989 were characterized by liberal economic policies (Reaganomics), cuts in government subsidies and social benefits, cuts in public administration, and tax cuts in high-income groups. The Christian faith and strict anti-communism made him a model for conservative circles. His opponents saw him as a lobbyist for companies and arms companies.

The contradictory domestic and foreign policy towards states that did not respect human rights, the lack of understanding of other cultures and the resulting errors of judgment were evident in foreign policy until the war in Iraq. While the dictator Saddam Hussein had already been supported after the outbreak of the first Gulf War between Iran and Iraq (1980-1988) out of fear of fundamentalist circles in Tehran, mistakes as in the Iran-Contra affair, in which the United States in 1986 under the mediation of National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane and Colonel, have accumulated. Oliver North had supplied arms to Iran to use the proceeds to support opponents of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.

The supply of money and weapons to the mujahideen in Afghanistan also proved to be a double-edged sword: the Soviet Union had to withdraw its troops after ten years, but at the same time, radical Islamic groups were strengthened.

Reagan repeatedly referred to the Soviet Union as an “evil empire” in accordance with religious terminology. Military spending was increased and a so-called “Star Wars program“ (SDI project, “Star Wars”) was launched. At the Geneva Summit (1985) and 1986, he met his Soviet counterpart Mikhail Gorbachev for disarmament negotiations called START (Strategic Arms Reduction Talks). In 1991, the “Cold War” ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

After the end of the Cold War

Under Democratic President Bill Clinton (1993-2001), there was a prolonged economic recovery. The end of the Cold War and the ” new economy ” that emerged in the United States fostered economic consolidation. The neglect of cities has been stopped – crime-ridden neighborhoods in metropolises such as New York, Miami and Los Angeles have recovered.

In 1996, however, the receipt of social assistance was reduced to two consecutive years and a total of five years, which reduced the number of beneficiaries.

President Clinton’s foreign policy was led by Secretary of State Warren Christopher during his first term and Madeleine Albright during his second. She was the first woman to hold this position.

The unsuccessful engagement in Somalia, under George Bush Sr. The aim was to disempower the warlords, especially Mohammed Aidids. After the devastating battle of Mogadishu, special forces withdrew from the country. The invasion of Haiti in 1994 also brought back to power Jean-Bertrand Aristide democratically elected and the military dictator Raoul Cédras was deposed, but did not solve the social problems of the state.

After European states failed to pacify the region after the disintegration of Yugoslavia, US troops intervened in 1995 (Operation Deliberate Force) and 1999 (Operation Allied Force) as part of NATO in the Bosnian War and the Kosovo War against the Serb units of autocrat Slobodan Milošević. Attempts to achieve peace between Israel and Palestine in the Middle East suffered a serious setback with the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin.

Clinton responded to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s provocations with sporadic airstrikes, as well as in Sudan and Afghanistan following terrorist attacks on the U.S. embassy in Nairobi and a U.S. warship in Yemen. These attacks have already been blamed on Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network.

Since the turn of the millennium

After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, against the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, President George W. Bush announced a global war on terror, which initially met with the approval of a large part of the population. Bush, like Reagan, identified an “ axis of evil ” to which he attributed the so-called rogue states. Among these, he counted Iran, Iraq, Cuba and North Korea.

In October 2001, a campaign in Afghanistan overthrew the radical Islamic Taliban regime that had hosted Osama bin Laden. Also in the name of the war on terror, the third Gulf War against Iraq began in March 2003 with the aim of overthrowing dictator Saddam Hussein. Under the pretext that he possessed weapons of mass destruction and had contacts with bin Laden, the United States attacked without a UN mandate.

Despite a quick victory, Iraq could not be pacified. Some “Coalition of the Willing ” States withdrew their relatively small troops in the spring of 2004. In June 2004, power was handed over to an Iraqi transitional government.

George W. Bush’s shift to a strategic concept of pre-emption was seen as a break with previously pursued U.S. foreign and security policy, which was based on deterrence, containment, and the influence of “soft power,” meaning the attraction of economic and cultural influence over military influence.

Starting in 2007, a financial crisis loomed, mainly due to a credit and housing bubble that caused the biggest economic problems since the Great Depression. Barack Obama, a Democratic senator from Illinois and the first African-American and multi-ethnic president, was elected during the November 2008 crisis and ordered measures and reforms to stimulate the economy and mitigate the negative consequences of the crisis.

Among other things, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was enacted, which provided for tax cuts as well as investments and spending in health care, infrastructure or unemployment insurance, among other things. The number of unemployed fell again after the peak of the crisis. The Dodd-Frank Act, the biggest financial market reform in decades, was also passed. Greater attention was also paid to environmental policy during Obama’s tenure. Although Obama intended to keep the increase in debt below the level of the previous administration, the national debt continued to increase significantly in the following years.

In 2010, the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) was passed to reform the healthcare system. The number of citizens without health insurance decreased significantly in the following years; the reform remained controversial in terms of efficiency and financial sustainability.

In late 2011, the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq was completed and the occupation of Iraq officially ended. On December 31, 2014, the COMBAT mission of the NATO-led DEAF mission in Afghanistan ended and U.S. troops were withdrawn, with the exception of a small remaining unit in the subsequent Resolute Support mission. In late 2014, Obama surprisingly announced the restoration of diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba. In 2015, the Obama Administration participated in a nuclear deal with Iran.

Republican Donald Trump, the first president without prior military or political experience before taking office, was elected in November 2016.

The COVID-19 pandemic has hit the United States the hardest in the world. By the end of May 2020, more than 1,000,000 Americans had been infected and more than 100,000 had died, and by February 2021, more than 500,000 people had died from the virus. Due to the economic consequences of measures to reduce the spread of the virus, more than 30 million Americans have lost their jobs.

After the death of African-American George Floyd during a police operation on May 25, 2020, protests against racism and police violence took place under the slogan “Black Lives Matter.” There have been riots in many cities across the United States – night curfews have been imposed in more than 40 cities. In many cities, the National Guard has also been used to support the police.

After Trump’s electoral defeat in 2020, which he himself did not acknowledge, he further fueled the chaotic situation in the United States. After many demonstrations, sometimes violent, the Capitol was stormed with 5 dead. There was a second impeachment against him, which was rejected.

Politics in the United States

The United States is a presidential state with a bicameral system. The form of government is based on representative democracy.

Powers at the federal level

The United States has its second constitution after the Articles of Confederation since its inception. It provides for a presidential, federal and Republican political system that separates the legislative, executive and judicial branches and the federal level of the states in a relatively strict manner.

Legislative

According to the Constitution, the most powerful state body at the federal level is Congress, which exercises the legislature. It is composed of elected representatives from all 50 states. The Congress, which consists of two chambers, has budgetary sovereignty as well as the right of legislative initiative. Congress has a significant influence on U.S. policy, among other things, because of the budgetary right to which it is entitled. Only Congress has the right to enact federal laws and declare war.

Treaties with foreign countries are signed by the President, but must be ratified by the second chamber of Congress, the Senate. In the case of significant appointments (for example, to ministerial positions or federal judicial positions, particularly to the Supreme Court), the Senate has the right, after hearing the candidates, to confirm or reject the President’s proposal.

Members of the House of Representatives, the first chamber of Congress, are elected for two years. Each representative represents a district in his or her state. The number of electoral districts is determined by a census carried out every ten years. Senators are elected for a term of six years. They are elected in stages, that is, every two years, one-third of the Senate is re-elected. The Constitution provides that the Vice-President presides over the Senate. He has no right to vote, except in the event of a tie.

Before a bill becomes federal law, it must have been passed by both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The bill is first introduced in one of the two houses, considered by one or more committees, amended, rejected or passed in committee, and then discussed in one of the two chambers. As soon as it is adopted in this House, it is transmitted to the other House. Only when both chambers have passed the same version of the bill will it be submitted to the President for approval. The President then has the possibility to postpone the entry into force of the law. Congress can pass a new bill after such a veto or finally overturn the president with two-thirds approval.

