Modern American culture is a juicy burger of mass culture garnished with 15 minutes of It owes as much to marketing savvy， communications technology and mass-production techniques as it does to artists and If you can name it， American companies have invented， packaged and disseminated it to as many consumers as cheaply and conveniently as The elusive concept of 'American-ness' is often defined by cinema and The advent of TV in the 1950s shook Hollywood's hegemony to its core， but both forms of media have managed to coexist， even operating The global distribution of American movies and TV shows has shaped the world's perception of the country to a high， if not completely accurate， The American music industry is the world's most powerful and pervasive， though groundswell movements remain the driving force of American African Americans' influence， including blues， jazz and hip-hop， can hardly be Rap， America's inner-city sound， places an equal emphasis on an ultraheavy beat， sound montage， street cred and macho Its appeal to middle-class white America will no doubt bemuse sociologists for The US has churned out a veritable forest of The illustrious lineup begins with Walt Whitman， Herman Melville， Nathaniel Hawthorne， Emily Dickinson， Henry James and Edith Wharton， and moves into the modern era with William Faulkner， Ernest Hemingway， Scott Fitzgerald， John Steinbeck， Jack 'Backpack' Kerouac， Arthur Miller， both the Williamses， Saul Bellow， John Updike and Toni MAfter WWII， the focus of the international art world shifted from Paris to New Y Artists leaving war-torn Europe brought the remnants of surrealism to the Big Apple， inspiring a group of young American painters to create the first distinct American painting style， abstract The relentless ascendancy of mass media gave birth to pop Slick， surface-oriented and purposely banal paintings like Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans are now American When we think of US cities， we think of skyscrapers， those architectural testaments to market forces and American Chicago is a living museum of high-rise New York boasts its fair share of stunners Despite increasing homogenization， rural America retains its idiosyncrasies， and distinctive vernacular architectural styles persist in New England (clapboard)， California (Spanish Mission) and New Mexico (adobe)American sports developed separately from the rest of the world and， consequently， homegrown games such as baseball， football and basketball dominate the sports Soccer and ice hockey are runners-up to the Big T Urban America also invented the great indoors: aerobics and the gym， indoor skiing and rock-climbing - examples of what can go wrong when too much disposable income hits up against too little leisure
