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THE END OF AMERICA: THE BEGINNING OF CANADA ‐ A COMMENTARY
Author(s) -
Bordessa Ronald,
Cameron James M.
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
canadian geographer / le géographe canadien
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.35
H-Index - 46
eISSN - 1541-0064
pISSN - 0008-3658
DOI - 10.1111/j.1541-0064.1990.tb01088.x
Subject(s) - psyche , nationalism , unconscious mind , identity (music) , ideology , artifact (error) , relation (database) , order (exchange) , history , interpreter , sociology , aesthetics , psychoanalysis , law , psychology , political science , art , politics , finance , database , neuroscience , computer science , economics , programming language
A shared continent has given to historians and geographers an artifact that has been seized upon with alacrity: the borderline between the United States of America and Canada. It has bred a fascination that continues to rivet the attention of interpreters. McCreevy returns to the border, and particularly to its landscapes at Niagara in order to assess meanings that inform the Canadian and American mind and actions. Landscape is perhaps especially suited to this purpose because it is the visible bearer of all those invisible, inaccessible, and unconscious understandings that constitute the psyche of a nation ‐the source of its identity and stance. Certainly McGreevy understands landscape to be more than a visual picture capable of adjectival description. Indeed, the purpose of his article is to examine ‘the sharply contrasting meanings of the Niagara region in relation to the ideologies of Canadian and American nationalism' (p. 307). At the end of his paper, McGreevy describes his analysis as producing ‘a subtle and speculative conclusion' and, he continues, “Whether or not it makes sense, I leave for others to judge” (pp. 316‐17).