Executive

The head of state and government in personal union is the president, who is at the head of the executive. He is also Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces and, along with the Secretary of Defense, forms the National Command Authority (NCA), which is solely responsible for deciding on a U.S. attack with nuclear weapons. To do this, both people must independently accept the nuclear strike. As of January 20, 2021, the incumbent president is Democrat Joe Biden, elected on November 3, 2020.

The President shall be represented by the Vice-President whom he has elected. In the event of the premature discharge of the President, the President shall fully replace the President at the end of his term of office and shall also preside over the Senate. The current vice president is Democrat Kamala Harris.

If the Vice-President is unable or absent, the Senate appoints a ” President pro tempore “, a temporary President. The members of the first chamber, the House of Representatives, elect their own president, the ” Speaker of the House of Representatives “. The President and the President pro tempore are members of the strongest party in their respective chambers. The president since 2019 is Democrat Nancy Pelosi, the position of pro-tempore president occupies since 2019 the Republican senator Chuck Grassley.

Judiciary

At the head of the judiciary, which is also organized at the federal level, is the Supreme Court. The Constitution, which came into force in 1787 and whose provisions are enforceable, is of great importance in the political system of the United States. It is a testament to the success and stability of this constitution that it has so far received only 27 amendments.

Parties and elections

In the United States, favored by relative majority voting, a two-party system has been formed. These parties have been Democrats and Republicans since the mid-19th century. Democrats are currently the largest party with 72 million registered supporters (42.6%), followed by Republicans with 55 million supporters (32.5%) and 42 million registered voters without party preference (24.9%). The two parties, which are not granted a constitutional role, can at most be the subject of a rudimentary schematization, since they already represent internal coalitions of parties of different currents.

Political currents and interest groups specific to a topic are more likely to try to influence MPs and other leaders of the two main parties than to found independent parties. Examples include the American Civil Liberties Union, the Basic Christian Moral Majority, and the Tea Party Movement.

Small parties such as the Greens, the Libertarian Party or the Communist Party of the United States are insignificant, although in presidential elections, votes cast for the Green candidate can sometimes be perceived as a disadvantage – perhaps decisive – for the Democratic candidate. Ralph Nader, who entered the presidential campaign in 1996 as the party’s candidate and enjoys great recognition at home and abroad as a “consumer lawyer.”

At the state level, women’s suffrage had been won at different times. In New Jersey, wealthy women had the right to vote since 1776 and voted from 1787 onwards. When universal suffrage for men was introduced, women lost the right to vote. In 1918, Oklahoma, Michigan, South Dakota and Texas were at the bottom of the list (female suffrage in primaries). In some states, restrictions such as reading and writing tests and voting taxes were still used after 1920 to exclude blacks from voting.

At the federal level, the Constitution of 13 September 1788 did not impose any gender restrictions on the right of both chambers to stand as candidates. However, it was not until 1920, with the coming into force of the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution, that all restrictions on the right to vote on the basis of sex were explicitly banned in the United States, thus giving women full voting rights at all levels. The 1920 U.S. presidential election was the first in which women’s suffrage came into play.

Political indices

Index Name	Index	World Ranking	Interpretations	Year
Fragile States Index	44.6 out of 120	143 of 179	Stability of the country: stable 0 = very durable / 120 = very alarming	2021
Democratic index	7.85 out of 10	26 of 167	Incomplete democracy 0 = authoritarian regime / 10 = complete democracy	2021
World Freedom Index	83 out of 100	—	Freedom status: free 0 = not free / 100 = free	2022
Press Freedom Ranking	23.93 out of 100	44 of 180	Satisfactory situation for freedom of the press 0 = good situation / 100 = very serious situation	2021
(CPI)	67 out of 100	27 of 180	0 = very corrupt / 100 = very clean	2021

Federal Divisions in the United States

States

The United States consists of 50 states.

The heart of the country includes 48 of the 50 states as well as the District of Columbia (Federal District with the capital Washington D.C.), which lie within a common border (called the “Lower 48”), while Alaska and Hawaii are outside the heart of the country (continental United States).

When the United States was founded, there were thirteen states, which gradually joined other territories during the Western expansion to the Mississippi. After Texas, the wave of connection jumped over sparsely populated mountain ranges and continued especially with California and Oregon after the mid-19th century. This development was only completed during the First World War. In 1959, the Pacific archipelago of Hawaii and northwestern Alaska, which borders Russia via the 100 km wide Bering Strait, became part of the United States as states.

Administrative unit

In 2002, there were 87,900 local government units in the United States, including cities, counties, settlements, schools and other districts, according to the Census and Census Bureau. More than three-quarters of U.S. citizens live in major cities or their suburbs (list of U.S. cities).

A county is a subdivision of most states and roughly comparable to a county. In Louisiana, they are called “parishes”; in Alaska, there are no such administrative units, but only statistical subdivisions. In Virginia and Missouri, there are also cities that are not assigned to any county. In the case of large cities (e.g., Philadelphia), sometimes the city and county boundaries are the same; New York City even occupies five counties, each called a borough.

It is not uncommon for towns and even villages to cross a county line. The forms of county government and their powers vary considerably from state to state, sometimes even within a state, if the parliament of the state concerned has specified different forms to choose from. Almost all of them take out loans and collect taxes. They have employees, are very often responsible for overseeing elections, and build and maintain roads and bridges (sometimes on behalf of the federal or state government). Welfare programs are run partly by them, and partly by the townships, which, particularly in the Midwest, are not consistent with the designated municipalities with an area of 36 square miles in 18th century land surveying.

A particular aspect of some small towns, which is rare and predominant in the New England states, is the “city meeting”. Once a year – more frequently if necessary – all registered voters in a city come to a public meeting and elect officials, discuss local politics and enact laws for the functioning of government. As a group, they decide on the construction and repair of roads, the construction of public buildings and facilities, taxes and the budget of the city. The “city meeting”, which has existed for two centuries, is often the purest form of democracy, in which governmental power is not delegated, but exercised directly and regularly by all citizens. However, the vast majority of citizens know only representative democracy.

External domains

In addition to the states and the District of Columbia (Washington Capital Region, D.C. ), there are external areas with differently regulated autonomy. The largest outdoor areas are Puerto Rico in the Caribbean and Guam in the Pacific.

Domestic policy

An important role in U.S. domestic politics is primarily played by moral and ethical issues such as the limits of free speech, the right to abortion, the justification for the death penalty, the political recognition of homosexuality, minority rights, or the question of the role that religious values should play in public life.

Firearms Act

Most states have gun laws that are extremely liberal by international standards. The right to own firearms has traditionally been held in high esteem in the United States, as it is enshrined in the Second Amendment of the Constitution (“…[…] the right to bear arms …”) is protected. Individuals can therefore acquire firearms and ammunition without major difficulty and carry the weapons openly. In total, there are more than 200 million pistols and private rifles in the United States.

The current legal situation is controversial in the United States. Their critics see this as a reason for the high number of 350,000 armed crimes and 11,000 murder victims per year and, in particular, the many shootings, especially in schools and universities, as criminals could arm themselves more easily. Proponents of liberal gun laws such as the National Rifle Association (NRA) deny this link and point to low murder rates in countries like Switzerland, Canada or New Zealand, where a disproportionate number of guns are also private. In addition, they argue that criminals would mainly acquire weapons illegally, which is why individuals should at least have the opportunity to defend themselves.

Health policy

Period	Life expectancy in years	Period	Life expectancy in years
1950–1955	68,7	1985–1990	74,9
1955–1960	69,7	1990–1995	75,7
1960–1965	70,1	1995–2000	76,5
1965–1970	70,4	2000–2005	77,2
1970–1975	71,4	2005–2010	78,2
1975–1980	73,3	2010–2015	78,9
1980–1985	74,4

The U.S. healthcare system is – especially in research – partly world-class, in other areas – particularly in general patient care and insurance – partly in a desolate state. Each year, about $1.8 trillion is spent on the healthcare system. This represents about 17% of the total economic output of the United States. This is almost twice as much per capita as in Germany. About 47 million Americans, or about 16 percent of the total population, don’t have health insurance — but not exclusively for income reasons (about one-third of uninsured people have a family income of $50,000 or more) or because of too old age and the associated risk of illness (about 40 percent of uninsured people are between the ages of 18 and 35).

