Customer Reviews

Lost States

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

On the outside, the book looks very interesting. The set-up itself is nice with many full color pictures and maps. Each entry is two pages accompanied with text on one side and a map or other illustration on the other. However, the devil is in the details and they are numerous.

For starters, too many of the entries are completely pointless. Why? For a book called "Lost States," too many examples would never have been considered for statehood nor would ever seriously be considered for statehood. Some examples of this are Rio Rico (Texas), Saipan, Guyana, Boston, Chicago, Sicily, Navassa Island, etc. Most of these are complete jokes because of some complaint over taxes or some nameless politician says something that is never seriously considered.

There are also many amateurish errors. At one point, President William McKinley is referred to as James McKinley. A picture allegedly of Confederate President Davis does not look like him at all (because it is not). The section on Rio Rico completely fails to mention how the Texan town was ceded to Mexico back in the seventies (rather the author implies it is still U.S. territory). He incorrectly says the Northern Mariana Islands were under U.S. control since 1898, when in reality they were not occupied by the U.S. until World War II.

For whatever reason, the author also feels it necessary to criticize George W. Bush and the Iraq War on multiple occasions. The most notable of this is in the section on Iceland. What does Bush and the Iraq War have to do with Iceland's potential statehood? Absolutely nothing. So why mention it there at all?

The book also fails in its omissions. In the section on Cuba, there is no mention of the Ostend Manifesto and the attempts to annex the island in the 1840s and 1850s. There is no section on the proposed Territory of Jefferson (the one that eventually became Colorado).

The author is obviously not a historian or a serious researcher and his writing style shows that.

It might sound like I am just complaining, but I bought this book to learn some new things. How am I supposed to trust information that I am not familiar with when I keep finding error after error on things I already know?

The only sections that are really worth anything are the ones on Deseret, Franklin, and Puerto Rico. The rest is just nonsense.

In conclusion, I do not recommend this book. It is filled with errors, nonsense, and omissions. As another reviewer said, it is "not worth the paper its written on."

This is a rather lazily written book, the layout and graphics are nice but most of the "states" were never seriously considered and basically are just a bunch of "Hey this one guy made a speech and in it he mentioned a state that doesn't exist!" and somehow he relates every other state to President Bush. Honestly this book is half political diatribe on the evils of voting Republican and half urban myths he found on wikipedia.

This book was recommended to me, and when I read the description of it I thought "hey, this is a great idea for a book." Unfortunately, this is not the book I had hoped it would be.

The layout and design of the book is great. Too bad it was wasted on this product. First of all, the title is misleading... several of the "lost states" preceded the U.S. and it is highly unlikely that any of these would have ever been seperate entities, much less states. These include New Sweden and Charlotina. Others discussed included territorial oddities which were NEVER seriously considered for statehood (like Howland, "Lost" Dakota and Rio Rico). These entries are just annoying.

When it comes to actual proposed states the book is better but only two pages are dedicated to each. Why not leave out the Howlands and New Swedens and put in more stuff about actual state proposals? And there are historical errors, the most egregious one was the depiction of Major-General Jefferson Davis (USA) on page 21, where the picture is clearly meant to be President Jefferson Davis, CSA. These two men are both Civil War figures but they certainly did not look anything alike. The fact that the man is wearing a Union general's uniform should have been a dead giveaway. This fast-food approach to history (as epitomized on the History Channel) really doesn't do the subject justice.

But the most annoying thing about this book, and the thing that will mark it for obscurity within the next year or so is how it constantly knocks President George W. Bush. I'm sorry... was this book originally titled "Lost States and Why It's George Bush's Fault?"

PLEASE, someone use the preliminary research here to write a decent book on this subject!

