Almost everyone reading this will have grown up with a map of the world that places Europe at its centre, with the Americas to its west and Russia to its east. But imagine a very different orientation; one that places the International Date Line in the Pacific at its centre.
This map would show the Americas including the Caribbean on the eastern side of the Pacific’s vastness, and to the west of the Line, China, India, Australasia and much of Russia, plus other advanced developing economies. It would also place Europe as a mass of small nations at the western periphery of the world.
While we all tend to see wherever we
