Product Description

Why does Oklahoma have that panhandle? Did someone make a mistake?

We are so familiar with the map of the United States that our state borders seem as much a part of nature as mountains and rivers. Even the oddities—the entire state of Maryland(!)—have become so engrained that our map might as well be a giant jigsaw puzzle designed by Divine Providence. But that's where the real mystery begins. Every edge of the familiar wooden jigsaw pieces of our childhood represents a revealing moment of history and of, well, humans drawing lines in the sand.

How the States Got Their Shapes is the first book to tackle why our state lines are where they are. Here are the stories behind the stories, right down to the tiny northward jog at the eastern end of Tennessee and the teeny-tiny (and little known) parts of Delaware that are not attached to Delaware but to New Jersey.

How the States Got Their Shapes examines:

• Why West Virginia has a finger creeping up the side of Pennsylvania
• Why Michigan has an upper peninsula that isn't attached to Michigan
• Why some Hawaiian islands are not Hawaii
• Why Texas and California are so outsized, especially when so many Midwestern states are nearly identical in size

Packed with fun oddities and trivia, this entertaining guide also reveals the major fault lines of American history, from ideological intrigues and religious intolerance to major territorial acquisitions. Adding the fresh lens of local geographic disputes, military skirmishes, and land grabs, Mark Stein shows how the seemingly haphazard puzzle pieces of our nation fit together perfectly.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #537 in Books
• Published on: 2008-06-01
• Released on: 2008-05-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 352 pages

From Publishers Weekly
America's first century was defined by expansion and the negotiation of territories among areas colonized by the French and Spanish, or occupied by natives. The exact location of borders became paramount; playwright and screenwriter Stein amasses the story of each state's border, channeling them into a cohesive whole. Proceeding through the states alphabetically, Stein takes the innovative step of addressing each border-north, south, east, west-separately. Border stories shine a spotlight on many aspects of American history: the 49th parallel was chosen for the northern borders of Minnesota, North Dakota, and Montana because they ensured England's access to the Great Lakes, vital to their fur trade; in 1846, Washington D.C. residents south of the Potomac successfully petitioned to rejoin Virginia (called both "retrocession" and "a crime") in order to keep out free African-Americans. Aside from tales of violent conquest and political glad-handing, there's early, breathtaking tales of American politicos' favorite sport, gerrymandering (in 1864, Idaho judge Sidney Edgerton single-handedly "derailed" Idaho's proposed boundary, to Montana's benefit, with $2,000 in gold). American history enthusiasts should be captivated by this fun, informative text.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

Fascinating topic, poorly executed
Being a history and geography buff, I was pretty excited to pick up a copy. But I was quickly disappointed: the book was poorly organized and ended up being fairly repetitive.

The book does have some pros, namely that it covers pretty much everything and has a corresponding map for every state and every peculiar state line.

But there are more cons. The book is organized alphabetically, which means that information you read about in the chapter on Alabama is repeated later on when you read the chapter on Mississippi. The states should have been organized in the order in which they were formed. And the issue of repeated information is a problem in itself because sometimes information is repeated and other times you are referred to a different chapter.

While this book may not be an academic work, it does seem to lack serious historical analysis. It seems fairly amateur. Nevertheless, it's a quick read and, if you're interested enough, not so painful that you can't finish the book.

a fun read
This has been a fun book to read.
It an easy read and fun to have on the coffee table for people to leaf through,find a state of choice,and gain a few facts that they did't know before.

Great idea that falls apart in execution
Giving this a generous third star because I'm a geography nerd, but it was kind of disappointing. Three reasons:

1) I understand listing the states alphabetically (I chose not to read them that way) as a reference work, but this isn't really being sold/marketed as a reference work, but more of a popular geography. Another reviewer thought it should've been done by region, and I agree.

2) If you're going to do it alphabetically, you need to include all the info for each state. Sure, there's the repetition issue, but there's already a fair amount of repetition anyway (not sure why he went through the trouble of the 'Do Not Skip This' intro section if he was going to tell us over and over and over the same info) -- why not go all the way? Examples: in Georgia, we learn about the Orphan Strip, which was contested by North Carolina and Georgia (and South Carolina made a play for it too) ... so why is the only mention in the Georgia section? If you're not going to include the full discussion, at least reference it. Other idiosyncracies: we learn that the 'boot heel' of Missouri which dips below the 36'30" line designated by Congress was through the actions of someone who stood to gain from it being in Missouri rather than Arkansas, but it's only in the Arkansas section that we learn that the border for the heel was set at the 36' line. Also: in the intro to West Virginia, it's asked why parts of West Virginia aren't in Maryland, but then in the section itself there's not a single mention of Maryland. I think an attempt to spend more time with each state would have eliminated these idiosyncracies, and would have resulted in a deeper understanding of each border decision.

3) I have some concerns about historical accuracy. Ignoring the lack of footnotes or extensive bibliography (which I am disappointed in), there's an assertion (repeated several times) that Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia gave up their western territory claims after the Constitution was signed with the future vision that more slave states could be made to balance the anti-slavery north states (which would grow in the Northwest Territories where slavery was forbidden). This struck me as extremely odd; first, because at that time states like New York and New Jersey still were slave states, and second because it was a good fifty years or so before abolitionism went mainstream (and thirty years before the Missouri Compromise). I did some checking, and I could not find info that corroborated this assertion (if you know of any, please put in the comments). Instead, the reasoning seemed to be a mix of reassuring other states of the original 13 without claims to western land that the new Union wouldn't be dominated by gigantic states such as a joined Virginia/Kentucky, or in exchange for the federal government assuming war debt or providing financial considerations. As someone who reads a lot of history, this forces me to consider that there may be other mistakes (besides the wrong map in Figure 126) and limits my faith in the veracity of the book.

Ultimately, it's a great idea with really faulty execution. I hope someone (and the original author is more than welcome to tackle it) is inspired by this book to write something a little better organized and that goes deeper in discussing the whys of the states' borders.