A question for my American readers
A pair of superimposed maps* of the US and UK over at swordnboard has me thinking questions about nationalism and imagination. To whit:
do you consider English/British history to be your history? As opposed to the history of a foreign land (let's imagine, say, Turkey or Hungary or Morocco, without going too far afield). Is Britain part of your heritage?**
If yes, is there any date at which it stops being your history and becomes foreign?
* with distractingly different projections, but never mind that.
** note this is not a question about cosmopolitanism or universal heritage a la UNESCO. Neither am I asking Ben Anderson's wedge question about whether you feel pride or shame or whatever about Agincourt or the defeat of the Spanish Armada or Newton. And of course Americans come from all over - hell, even I'm one these days.
In other news: Damn You, Tom Standage, this was going to be my next project. Well, OK, not quite. I was planning to cover beer, wine and coffee, but I see he's foolishly left gin, rum and brandy off the list. No you do not get to gloss over all that by saying "Arabs and distilling."
do you consider English/British history to be your history? As opposed to the history of a foreign land (let's imagine, say, Turkey or Hungary or Morocco, without going too far afield). Is Britain part of your heritage?**
If yes, is there any date at which it stops being your history and becomes foreign?
* with distractingly different projections, but never mind that.
** note this is not a question about cosmopolitanism or universal heritage a la UNESCO. Neither am I asking Ben Anderson's wedge question about whether you feel pride or shame or whatever about Agincourt or the defeat of the Spanish Armada or Newton. And of course Americans come from all over - hell, even I'm one these days.
In other news: Damn You, Tom Standage, this was going to be my next project. Well, OK, not quite. I was planning to cover beer, wine and coffee, but I see he's foolishly left gin, rum and brandy off the list. No you do not get to gloss over all that by saying "Arabs and distilling."