In addition, there is a high number of undeclared cases of illegal immigrants who also do not have health insurance. Many of those who are insured have to pay for all medical services, others who are in a health insurance (HMO) have to endure bureaucratic formalities and long waiting times to restrict the choice of doctor. In 1993, President Clinton failed in his attempt to introduce uniform statutory health insurance. In 2010, under President Obama, laws were passed to gradually reform the health care system by 2018. New President Donald Trump, elected in late 2016, announced that he would abolish and replace health care reform in whole or in part.

The high level of obesity has taken on the character of a national health crisis in the 21st century. According to data from the World Health Organization, in 2014, 67.8 percent of adult Americans were overweight and 33.7 percent of the more than 300 million people were even severely overweight. It is one of the highest rates in the world, costing hundreds of billions of dollars a year.

Life expectancy in the United States stood at 79.8 years in 2016, ranking 43rd in the world. This is a deterioration of 20 places compared to 1984 and one of the worst figures in the developed world. The reasons given are lack of health insurance and obesity. The life expectancy of the black population is 73.3 years. Added to this are the risks of poverty. In December 2009, for example, 38.97 million people depended on food stamps. In 2013, there were 47 million people in 23 million households, or 20% of all U.S. households.

Social policy

The United States is a welfare state in which transfers are often co-financed and organized by the federal and state governments. State regulations can have a significant impact on social policy. Basic social security for the elderly is provided at the federal level by the public pension insurance Social Security.

Energy and environmental policy

The United States has the second largest CO2 emissions in the world after China. The share of global CO2 emissions is 17.7% (year 2011).

In the 2020 Climate Protection Index (as of December 2019), the United States ranked 61st and therefore last among all countries studied. They scored very poorly in all the categories evaluated. In particular, the lack of a national climate protection strategy and the withdrawal from the international climate protection agreement under President Trump have been criticized.

In the United States, the share of renewables is increasing slightly, reaching 11% of energy consumption in 2017 and 17% of energy production.

In 2002, the government released a strategy to reduce greenhouse gases in the U.S. economy by 18% (by 2012). This should lead to a reduction in CO2 emissions of 160 million tons. Internationally, the measures are criticized as totally inadequate. Bill Clinton signed the Kyoto Protocol towards the end of his term, which is not binding due to the lack of ratification by Congress. Emerging economies were not forced to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the treaty, and a strong sense of sovereignty, particularly in the Senate, plays an important role.

Environmental disasters and the actions of environmentalists, including former presidential candidate Al Gore, have ushered in a shift in consciousness. Barack Obama has initiated a change of course in climate policy. In December 2012, he declared that the fight against climate change was one of the three most important issues of the new mandate. In his inaugural speech in January 2013, he stressed that combating climate change and expanding renewable energy was a priority for the coming years and announced that the focus was on renewable energy, in which the United States should become a leader instead of ignoring global development.

In the United States, climate change and dependence on oil imports are discussed primarily from the perspective of international security.

So far, climate protection policy has mainly focused on voluntary measures and research funding. Some states (especially California) have enforced stricter rules. The most important environmental agency at the federal level is the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which environmentalists criticize for its low activity.

Foreign and security policy in the United States

U.S. foreign policy is based on an attitude very similar to political realism. This contrasts with an uninterrupted and exceptionally strong idealism since the independence movement, whose origin lies in the anti-European effects of the revolution and in some schools of foreign policy thought, justifies the belief in a historically unique mission of the United States (American Exceptionalism ), to the German “American uniqueness”). Despite frequent tensions between aspiration and practice, this bipolarity of US foreign policy persists due to many similarities. For example, the ideal of the greatest possible freedom of contract in a liberal social and world order converges with the economic dependence of the United States on foreign trade to advocate free trade.

The interests of realpolitik defended by the official foreign policy of the United States include, in addition to guaranteeing the global security of its citizens and nationals, the protection of the United States from external attacks and the constant availability of resources essential to the country’s economy. The idealistic interests that are supposed to guide and justify the long-term action of the United States are the defense of human rights, the democratic and plebiscitary political formation of sovereign states by their state peoples, and a global system of the market economy.

In its practical implementation, foreign policy has increasingly shifted from a passive role to a formative one. From its founding until World War II, isolationism prevailed, that is, the deliberate neglect of foreign policy in favor of internal development and culture. Although this attitude was most strongly expressed in the phase of consolidation of the country by the Monroe Doctrine, it was increasingly relaxed in the era of imperialism until the First World War, to be completely discredited by the attack on Pearl Harbor. Immediately, the internationalism of the American character suddenly gained prominence due to the confrontation with the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

This has been supported by institutionalist practice, i.e. the creation of transnational bodies for long-term cooperation with States. This was done either in conjunction with States that represented similar interests in order to strengthen them, or to bridge political differences with States that had conflicting interests. The United States is therefore the initiator and co-founder of many multinational bodies and organizations, such as the United Nations, the World Trade Organization (formerly GATT), the World Bank and NATO or the CSCE. At the same time, U.S. policy has since its inception been guarded against a possible restriction of its own sovereignty through international agreements.

For example, the United States rejects the signing of international climate protection agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol, support from the International Criminal Court, and the Ottawa Convention against the Proliferation of Anti-Personnel Mines. Bilateral trade and defense agreements, despite their universal claim, therefore play a much more important role than, for example, for most members of the European Union.

Depending on the global domestic political orientation, the United States prioritizes individual foreign policy efforts and adds them to morally reinforced terminology. These include the war on terror, the war on drugs and the war on poverty.

Because of the exceptional political, economic and military position of the United States and its increasingly offensive influence on the politics and economy of the entire international community, the country’s foreign policy is polarized like no other. Above all, the numerous military interventions abroad, the global social upheavals caused by globalization as well as human rights violations in the treatment of suspected terrorists and prisoners of war are criticized.

U.S. allies can be found, among others, in NATO. In addition, they maintain close diplomatic and strategic relations with countries outside NATO (see Major Non-NATO Ally). Some of them are democratically and market-oriented countries that are existentially threatened by neighboring political actors, such as Israel, South Korea or Taiwan, some are states that are closely allied by historical events such as Japan, the Philippines and Australia. , and some are most strategically important partners such as Pakistan, Jordan and Kuwait. By far the strongest relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom, the only country with which they cooperate even in such sensitive areas as nuclear technology. The United States claims to operate 766 military bases of various sizes in 40 countries around the world (including 293 in Germany, 111 in Japan and 105 in South Korea; In 2006).

Military

The U.S. armed forces are the most expensive and in number the second largest army in the world after the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. They are positioned on a global scale; the current military doctrine states that the United States must be able to fight two regional wars around the world victoriously at the same time. Armed forces are increasingly exposed to asymmetric warfare. This development has occurred in its history, especially since the Vietnam War.

In the United States, the president is the commander-in-chief of the national armed forces and appoints its president, the secretary of defense, and the joint chiefs of staff. The Department of Defense administers the armed forces, which are divided into the Army (Army; about 561,000 soldiers), Air Force (Air Force; about 336,000 soldiers), Navy (Navy; about 330,000 soldiers) and Marine Corps (Marine Corps). ) ; about 202,000 soldiers), for a total of about 1,430,000 soldiers as of April 30, 2011.

The Coast Guard (approximately 44,000 men) is a civilian agency that is subordinate to the Department of Homeland Security at peace and may be subordinate to the U.S. Department of the Navy in the event of war. Its military capabilities are relatively limited. In addition, each state maintains National Guard units. These are militia units that are usually subordinate to the governor of the respective state, but can be deployed overseas as part of the military on the instructions of the president. Military service is voluntary, although conscription in time of war can be done through the selective service system.

In addition, states are allowed to set up their own military units, called state guards, called state guards, state army, state defense force, state militia or state military reserve, depending on the state. These differ from the National Guards in that they cannot be placed under federal command and the states are not required to establish them. As a result, only 22 States and the territory of Puerto Rico currently maintain such military units.

