U.K. and U.S. Culture

Hello everyone,

I hope you have had a good reading week! As we will now be dealing with U.S. and U.K. institutions and culture in class, I thought I might blog some videos about these topics.

In the above clip, Stephen Fry and Clive James discuss Fry's plans to travel around America's fifty states (for his book and BBC documentary series, both entitled "Stephen Fry in America"). They comment on the differences between the British and American ideologies, as well the possible historical reasons behind these divergences.

The next videos that I would like to share have been taken from a series of short programmes produced by the History Channel, called "10 Things that Make Us British." The show analyses the characteristics of British culture, including areas such as religion, food, politics and art.

1. Political moderation:

2. Art:

3. Food and drink:

4. Inventions:

5. Religious tolerance:

Lastly, the following are some websites that I have found with interesting facts about the British and American cultures:

http://projectbritain.com/
http://www.bris.ac.uk/international/staffsupport/documents/britishguide.pdf
http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/uk-culture

http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/resources/global-etiquette/usa.html
http://www.usa.gov/Citizen/Topics/History-Culture.shtml
http://www.everyculture.com/To-Z/United-States-of-America.html#b