[thomassmith65]

The Catholic church is an institution of the Roman Empire, and it's still around. That puts things in perspective, I find, and makes me wonder if 100 thousand years from now, historians will just lump the Romans and us into the same bucket.

[hyperman1]

I've always thought of the USA as the east Roman Empire of the British Empire. The seat of the throne moved to the white house, but the USA is still culturally close to the UK. Except for the religion, which seems to come from The Netherlands and Germany.

[nsavage]

This is a really interesting idea. I'd never put this together myself, but its really compelling. It really shows the value of the phrase "history doesn't repeat, but it does rhyme".

[mathgeek]

> Except for the religion, which seems to come from The Netherlands and Germany.

Which religion brings those thoughts to mind? As an American I often find myself combining a handful of the American denominations into one, but I’m interested to hear what an outsider sees projected.

[alephnerd]

> The seat of the throne moved to the white house, but the USA is still culturally close to the UK

> Except for the religion, which seems to come from The Netherlands and Germany.

This underestimates how Germanic, Irish, Italian, and Hispanic America is.

For example - Hot dogs, Hamburgers, Budweiser, Chrysler, Rockefeller, Disney, the New York Times, Christmas Trees, Lutheran congregations, Mennonite congregations, etc are all German.

And having stayed in the UK for extended periods for work, it is significantly different culturally speaking than much of the US.