The United States was the world’s leading nuclear power and, along with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, was the only state to have used nuclear weapons in a war. U.S. defense companies are world leaders, especially in aviation. When it comes to military weapons, U.S. arms companies are losing importance. U.S. military spending in 2015 was about $596 billion. This made the United States the country with the highest military spending in the world in 2015. U.S. military spending is nearly three times that of China, which ranks second in the world.

Military developments, especially of a technological nature, are revolutionary, especially for U.S. allies in NATO. The anti-state tendency that made the U.S. military small in its history until the United States entered World War II was increasingly overshadowed by many Americans’ fear of communism during the Cold War. As a result, the original idea that the military, as the ultimate instrument of state violence, poses a threat to citizens is fading.

Since World War II, supporting friendly countries through large arms shipments has proven to be an effective means of passive support in times of crisis for the United States. During World War II, the Loan and Lease Act allowed the supply of heavy equipment first to Britain and the Commonwealth and then to the Soviet Union, which significantly altered the military balance to the detriment of the Axis powers. After World War II, for example, Persia was helped to achieve supremacy in the Middle East by providing modern aircraft, tanks, and missiles. In the 1980s, when the overthrow of the Shah’s regime turned friendship with the United States into enmity, the United States moved on to supplying Iraq under Saddam Hussein, who offered himself to the West as an opponent of Iran and fought the first Gulf War against Iran.

Fire brigade

In 2019, the U.S. Fire Department had 370,000 professional firefighters and 745,000 nationally organized volunteer firefighters. The proportion of women is eight percent. U.S. firefighters were alerted to 37,272,000 operations in the same year, with 1,291,500 fires to extinguish. 3,704 dead were recovered by firefighters in fires and 16,600 injured were rescued. The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) represents American firefighters with its firefighters in the World Fire Brigade Association CTIF.

Human rights

By ratifying various conventions, the United States has assumed certain obligations, including the consideration of the human rights situation in the United States by the UNITED NATIONS Human Rights Council. Nevertheless, criticism of the human rights situation in the United States, particularly by private nongovernmental organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, is frequently criticized: Human Rights Watch, for example, criticizes, in particular, the death penalty that is still practiced today, the mistreatment inflicted by the police, the judiciary or the army, overcrowded prisons. and, in some cases, inhumane conditions of detention.

These partly violate the United Nations Convention against Torture and other international standards of humane treatment. For example, prisoners often have to spend 23 hours in solitary confinement, light burns 24 hours a day, and physical exercise is only allowed four hours a week in a small cell.

This is also where aspects of criticism of racial discrimination come into play as a violation of human rights: with a population share of 13 percent, a 43 percent rate of African Americans among those legally convicted is very high. In some states of the United States, one in ten African Americans is imprisoned. The number of inmates in the United States is generally high: in 2001, 2.1 million Americans were in prison, or one in 146 adults. By 2011, that number had risen to 2.4 million. In addition, at least 47 people died in police attacks in 2009 as a result of the use of stun guns (see Amnesty International’s 2010 report, USA).

Internationally, arrests and actions by the police or intelligence services in connection with 11 September 2001 have also caused a sensation. After the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, 1200 foreigners were arrested in the United States and detained for a long time for various reasons. Information on the identity of the detainees, the place of their detention and whether they received legal assistance was not made public by the Ministry of Justice.

The principle of the presumption of innocence has not been applied in these cases. This was made possible by the USA PATRIOT Act of October 25, 2001, which resulted in a greater restriction of U.S. civil rights. The law not only allows police to eavesdrop on and monitor people without judicial authorization, but also allows home searches, evictions and the collection of private data without existing evidence of a crime. The most profound change, however, is the authority of the CIA foreign intelligence service to be allowed to operate domestically from now on – this was previously strictly separate and was previously only allowed to the FBI from the federal police.

The Military Commissions Act also allows hostile persons to be declared ” illegally hostile combatants “, meaning that such persons can be convicted by military courts (including on the basis of confessions obtained under torture) without the possibility of complying with the Geneva Conventions. applicable to combatants to appeal or appeal their treatment.

The situation of prisoners in the United States prison camp at the Guantanamo Bay Naval base in Cuba has also been strongly criticized by many parties. More than 600 people from 42 countries are mostly illegally detained there, including a number of children under the age of 16. Their status remains unclear, they are neither prisoners of war nor criminals, and are in what the U.S. considers a legal vacuum, meaning that the laws in the U.S. are not applicable there.

However, this is not internationally recognized and is considered contrary to international law. However, this allowed the military to take measures contrary to international law, such as torture or hearings, without a right of defense. A legal reassessment of the torture practices systematically practiced under the former Bush administration in secret CIA detention centers (black sites), such as waterboarding of people sometimes illegally abducted in other countries, has so far been omitted.

The conditions of detention in these military prison camps are often inhumane: cases of physical violence, use of violence and torture (e.g. dislocation of limbs, blows to the testicles or total deprivation of sleep and food) are reported, as well as humiliation of the dignity and religion of prisoners.

The UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions expressed concern that between 2003 and May 2009 there were “far more than the 74 officially reported deaths among migrants detained by immigration and customs authorities”.

In the aftermath of the war in Iraq, U.S. soldiers perpetrated a series of massacres of civilians. Well-known examples are the Haditha massacre, the Maqarr adh-Dhib massacre, the airstrikes in Baghdad on 12 July 2007, the Mahmudiyya massacre and the Abu Ghuraib torture scandal. In Afghanistan too, there have been repeated massacres of civilians by members of the US armed forces since 2001 (including the murders of the killer team in Afghanistan).

In its war on terror, the United States is increasingly relying on the use of combat drones in other countries (e.g., Yemen, Pakistan), violating international law and the human right to integrity. Between 2004 and 2009, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism recorded 52 drone attacks. Since President Obama took office, there have been 264. According to research by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, there were between 2440 and 3113 deaths since the attacks began until May 2012. The number of civilians among them is given as 479 to 821, of whom 174 are children. In addition, there are about 1200 injured.

Economy

The economic situation of the United States

The United States had a gross domestic product (GDP) of $21.4 trillion in 2020, making it the largest economy in the world. At $57,324, they have the eighth highest GDP per capita in the world. The services sector generated about 77.6% of real GDP in 2012, of which about one-third came from banking, insurance and real estate. Manufacturing accounted for about 20.8% and agriculture for 1.6%. The structure of the economy is strongly oriented towards consumption and services. In 2015, nearly one-third of global consumer spending was in the United States. Consumerism leads to a low savings rate of public budgets.

The economy grew by 2.3% in 2017, the inflation rate was 2.1%. The unemployment rate averaged about 5.3% in 2015 and declined further to 4.1% in October 2017. The “hidden unemployment rate,” which includes workers who have given up looking for work or are underemployed, was 8.6% in June 2017, up from 17% at the height of the financial crisis.

Since Ronald Reagan’s presidency, government intervention in economic operations has been significantly reduced. Some sectors of the economy are subject to regulatory oversight; for example, states oversee electricity supply through a Utility Commission.

The Federal Reserve System (“Fed”), which has existed since 1913 and has taken over the functions of a state central bank, has grown considerably since the 2007 financial crisis. Until then, it intervened in economic activity only by controlling the money supply or the level of key interest rates; since then, it has acted as a guarantor and lender outside the banking system. In 2014, it bought $55 billion a month in government securities and holds 32.5% of all ten-year U.S. Treasuries. The fed’s longtime chairman was Alan Greenspan in 1987, followed by Ben Bernanke in 2006, Janet Yellen in 2014 and Jerome Powell on February 5, 2018.

In 2016, the United States was the world’s largest market for the sale of imported goods and the second largest exporter in the world after China. The U.S. trade balance posted a deficit of US$505 billion in 2014: the volume of exports of goods and services in 2014 was US$2,345.4 billion, and goods and services were imported during the same period for US$2,850.5 billion. Export and import volumes increased compared to the previous year. The top customer countries for U.S. products in 2014 were Canada, Mexico, China, Japan, Great Britain and Germany.