I was excited to receive this book for Christmas as geography and maps are a passion of mine, but I quickly became annoyed with its bias and lack of rigor.
First, the good: the organization of the book is very suitable for a coffee table/discussion starter read (each state-that-wasn't is covered in two pages, one page devoted to discussion of the non-state's origins and reasons it didn't make it, and one page of a map of the state). Many of the maps are taken from period works so it really does show what an early map of the state would have looked like (i.e. the map of Yazoo [Mississippi and Alabama] looks like a reworked map from the early 1800's). I found the breadth of potential states covered to be a positive as it kept the book light and interesting.
Unfortunately, the book's negatives far outweigh this. The factual errors are numerous and glaring (the much discussed picture that is not Confederate President Jefferson Davis, the misidentification of President William McKinley, etc.). No, this is not a serious scholarly work, and I don't think that the author ever intended it as such, but if you are going to write about history and geography, then there is a basic expectation that the facts you present are correct.
Additionally, the excessive references to Iraq and George Bush were snarky and added absolutely nothing to the book. The assertion that the Phillipines were the precursor to Vietnam and Iraq without a shred of support was particularly eye-rolling. Implicit in the author's discussion of Albania is the notion that if you're reading this book, then surely you feel the same disbelief and amazement that no Albanians protested President Bush's visit to that country. What rubbish.
Finally, the author's fall back position on why many of these states never came to be is American racism. No states of Yucatan, Cuba, Puerto Rico or the Phillipines? Must be because we hate brown people, not because of economics, different cultural backgrounds or lack of American colonization. Was racism a factor? Probably. The deciding factor? Well, racism didn't stop Hawaii from becoming a state, why should it have stopped others?
On the whole, this book is more enjoyable for its visuals than its text.

I won this book off goodreads firstreads, and It was definitely interesting to read all about the would-be states. Trinklein did a great job of keeping the narrative for each state brief enough to avoid boredum, but also sprinkled some wit and humor throughout. You just have to remember take some of his comments as they were meant to be, just some comic relief.

While I'm not a historian, this book appeals greatly to me through the "might-have-beens." Though each entry is short, and overall historical accuracy has been debated, the book is engagingly written and illustrated; the possibilities are discussed for not only what almost was, but what could've become!

I was very disappointed in what could have been a great coffee table conversational book. After having the book for just two days and a couple of friends later (all with diverse viewpoints both politically and geographically) we all found this book to be childish, an attempt at being snarky but failing miserably, and certainly did not require the peppering of jibes at Bush. I thought it was just me but friends reaffirmed my suspicions so back to the bookstore it will go. After reading the other reviews here I certainly wish I had read them prior buying.

I greatly enjoyed this book and the random facts and stories in it. I will be buying it as a gift for some of my history-buff friends. Strongly recommend.

Have you ever met someone who was born in the state of Absaroka, Forgottonia, or State X? Maybe you have met someone just over the border from State X in State Y. Where are these little known states? Maybe a better question would be, "Where were they?" But, that would not be entirely accurate, since they never actually existed, that is, except on some old map or in the minds of their advocates.

In Lost States: True Stories of Texlahoma, Transylvania, and Other States that Never Made it (Philadelphia: Quirk Books, 2010), Michael J. Trinklein has put together a most delightful book about the many interesting states that never made it to full statehood. There were many of these might-have-been states in our nation's history. Some would have made perfect sense, as for example Superior (the upper peninsula of Michigan) or South California.

South California was a proposal made in 1859, when California had a population easily calculated on one's fingers and toes. The advocates of this mutilation of California, led by a wealthy landowner named Andres Pico, wanted to name their state "Colorado." The proposal failed, but the name survived.

The course of history was not kind to these "states." The Gold Rush seems to have doomed the idea of dividing California. At least in California's case, the idea is not totally dead. It keeps coming up again and again. And why not? Many residents of northern California would love to be rid of southern California and all its problems.

Trinklein devotes two colorful pages to each of what he calls the "lost states." One page provides a map locating the proposed state, and the other provides a brief account the history and fate of the "state." The book's attractive dust jacket folds out to provide a large, antique-looking map of the continental United States of America with twenty of the lost states superimposed on the actual forty-eight. This atlas of another, somewhat romantic, America is the perfect gift for American history buffs, or as a coffee table book.

Bought the book for my 6th grade son, who is studying US history. Once I started thuumbing through the book, couldn't put it down until I finished it in one sitting. Not that hard to do becuase of the quick format. Maps were great, and the writing was very enjoyable. I don't usually read history books, but I found myself picking the book up numerous times over the past week. My son is still hoping for Transylvania to become a state, and if it does, he wants us to move.