Name: The Myth of Continents
ISBN: 9780520207431

Martin W. Lewis

Kären Wigen

In a thoughtful and engaging critique, geographer Martin W. Lewis and historian Karen Wigen re-examine the basic geographical divisions we take for granted. Their up-to-the-minute study reflects both on the global scale and its relation to the specific continents of Europe, Asia, and Africa actually part of one contiguous landmass. Photos. maps.

A Critique of Metageography

The Myth of Continents

karla

[…] carried to its logical extreme, the world is again divided into two sections: the West and the non-West. As Bernard Cohn remarks, this maneuver entails "a neat ethnocentrism which defines nine-tenths of the people of the world in a single negative term”.

a key metahistorical concept: the notion that the West is coincident with modernity and that the non-West can enter the modern world only to the extent that it emulates the norms established in Europe and northern North America. […] J. M. Blaut labels these linked constructs "the colonizer's model of the world" and shows that they rest on a rarely acknowledged substrate of "geographical diffusionism" (where progress is seen as flowing endlessly out of the center [Europe] toward the otherwise sterile periphery).

; seldom is an independent political territory coterminous with the territory of a self-consciously united people. That we elect to call such internally divided countries as India, Nigeria, or even Switzerland nation-states shows a determined desire to will uniformity out of diversity.

To anyone interested in social constructs, like gender and race, that become reified as natural conditions, this book is an enrichment. Originally published as part of a journal, it still reads like an article and is kept compact without disregarding complexities. You need minimal prior knowledge of geography and politics, especially European / US American imperialism. This feels like an information smoothie, containing all nutrients you need leaving your brain perfectly full. The bad news is: everything is made up, the good news is: everything is made up. 

The Myth of Continents A Critique of Metageography

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