The median annual gross income of U.S. households was $43,389; about 16% of all households had a gross income of more than $100,000. The richest 20% of all households earned more than $88,030 gross per year, the bottom fifth less than $18,500.

Education and ethnicity had a strong influence on income. While the median gross household income in 2006 was $57,518 for Asian households, it was $30,134 for Black households. The same median was $25,900 for a person with a high school diploma and $81,400 for those with a university degree.

The poverty line was set in 2006 at an annual income of US$20,614 (€15,860) for a family of four and US$10,294 (€7920) for a single person. 36.46 million (≈ 15 percent of the population) lived below this limit in 2005.

The minimum wage was $7.25 per hour until 2014, with many differences across states. Effective January 1, 2015, President Obama increased the minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 for workers whose employers work for the government on a contractual basis.

According to a Credit Suisse study, total household wealth (ownership minus debt) was $93.6 trillion in 2017. American households thus own nearly a third of the world’s wealth. In total, 6.4% of adult Americans were wealthy millionaires. In the first quarter of 2018, household wealth surpassed $100 trillion for the first time.

Key figures

In the Global Competitiveness Index, which measures a country’s competitiveness, the United States ranks second out of a total of 137 (in 2017-2018). In the Index of Economic Freedom, the country ranks 17th out of 180 countries in 2017.

Year	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020
% change compared to VJ.	2,9	1,9	-0.1	-2.5	2,6	1,6	2,3	1,8	2,5	2,9	1,6	2,2	2,9	2,2	-3.5

Year	2015	2016	2017	2018
GDP in billions of dollars	18.219	18.707	19.485	20.494

Year	2015	2016	2017	2018
GDP per capita ($ thousands)	56,4	57,6	59,5	62,6

Canada	18,0
Mexico	15,9
People’s Republic of China	7,2
Japan	4,5
United Kingdom	4,0
Germany	3,5
South Korea	3,4
other countries	43,5

People’s Republic of China	21,2
Mexico	13,6
Canada	12,5
Japan	5,6
Germany	5,0
South Korea	2,9
United Kingdom	2,4
other countries	36,8

State Budget

The state budget in 2016 included spending of $3.89 trillion, compared to revenues of $3.36 trillion. The result is a budget deficit of 2.8% of GDP. The deficit was $530 billion. As a result, the United States has made significant progress in fiscal consolidation in recent years. For 2017 to 2019, an annual deficit of about 2.9% of GDP is expected. In 2020, the deficit was $3.1 trillion, setting a new record.

The U.S. national debt stood at $18.08 trillion, or 104% of GDP, at the beginning of January 2015. According to the U.S. debt clock as of January 2015, local debt stands at US$1.87 trillion, the debt of the 50 states as a whole at about US$1.19 trillion. In August 2014, 34.4% of the national debt was allocated to foreign creditors, 65.6% to domestic creditors. According to the U.S. Treasury Department, China had $1.27 trillion in U.S. Treasuries at the end of 2013, making it the largest foreign creditor of the United States, followed by Japan with $1.18 trillion and Belgium with $256 billion.

The United States infrastructure

In the Logistics Performance Index, which is compiled by the World Bank and measures infrastructure quality, the United States ranked 14th out of 160 countries in 2018. This provides the United States with a powerful, state-of-the-art infrastructure. In some areas, however, there is now a considerable need for investment.

Energy supply

U.S. electricity consumption in 2014 was about 3,913 terawatt-hours per year, with 12,950 kWh per year, the United States has the tenth highest per capita consumption in the world. In 2015, 36% of energy consumption came from oil, 16% from coal and 29% from natural gas, 10% from renewable energy sources and 9% from nuclear energy. In 2019, 35% of it came from natural gas, 31% from oil, 14% from coal, 12% from renewable sources and 8% from nuclear. The United States has been by far the world’s largest consumer of oil for decades and will continue in 2015, 91% of energy demand was covered by the company’s own production.

For many decades, oil, natural gas, and coal have been the primary sources of energy in the United States. In 2008, coal production peaked. Since then, it has declined again; In 2015, it was at the same level as in 1981. In 2015, natural gas production peaked, mainly thanks to the development of new production areas and the use of hydraulic fracturing.

Oil production has been steadily declining since 1970. Starting in 2009, this process was reversed alongside natural gas production by opening up new areas, such as Texas or North Dakota, and applying new production methods. In 2015, oil production was almost at the same level as in 1972. The United States is the world’s largest producer of natural gas and, along with Russia and Saudi Arabia, is one of the world’s largest oil producers. In 2016, with the commissioning of the Sabine Pass terminal in Louisiana, liquefied natural gas (LNG) was exported for the first time from the Americas. The legal ban on the export of crude oil was lifted at the end of 2015.

Energy production from renewables has increased significantly in the United States since 2001. The total installed capacity of solar power plants reached 42.3 GW in the second quarter of 2020 and that of wind turbines 109.6 GW. By the end of 2020, installed wind capacity had increased to 122.3 GW, or 16% of the total capacity of the world’s wind turbines.

The employment balance sheet has also been strongly oriented towards renewable energies. For example, in 2016, the coal industry employed about 53,000 people, while the U.S. solar and wind energy industries employed about 475,000 jobs.

Water supply

In a global comparison, the United States has a relatively well-developed and safe water and drinking water system. The vast majority of U.S. households obtain drinking water from community supply systems. Water supply systems can be in public and private hands. There are about 155,000 independent water suppliers. Although most water supply systems draw from groundwater, 68% of the population is supplied with surface water, especially in large cities.

For several years, studies have shown that drinking water shortages can increase due to various factors, such as climate change and population growth. At the same time, state authorities and institutes and the federal government are identifying ways to improve water supply and management. While Israel purifies 86 percent of its wastewater and uses it in agriculture, the United States treats only 8 percent of its wastewater.

Communication

The United States has a well-developed and technologically advanced communication system. There were about 122 million private fixed lines and 328 million mobile lines in 2015. The mobile network is constantly expanding. The Internet, originating in the United States, has become an important means of communication. In 2019, 89% of the U.S. population used the Internet. However, by 2021, more than 35 percent of U.S. households living in rural areas have minimal or no broadband coverage, according to government information.

Transportation

The transportation network is polycentric: roads, rails and air links are mainly star-shaped to the metropolitan areas of New York, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, Charlotte, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles and Seattle. With a total length of 6,586,610 kilometers, the United States has the longest road network in the world (as of 2012).

Freight transport is mainly provided by railways and trucks. With the exception of air traffic, which dominates long-distance traffic, passenger transport is carried out almost exclusively by road (individual transport or intercity buses). The railway handles only a fraction of the passenger traffic. In 2010, 87.2% (-1.7% compared to 2000) of passenger transportation services were provided by motor vehicles, while 11.6% (+1.5%) of passenger kilometers were covered by aircraft. Only 0.9% (+0.2%) were provided by regular services and 0.4% (+0.1%) by rail.

Intercity bus transport is particularly important for transport within the Länder, but also for long-distance routes.

Road transport

The United States has an extensive road network. For long- and medium-haul traffic, there is a network of internal and interstate highways. However, as of April 2021, nearly 300,000 kilometers of roads and 45,000 bridges are “in a miserable state,” according to the White House.

Interstate Highways are multi-lane highways that lie between different states and connect the east and west coasts. Built in the 1950s, the Interstate Highway System is more than 75,000 km long and handles one-fifth of motorized traffic. The new building and maintenance are primarily funded by the federal government. U.S. highways and state highways are federal highways that are also located between different states.

However, many U.S. highways also pass through large and small cities as level crossings and generally have fewer lanes than highways. Highways in the United States are funded by the respective state. State roads, also known as state or provincial roads, are subordinate primary and secondary roads. Each state has its own street numbering and designation system, as well as its own signs. The condition and expansion of state highways may vary depending on the condition and section of the route. In some states, certain road sections of all types of roads, bridges or tunnels may result in tolls.

