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“Author Martha Hamilton introduced the term as the title of Chapter VII of her book The Great American Grain Robbery & Other Stories, as part of an allegation t
by code_duck 6y ago
“Author Martha Hamilton introduced the term as the title of Chapter VII of her book The Great American Grain Robbery & Other Stories, as part of an allegation that the U.S. government was robbing American taxpayers in order to support grain trading companies.”
- myself248 6y agoWhich in itself is a reference to a 1903 silent film The Great Train Robbery, widely considered to be the first of what we'd now recognize as an action film, and the first western.
- twic 6y agoThe wikipedia article says: > The term Great Grain Robbery is a pun referring to the "Great Train Robbery" novel The novel in question being a 1975 one by Michael Crichton! Being British, to me, the term refers to an infamous train robbery in 1963. I don't know if that incident is well known in the US. Presumably, though, both those uses are references to the film.
- vijayr02 6y agoMichael Crichton's novel references a British train robbery from Victorian times: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Gold_Robbery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Gold_Robbery The 1903 movie referenced is a separate dramatisation of a US robbery: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Train_Robbery_(1903_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Train_Robbery_(1903_...
- tragomaskhalos 6y agoThe '63 train robbery indeed still holds an unhealthy spell over britons, part of our broader culture of lauding mavericks who get one over on the system, even if they happen to be unpleasant / violent criminals. Probably the same in the US when put like that I suppose. A less commonly recounted aspect of the Great Train Robbery is how incompetent the perps were and how easily caught