United States
From the mid-nineteenth century, the image of the sun never setting can be found applied to Anglophone culture, explicitly including America as well as Britain, for example in a speech by Alexander Campbell in 1852.
It was subsequently applied specifically to the American sphere of influence. An 1897 magazine article titled "The Greatest Nation on Earth" boasted, "he sun never sets on Uncle Sam". In 1906, William Jennings Bryan wrote, "If we can not boast that the sun never sets on American territory, we can find satisfaction in the fact that the sun never sets on American philanthropy"; after which, The New York Times received letters attempting to disprove his presupposition.
A 1991 history book discussion of U.S. expansion states, "Today ... the sun never sets on American territory, properties owned by the U.S. government and its citizens, American armed forces abroad, or countries that conduct their affairs within limits largely defined by American power."
Although the United States no longer has any possessions further west than Guam or further east than the Virgin Islands, it currently has military presence in Afghanistan, Bahrain, Brazil, the British Indian Ocean Territory, Bulgaria, Cuba, Djibouti, Germany, Greece, Greenland, Guam, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kosovo, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and others. The phrase is sometimes used critically with the implication of American imperialism, as in the title of Joseph Gerson's book, The Sun Never Sets: Confronting the Network of Foreign U.S. Military Bases.
Read more about this topic: The Empire On Which The Sun Never Sets
Famous quotes related to united states:
“The rising power of the United States in world affairs ... requires, not a more compliant press, but a relentless barrage of facts and criticism.... Our job in this age, as I see it, is not to serve as cheerleaders for our side in the present world struggle but to help the largest possible number of people to see the realities of the changing and convulsive world in which American policy must operate.”
—James Reston (b. 1909)
“The House of Lords, architecturally, is a magnificent room, and the dignity, quiet, and repose of the scene made me unwillingly acknowledge that the Senate of the United States might possibly improve its manners. Perhaps in our desire for simplicity, absence of title, or badge of office we may have thrown over too much.”
—M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)
“It is a curious thing to be a woman in the Caribbean after you have been a woman in these United States.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)
“When Mr. Apollinax visited the United States
His laughter tinkled among the teacups.
I thought of Fragilion, that shy figure among the birch-trees,
And of Priapus in the shrubbery
Gaping at the lady in the swing.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“Some time ago a publisher told me that there are four kinds of books that seldom, if ever, lose money in the United States—first, murder stories; secondly, novels in which the heroine is forcibly overcome by the hero; thirdly, volumes on spiritualism, occultism and other such claptrap, and fourthly, books on Lincoln.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)