More fatal accidents have occurred in road traffic than in most other developed countries. In 2013, there were a total of 10.6 road deaths per 100,000 people in the United States. For comparison, there were 4.3 deaths in Germany in the same year. A total of 34,000 people died in road traffic. However, the country’s high motorization rate must be taken into account. In 2017, there were 910 motor vehicles per 1000 inhabitants in the United States. In Germany, there were only 562 vehicles. With more than 255 million units, the United States has the largest fleet of vehicles of any state.

Railways

For long-distance freight traffic, the railway operated by various private companies still plays a major role today. With a total length of 293,564 kilometers in 2014, the United States has the longest rail network in the world. The market is dominated by seven major supra-regional railway companies. In addition, there are several hundred other small businesses. The importance of rail transport can no longer be compared to the decades that have passed since the opening of transcontinental railways until the middle of the 20th century.

Nevertheless, it has been on the rise for several years; Between 2000 and 2012, the number of passengers carried by Amtrak nearly doubled. Large parts of the network are not electrified and are served by diesel locomotives. Many routes are poorly developed and in a state requiring renovation. Freight transport has much higher productivity than other countries, the main rail transport being coal (45% of the volume of goods).

In urban areas on the East Coast, California and the Chicago area, passenger rail transport has retained a certain role, which it has even been able to expand in some cases, for example with the Acela Express between Washington D.C. and Boston, which reaches an average speed of 140 km / h. Long distances between urban agglomerations are served according to the schedule, but the main importance here is more in the tourist area – comparable to rail cruises in Europe, also due to the generally very long travel times and low speeds. Overall, rail transportation accounts for only a very small share of total passenger transportation in the United States, much less than in other states. Passenger services are primarily operated by Amtrak.

The U.S. government planned to build a ten-corridor high-speed network between various major metropolitan areas, including the West Coast in California and the East Coast, distributed by 2017. Especially due to the congestion of road and air traffic, this makes sense in the long run. In total, the project is expected to cost US$53 billion (about €39 billion), mostly financed by the US Economic Recovery Plan. However, the Obama Administration failed to secure the necessary funds in the budget approved by Congress.

Air traffic

An important mode of passenger transport for long, medium and short haul routes is air traffic. The United States has the largest and most advanced civil aviation system in the world. There are a total of 19,000 tracks of different categories, of which 389 are larger. 88% of all passengers depart from the country’s 62 largest airports. The largest U.S. airlines are American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines, and United Airlines. Among the ten largest airlines in the world in terms of passenger numbers, five U.S. airlines are represented. In 2017, a total of more than 849 million people were transported by airlines registered in the country.

The largest airport in the world in terms of passenger volume is located in Atlanta. Other major centers are in Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, New York, Denver, San Francisco, Charlotte, Las Vegas and Miami. There are small airports with regular operations in almost every small town.

Marine transportation

Shipping lanes are mainly used for the transport of goods and merchandise. Domestically, the waterway network covers 40,000 kilometers, half of which is navigable for all large vessels. There are about 230 berths. In total, 41 of the 50 states are connected by water. Important inland waterways include the Mississippi River, which stretches from New Orleans to Minneapolis, and the Ohio River basin.

In 2014, around 600 million tonnes of goods were transported by barge, accounting for 5% of commercial freight traffic. On the coasts, the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway and the Pacific Coast Canals are important. The largest cargo ports are located in Boston, Chicago (via the St. Lawrence Sea Route), New York, Houston, Los Angeles and Louisiana, among others.

Cruise shipping is of great importance; half of the world’s cruise passenger volume comes from the United States, with the Caribbean being by far the most important destination.

The United States culture

American culture is shaped by the diversity of ethnic influences and traditions that many immigrant groups have brought with them. It wasn’t until the 1930s that a unified American popular culture emerged through the mass media. Various cultural scientists have dealt with the typical American mentality, compared self-image and external images, and formulated so-called cultural norms of behavior.

The first cultural productions in the United States were mainly characterized by the English ” advanced culture”, which quickly gained its independence due to the new unique conditions. African slaves were forbidden to practice their cultural traditions and produce their own cultures, so they had to orient themselves strongly toward European models. However, elements of their original cultures could be kept secret.

In the 20th century, American artists separated themselves from Old World models. The different cultural disciplines have been expanded in new directions.

The contemporary arts and entertainment scene in the United States has included the rejuvenation of music, new developments in modern dance, the use of Native American themes in theater, film production throughout its range, and the globalization of the visual arts.

In the United States – as in Germany, but unlike France – there is no central Ministry of Culture that controls a national cultural policy. This fact reflects the belief that there are areas of social life where government should play little or no role. The two national foundations for the arts and humanities – the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) – offer grants to support individual artists and researchers as well as institutions active in the arts and humanities. Since the 1994 Republican Revolution, in which Republicans won a majority in Congress, both foundations, along with state broadcasters PBS and NPR, have been repeatedly threatened by budget cuts, often accompanied by accusations that they are pursuing “left” policies in favor of an “elite.” In particular, art that is viewed critically by Christian fundamentalist or strongly Roman Catholic circles becomes a target of these threats.

While the NEA’s budget, which amounted to US$115 million in 2003, was modest compared to cultural funding from other countries, private donations have always accounted for the majority of cultural funding. These private donations were estimated at about $12.1 billion in 2002.

Indigenous culture

The cultural forms of the approximately 350 Indian groups considered tribes, whose members call themselves American Indians or Native Americans and live throughout most of the United States, are not uniform, even the 225 recognized Alaska Native tribes. Living in Alaska differs greatly, especially the groups in Hawaii. Within the country, between urban and rural areas, as well as between ethnic groups, the differences are very important. They developed their own cultural identities and structures that can be attributed to cultural areas, the number of languages was very high, but many of them are threatened with extinction. The largest language with about 150,000 speakers is Navajo.

On the Pacific coast, the culture was dominated by fishing, or whaling, as with the Makah in northwest Washington. There are huge totem poles, the largest of which is in Washington. Inland, mounted hunting, gathering and river fishing dominated. In the Great Plains, the plains, the emphasis was on bison hunting, in others moose. With the arrival of the horse, an equestrian nomadism developed in the 17th century, which set in motion large-scale people’s movements. The East, on the other hand, was largely depopulated from 1830 (Path of Tears), so the Indian cultural influence was less noticeable here for a long time.

Just like literature, the Native American art scene not only pursues traditional elements, but combines them with Means of European-inspired American culture. Other Indian artists produce detached from these traditions in their genres and with their means. Most of the literature focuses on ecological issues, poverty and violence, dehumanized technology, or spirituality.

The written tradition dates back to the early 19th century, but has collapsed again and again: William Apes: The Experience of William Apes, a forest native (1831), a Pequot, George Copway, an Anishinabe and Elias Johnson, a Tuscarora are early examples. Oliver La Farge’s short story Laughing Boy (1929) did not resume until the 1960s. Kiowa N. Scott Momaday received the Pulitzer Prize in 1969 for House Made of Dawn, Vine Deloria published Custer Died For Your Sins. To the Indian Manifesto. Dee Brown’s Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee from 1970 went beyond the national framework.

The music in the United States

An essential contribution of the United States to world culture is the development of jazz, which is considered the first independent form of music in the United States, as well as blues and country, the fusion from which rock ‘n’ roll emerged in the 1950s. This musical culture is unique in the confluence of African-American and European folklore and today constitutes a central foundation of popular culture in the Western world.

Since 1959, the Grammy Awards have been presented annually by the Recording Academy in Los Angeles in 78 categories to artists such as singers, composers, musicians as well as production and sound engineering directors. The Grammy is considered the highest international award for artists and recording teams.

Theatre

Even before the founding of the first English colony in America in 1607, there were Spanish dramas and Native American tribes performing plays.

Founded in 1809 by the circus of Pépin and Breschard, the Walnut Street Theatre is the oldest theatre still actively operating in America today.

Although many once popular theatrical forms such as minstrel shows and vaudeville acts have gradually disappeared from the American stage landscape over time, theater remains a popular contemporary art form in the United States.

