Genealogy Books - How the States Got Their Shapes

Spotlight customer reviews:
Customer Rating:

Summary: Fascinating topic, poorly executed
Comment: 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.

Customer Rating:

Summary: a fun read
Comment: 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. />

Customer Rating:

Summary: Great idea that falls apart in execution
Comment: 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.

Customer Rating:

Summary: How the States Got Their Shapes
Comment: This is a very interesting book if you are interested in American or Local history. There are good
stories behind why states have such different borders. Good for school children, goes beyond what
they learn in public school.

Customer Rating:

Summary: A Short History of Every Boundary in the U.S.
Comment: This work has the rare ability to pull you in to the minutiae of boundary agreements, disagreements,
and just plain mistakes that characterize the present lines of all 50 states. I did not know that
the little jog Virginia takes at the Tennessee border was the result of a mistake by a surveyor, or
that Wisconsin and Michigan, to this day, dispute the ownership of a wedge of land tucked away in
the north woods of each state. Or that Illinois has a border 60 miles north of Chicago to
accomodate canals that were never built, or that Maryland was the result after all the states around
it had taken their bite of what its founders thought of as its original grant of land. The author
has set out in interesting detail many of the foibles, errors, and, yes, great Congressional
foresight, in setting the states up as functioning entities, while at the same time presenting his
information in short descriptions. There is copious use of maps for each state that make following
along with the development of each boundry an easy task. I reccomend this book for anyone,
historian or not.

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