Customer Reviews

The Mismapping of America (Map History)

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Before you begin reading this book, beware...you will NOT be able to put it down. Also beware, put aside ALL of your preconceived notions regarding historical America's founding....and hold on to your hat.

Mr. Schwartz immediately takes us on a fascinating, fact-based journey into "THE BIG ONE"......the naming of America itself. He pieces together personalities, letters, and rare maps; and presents a clear, traceable historical path of what really happened. Truly a revelation!

This is not a book featuring large 9x12 color reproductions. All the maps are black and white, seldom 4x6. These colorized larger maps can be found in the references mentioned below. Rather, this book presents American history as we have never known with sufficient maps provided for clarity and direction.

Along with Schwartz' "The Mapping of America" and "Degrees of Latitude", Pritchard/Taliaferro, I consider "The Mismapping of America" essential to anyone interested in a significantly important, fact-based account of our real history.

As interest in American History rises (thank you C-Span) it is truly essential that we understand the basic fundamentals laid down by the earliest explorers and mapmakers..and the forces behind them. Schwartz presents this in an easy to read, factual masterpiece.

"The Mismapping of America" is a great book of 5 essays that explain some of the misunderstandings that we have about the map of America today and how past ideas about the shape of the continent have shaped exploration

- Essay 1 is about the naming of America. How did the continent get the name of a person who was just a minor officer on a ship that only reached as far north as Haiti.
- Essay 2 shows us maps of the Verrezano Sea, a non existant sea that still turned up on many maps and that was though to be some sort of North West Passage
- Essay 3 is about that Northwest passage
- Essay 4 about the way California has changed shapes. From island, to peninsula and back again, but ending up as peninusale once more.
- Essay 5 is a nice one about the mapping of the great lakes and the persistant drawing in of islands in those seas.

Really interesting book.