Among the most important American playwrights and playwrights of modern times are Edward Albee, August Wilson, Tony Kushner, David Henry Hwang, John Guare and Wendy Wasserstein.

Literature

The production of literature did not correspond in any way to the traditions of the Indians, but began with travelogues and historiography, in addition to diaries and theological literature. The first printed book was the Bay Psalm Book of 1640. The most important Puritan poets were Edward Taylor and Anne Bradstreet (The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, London 1650).

In 1704, Sarah Kemble Knight wrote the account of a trip from Boston to New York (The Journal of Madam Knight), with which the landscape forces a confrontation for the first time. With reports of captivity among the Indians, cross-cultural contacts and strangeness have also permeated literature, such as Mary Rowlandson or John Smith’s report on her alleged rescue by Pocahontas. The most important work of Puritan historiography is Cotton Mather’s Magnalia Christi Americana (1702).

Many political essays and satires read in England as well as in the United States were written by Benjamin Franklin. Patriotism shaped the literature of the founding years. Philip Freneau became the “poet of the American Revolution” and painted a benevolent picture of the Indians. Webster compiled his An American Dictionary of the English Language from 1806 to 1828. Its orthographic form is the result of many differences between American English and British English.

Charles Brockden Brown took up the English tradition of the Gothic novel and is considered a pioneer of the psychological novel. Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper were influenced by the historical novels of Sir Walter Scott. Irving is often considered the founder of the short story. Cooper captured the frontier experience in the “Leather Stocking” (1823-1841) and presented the Indians as “savage nobles.”

American Romanticism, often referred to as the American Renaissance, reached its peak more than 30 years after the European Renaissance. Ralph Waldo Emerson was the source of transcendentalism. He referred to Immanuel Kant’s transcendental philosophy, but combined it with Far Eastern and Indian philosophy. His 1837 work The American Scholar was called the “Cultural Declaration of Independence” of the United States.

Henry David Thoreau lived in a log cabin for two years. His quest for an alternative way of life has made his Walden, which accounts for these two years, a cult book of the hippie movement in the 1960s. Thoreau Civil Disobedience’s political essay (1849) influenced Martin Luther King as well as the environmental movement.

Walt Whitman emphasized physicality in free verse, while Nathaniel Hawthorne was characterized by deep skepticism. His themes were guilt, punishment and intolerance, for example in the society of his Puritan ancestors. In Die Blithedale-Maskerade 1841, he described the failure of a utopian commune.

Herman Melville’s Moby Dick (1851) was a reflection on the questions of existence, on good and evil, on the limits of human cognition. This and his later works, such as Bartleby the Scribe, were not recognized until long after his death.

Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories influenced the development of fantasy and horror literature, with The Double Murder in the Rue Morgue he invented detective history. Poe succeeded in developing poetry in the field of symbolist and onomatopoeic art of language by means of a theory of poetry (The Philosophy of Composition, The Poetic Principle).

The conflict between the Northern and Southern states over slavery was also combated by literary means. In 1789, the autobiography Olaudah Equianos was published, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Hut (1852) became a bestseller in the north.

Faulkner’s novels Yoknapatawpha (the 1930s), Stephen Vincent Benét’s The Body of John Brown (1928) and finally Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind (1936) are remarkable. The southern states oscillated between nostalgia and harsh criticism. Poet and musician Sidney Lanier wrote dark odes, Kate Chopin about Louisiana Creole society. Mark Twains – The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885) – or Frank Norris’ local literature in color exposed regional peculiarities and dialects.

Mass misery in cities has become a problem. Jack London moved to the far north (Call of the Wild) during the Klondike Gold Rush. Like London, Frank Norris belonged to San Francisco’s radical literary scene. His novels deal with the hard life in California, the supposed promised land (Greed for Gold, 1899). In The Swamp (1906), Upton Sinclair discovers grievances in Chicago slaughterhouses.

T. S. Eliot or W. H. Auden, Ezra Pound and Hilda Doolittle (H. D.) are considered representatives of modernism. Many American writers spent some time in Europe; Stein coined the term “Lost Generation” for them. John Dos Passos wrote Manhattan Transfer, the most famous urban novel. When anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti were executed in 1927, John Dos Passos, Langston Hughes and Edna St. Vincent Millay held vigils outside the prison gates. Many writers turned to socialism. “Proletarian literature” reached with works such as U.S.A. by Dos Passos. trilogy (1930-1936) and Fruits of Wrath by John Steinbeck (1939).

The twelve authors of the pamphlet I’ll Take My Stand and their successors became known as the Agrarians of the South; they opposed rationality, industrialization and urbanization. In 1922, Eliot published the most famous poem of English-speaking modernism: The Desert Land.

Gertrude Stein’s poems are often more attached to sound than meaning. One extreme of prose is the concise style of Ernest Hemingway, an opposite is the proliferating phrases of William Faulkner. His work (Nobel Prize for Literature 1950) was celebrated in France notably by Jean-Paul Sartre and other existentialists, in Germany by Gottfried Benn. But it probably had the greatest influence on Latin American literature, especially magic realism. Sherwood Anderson and Thomas Wolfe were Faulkner’s models. The works of F. Scott Fitzgerald observed New York high society or exiled bohemians, and he thus became the chronicler of the “Roaring Twenties”. In The Great Gatsby (1925), he took up the American myth of success.

The Harlem Renaissance marked the beginning of a golden age of African-American literature around 1920, heavily influenced by Alain LeRoy Locke’s anthology The New Negro (1925). Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison belonged to the generation that followed and found models in the Harlem Renaissance, but whose optimism had given way to resignation. Wright’s Native Son (1940) and Ellison’s The Invisible Man (1951) are considered the central works.

After World War II, Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal’s The Naked and the Dead, James Jones’ Damned to Eternity and Herman Wouk’s The Caine appeared. Mailer treated his involvement in the anti-war movement in Armere aus der Nacht, for which he invented the “faction” (reform of fact and fiction) as a new genre of literature. Vidal caused a scandal in 1948 with Closed Circle, one of the first gay novels.

Henry Miller maintained a negative attitude: The Air-Conditioned Nightmare (1945) is one of his titles and at the same time his mocking name for the United States. He gained a reputation as a scandal writer with Tropic of Cancer (1934) and Tropic of Capricorn (1939). However, his works – such as the Nexus trilogy, Plexus, Sexus (1948-1960) – are more interesting as a spiritual biography and testimonies of mystical inclinations.

In the late 1940s, a new literary bohemian was formed around Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Gregory Corso and William S. Burroughs, known as the Beat Generation. The cultural influence of the beat poets can be seen in the fact that the nonconformist youth movement around 1960 was called Beatniks after them. Ginsberg’s poems stand in their free form, in radical individualism and visionary envy in whiteman’s tradition, but at the same time are ironic and desperate comments on the state of society. In the 1960s, he became a symbolic figure of the hippies.

Jack Kerouac’s best-known novel, On the Road, depicts the journey of two young men fleeing constraints and seeking sensual pleasures and spiritual fulfillment as an alternative to materialism and the compulsion to conform. A central figure in the hippie movement was also Ken Kesey with One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

In the 1960s and 1970s, experimental authors such as Vladimir Nabokov, Thomas Pynchon and John Barth were described as “postmodern” in the narrow sense. Today, all literary production from about 1960 onwards is often understood under the term postmodernism, as it is understood as a product of a postmodern society. Systems such as NaNoWriMo are testing ways of collaborative creative writing.

Media

In the process of 20th century media penetration in all areas of daily life, the United States has always been at the forefront. Already in the first half of the 19th century, we can observe the emergence of a tabloid press. The mass distribution of radio, television, computers and the Internet also began here earlier than in the rest of the world. In 2000, more than 50% of American households had at least one personal computer and more than 40% used the Internet.

History and understanding of the Constitution

Already in the founding colonies, a press company was growing rapidly. However, the first newspaper banned by the British called Publick Happenences, Both Foreign and Domestic appeared as early as 1690. At the beginning of the 18th century, newspapers were already published regularly, including many German-language newspapers. The first German-language newspaper in the region of the United States today was the Philadelphische Zeitung, founded in 1732 by Benjamin Franklin. In the revolutionary years, the joy of publication of immigrants, who were mainly of English and German origin, increased sharply. When the Declaration of Independence was passed in 1776, it first appeared in the messenger of the German-speaking state of Pennsylvania. The statement was not published in the English-language press until later.

