false 3 4 false false Tue Oct 07 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Sep 20 10:58:39 -0700 2008 Tue Oct 07 19:43:02 -0700 2008
This book at first fascinated me. I love history, and I love maps even more. I can just sit and look at a map for hours, running my mind over the lay of the land. So, I was hooked. How did West Virginia get that little finger of land that reaches toward Pittsburgh? Why aren't Vermont and New Hampshire just one regular-sized state? Why did Wyoming take a bite out of Utah, and not the other way around? Why did Michigan get the Upper Peninsula instead of Wisconsin? What about the Oklahoma panhandle? Reading how our states were shaped is also a history lesson of its own, as it takes us back to the Revolution, the Louisiana Purchase, the Missouri Compromise, the Mexican-American War, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and the Civil War, etc etc. It's a good way to learn a little more about American history.

This book answers all the questions I had, and more. It discusses every jig and jag of a state boundary, so you get not only answers to big questions, but also descriptions of why such-and-such straight-line boundary is located at so-and-so latitude instead of another.

The drawback of this book is obvious. A straight line that is Colorado's northern border also happens to be Wyoming's southern border, and the meandering line through the Appalachians that forms North Carolina's western border also serves as Tennessee's eastern border. In other words, there's a lot of repetition. You get to be told each story at least twice, and many of them multiple times (Oh, that Adams-Onis Treaty!). This book can probably best be used as a reference, or read slowly enough that you've forgotten the previous stories when you get to read them again. Not a good book to read cover-to-cover.]]>