Читать книгу Anglo-American Cultural Studies - Jody Skinner - Страница 8

The first question is very easy to answer: No, the term “continental UScontinental US” doesn’t make any sense. Since we decided to start with a continent, you may be somewhat surprised by a question that seems to imply that the United States is a continent. While the US is very big, the continent of North AmericaAmerica is even bigger and includes the second largest country in area in the world, CanadaCanada, and according to some geographers all of Central America, meaning from Mexico to Panama too, and even GreenlandGreenland.

lower 48lower 48If “continental UScontinental US” doesn’t refer to an entire continent, then it would make sense to understand the term as referring to all states of the United States on the continent of North AmericaAmerica, thus including the lower 48lower 48 below CanadaCanada as well as AlaskaAlaska, the largest state in area and separated by Canada from the lower 48 but still squarely on the North American continent. But unfortunately the commonly used term “continental US” almost always refers just to the lower 48 as if Alaska wasn’t even part of the continent. Even though the term doesn’t seem to make any sense, it at least could remind us of the fact that Alaska (number 49) and HawaiiHawaii (number 50) are the two “newest” states of the Union, each barely sixty years old. And the use of the term lower 48 could remind us of the special status of Washington DCWashington DC, which isn’t a state at all even though – or because – it’s the capital of the entire country, a country that while absorbing millions of immigrantsimmigrants [7]presented challenging physical barriers for the trip from east to west.

Fig. 1.1

Continental US?