Reporters Without Borders is satisfied with the situation of press freedom. Since President Biden took office, the reliability and transparency of government communications has improved. According to the NGO, however, structural weaknesses persist, such as the disappearance of local media and widespread distrust of so-called “mainstream media”.

Media groups

Time Warner is a media company with many business areas. Time Warner includes the Warner Bros. film and television studio. , pay-TV channel Home Box Office (HBO) and book and magazine publishers Time Inc. Viacom is an American media group with stakes in MTV Networks and Paramount Pictures. NBC Universal is the third largest media company in the world, after Time Warner and Viacom. NBC Universal includes the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), USA Network and MSNBC, as well as the film company Universal Studios. News Corporation is a media group of major shareholder Rupert Murdoch. News Corporation has many interests in film and television companies, newspaper and book publishers. His holdings include 20th Century Fox, Fox Broadcasting Company, New York Post and Dow Jones (Wall Street Journal).

Science in the United States

Since its inception as an independent nation, the United States has promoted science and invention by enabling the free exchange of ideas, the dissemination of knowledge, and welcoming creative people from around the world. The Constitution reflects the desire for scientific activity. It gives Congress the power to “… to promote the progress of science and the useful arts by granting authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries for a limited period of time […]». This provision forms the basis of the United States patent and trademark system.

Two of the founding fathers of the United States were themselves renowned scientists. Benjamin Franklin used a series of experiments to prove that lightning is a type of electricity and invented the lightning rod. Thomas Jefferson studied agriculture and introduced new varieties of rice, olive trees and grass to the New World.

In the 19th century, new cutting-edge ideas in science and mathematics came from Britain, France and Germany, but they were often not received. Because of the great distance between the United States and the countries of origin of Western science and production, it was often necessary to develop one’s own approaches. Although researchers and inventors in the United States have lagged behind in the development of theories, they have excelled in the applied sciences. In this context, a large number of important inventions have been made. The great American inventors are Robert Fulton (steamboat), Samuel F.B. Morse (telegraph), Eli Whitney (ginner machine for cotton ginning), Cyrus McCormick (lawn mower), the Wright brothers (motor plane) and Thomas Alva Edison, the most prolific inventor with more than a thousand inventions.

In the second half of the 20th century, American scientists were increasingly recognized for their contributions to science, the formulation of concepts and theories. This change is also evident among Nobel laureates in physics and chemistry. Among Nobel laureates in the first half of the century – from 1901 to 1950 – Americans were only a small minority in the natural sciences. Since 1950, scientists working in the United States have received about half of the Nobel Prizes awarded in the natural sciences. From the beginning, the treatment of non-Anglo-Saxon research was severely limited by the fact that the only common language was English.

While in the post-war years higher education was considered a public good and research a national resource, this changed in the 1980s. Education was losing its intrinsic value, it was increasingly subject to the rules of the capitalist market, was seen more as a personal investment and therefore as a private good and a means of success in the market. While until the 1970s, a high-end university degree was equated with social success, the shift in mindset created an oversupply of doctoral students and, given rising costs, a waning willingness to engage in the social sciences and humanities.

The United States has led an active space program, NASA, since 1958.

Kitchen

Traditional American cuisine uses indigenous ingredients such as turkey, game, potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, pumpkin, and maple syrup, which were used by Native Americans and early European settlers. Wheat is the most widely used cereal.

Soul food, the cuisine of former African slaves, is particularly popular in the southern United States and among African Americans. Syncretic cuisines such as Creole, Cajun and Tex-Mex are also popular. Dishes like apple pie, fried chicken, burgers and hot dogs come from recipes made by various immigrants. French fries, Mexican dishes such as burritos and tacos, as well as pizzas and pasta dishes drawn from Italian cuisine are common. Americans especially prefer coffee to tea. In addition, orange juice and breakfast drinks containing milk are consumed.

The fast food industry was the first to introduce drive-in operations in the 1930s. During the 1980s and 1990s, Americans’ dietary energy intake increased by 24 percent. Eating frequently at fast food restaurants is associated with obesity prevalent in the United States. Sugary soft drinks are popular, accounting for nine percent of Americans’ calorie intake.

Sport

The United States has a distinct sports culture in the de facto national sports of American football, baseball, and basketball. The professional leagues that are played at the international level are the NFL (American football), MLB(baseball), the NBA (basketball) and the NHL (ice hockey). American sport is closely linked to isolationism and internationalism.

So far, eight Olympic Games have been held in the United States. With a total of 2803 medals (including 1119 gold) (as of 6 March 2017), the country occupies the first place in the eternal medal table of the Olympic Games.

A division into competitive and popular sports does not exist as in the German understanding. On the contrary, a team of some secondary sports has developed, the importance of which is not measured by the marketing and treatment (incidentally minor) in the national media, but by the distribution in schools and by the mass of regional conflicts. In addition to football, these sports include widespread lacrosse.

Typical of American sports is a high emphasis on the entertainment effect as well as the integrative character of the sport. Characteristic of the great demand for the entertainment value of sport is in addition to the constantly elaborate use of show and choreographic elements (lighting, cheerleaders) in some sports a mostly harmless staging of action and violence, for example in wrestling.

The United States is also the initiator of a new subjective classification of various sports, which are operated with the conscious creation of an attitude to life above all as occasional leisure activities. In addition to tennis and bodybuilding, these include various trendy sports.

The high hopes that U.S. society places in the integration effect of sport become clear in view of the possibilities for advancement in it. A significant portion of university scholarships are awarded to sports talent. The accusation, often made at home and abroad, that such fellows would not intellectually survive a university without their athletic abilities is rarely true, since great importance is given to academic performance and the practice of sport is reduced in case of poor academic performance. In a mode developed over time for national sports, the so-called draft system, the first rights of access to the best talents of a year are awarded to the weakest clubs, interspersed with certain chances.

Unlike lacrosse, football leadership in the United States is trying to catch up with the much more prevalent sports of American football, baseball, basketball and ice hockey. The highest league, Major League Soccer, is trying to bridge the differences between the North American and European understanding of the sport. In the 1970s, the best international players moved to American clubs. For example, New York Cosmos signed Pelé in 1975 and Franz Beckenbauer in 1977. In addition, the Los Angeles Galaxy signed David Beckham in 2007 and in 2010 Thierry Henry was signed by the New York Red Bulls. From 2011 to 2016, Jürgen Klinsmann was head coach of the U.S. national soccer team. Women’s football in the United States is much more successful internationally than men’s football.

Motorsport is also very popular with the public in the United States. The most popular racing series are NASCAR and INDYCAR. Famous are the Indianapolis 500 miles and the Speedweek at Daytona Beach. Every year, Formula 1 and the MotoGP World Championships are also held in the United States. In motorcycles, dirt track races with the Grand National championships are also very popular. A successful speedway scene has established itself in California since the early 1970s, bringing five world champions to the United States with its speedway professionals Bruce Penhall, Shawn Moran, Sam Ermolenko, Billy Hamill and Greg Hancock, who together won six individual speedway world championships. Shawn Moran became the world champion in 1983.

Public holidays in the United States

There is also a different understanding of vacationing in the United States than in Europe. In principle, the public holidays established by the government apply only to civil servants and employees, including postal employees. However, many holidays have also become a common practice in the economy due to their cultural roots. Holidays in the United States, with the exception of Christmas and New Year, are non-religious, that is, mainly patriotic in nature, due to the strict separation of church and state.

References (sources)

The World Factbook, 2021; Fragile States Index: Global Data. Fund for Peace, 2022; Inaugural Address by President Barack Obama; Alaska State Legislature 2014; Frank Newport: In U.S., Decline of Christianity Continues at Rapid Pace. In: Pew Research Center. 2020; Vereinigte Staaten, Wikipedia.