Brad DeLong quotes Stephen Cohen on California’s Uttermost Westerness.
Everybody knows that you can’t go west from California. There is no place wester. If we go from California to New York, we go Back East. If we go from California to Tokyo, we go to the Far East. We cannot go west. There is no way to do it.
But Tokyo isn’t the only place you can fly from California. When I’m flying from LA or SF to Sydney I certainly feel like I’m going west, not to the East. I suppose if you really want to feel like you’re on the western edge of things, you’d not only fly to Sydney but keep on going to Perth. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone whose identity was as bound up with being Western as Western Australians.
{ 4 comments }
sue 10.03.03 at 2:35 pm
What about Hawaii, or (though I’ve never been), Alaska? They’re west, definitely not the far east, and also definitely not “down under”
sidereal 10.03.03 at 7:17 pm
If I was Hawaiian, this article would piss me off. But I’m not, so it doesn’t.
davd 10.06.03 at 12:53 am
Its a perception problem. The map looks like that. He needs a globe instead. Or is he a flat-earther?
Rana 10.06.03 at 6:55 pm
Of course, as an historian of the American West, I feel compelled to point out that California’s inclusion in “the West” remains a matter of some debate (especially among those living in places like Wyoming and Montana).
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