I can just sit and look at a map for hours, running my mind over the lay of the land. I love history, and I love maps even more.

This book is divided into 50 short chapters, each detailing how a U.S. Note: All written content is my original creation and copyrighted to me, but the graphics and images were linked from other sites and belong to them. Leave a comment and let me know what you think. And you can find all my social media profiles to get the details on the who/what/when/where and my pictures. First the book review goes on Goodreads, and then I send it on over to my WordPress blog at, where you'll also find TV & Film reviews, the revealing and introspective 365 Daily Challenge and lots of blogging about places I've visited all over the world. Also good to show your kids and expose them to other states at a younger age.įor those new to me or my reviews. Great for a quick read of a few pages every night. Some of it was a little too vague, but overall, it will keep your interest and leave you wanting to dig up more on a bunch of states - even beyond the ones you've lived in. Great intro to understanding state history. 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. 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. 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 is the first book to tackle why our state lines are where they are. Even the oddities-the entire state of Maryland(!)-have become so ingrained that our map might as well be a giant jigsaw puzzle designed by Divine Providence.

God bless the panhandles and notches, the West Virginias and Oklahomas.' - Wall Street Journal 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. New York Times Bestseller 'Give me the splendid irregularities any day.

How the states got their shapes book