Europe should not be a continent

[verte76]

Basstrap, you're right about Mercator, but keep in mind that those people knew no Asian geography. Mercator lived in the sixteenth century. They had no means of communication over distances, so they didn't know the distances even existed. They didn't exactly have the evening news. India was not a unified state; it was a conglomeration of kingdoms about which Europeans knew little. Is Russia Europe or Asia? That's something that there's a whole slew of disagreement over. I don't think geographical *size* should necessarily define what's a continent. What the heck is a continent? There are different peoples in Europe, different peoples in Asia, different peoples in Afriica, etc, etc.........is Australia a continent? It's huge. Maybe Europe is not a continent but just some sort of "entity". At any rate I like to think the planet is big enough for all of us.

 

[hiphop]

Re: Re: Re: Europe should not be a continent

You can have them. Then we Americans can eliminate any ambiguity over the term "America," and we can get rid of Celine Dion and Alanis to boot.

If you want to eliminate any ambiguity, we?d be in need of Mexico and Latin America as well.

 

[hiphop]

I do believe by now most European countries are aware of their place in history and the part they play in the present

I can't think of many acts of eurocentrism that occured the last 15 years

What about the European Union?

 

[Anca_ro]

To answer a previous question, former USSR stretched to the Pacific, so it was geographically part-Europe, part-Asia, but politically it counted as Europe. Russia inherits the large Central and Eastern Asia bulk of USSR, but again counts as Europe. By the way, Israel is clearly not Europe, but counts as such in European sports competitions!

The European Union is Western Europe counteracting the mighty USA . EU candidates still are not recognized as fully European, although history is on our side from at least some points of view: the Asians could have invaded Western Europe if it wasn't for the small, but valiant, Eastern kingdoms - at least that's what we were taught in school .

 

[deep]

Anca_ro,

Thank you for your reply.
I thought they were reasonable and germain questions.

It is good to get an European perspective.