Listen to and watch Barnet Schecter as he discusses his new book
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A unique biography of George Washington inspired by the maps he
used throughout his life—offering new insight into the historic events
of his era.
From his teens until his death, the maps George Washington purchased and
drew were always central to his work—as surveyor, military leader,
private citizen, and statesman. After his death, many of the most
important maps he had acquired were bound into an atlas, which remained
in his family for almost a century before it was sold and eventually
ended up at Yale University's Sterling Memorial Library.
Inspired by this atlas, historian Barnet Schecter has crafted a unique
portrait of America's preeminent founder, interweaving twenty-six of the
full maps and some two hundred additional detail views into a full
chronicle of Washington's life. The maps reveal Washington's deep and
abiding connection to the land and his lifelong focus on geography as a
way of understanding the world.
The maps place readers at the scene during his first career as a
surveyor, measuring and mapping parcels of land for settlers and
speculators on Virginia's western frontier. Drawing and studying maps
became second nature for Washington as an officer in the French and
Indian War (his skirmish with a French patrol is credited as the war's
spark). The maps he used throughout the American Revolution illuminate
his struggles to outmaneuver the far more powerful British forces and
maintain his own fragile hold as commander in chief of the Continental
army. They underscore the many diplomatic challenges he faced throughout
his two terms as president—fending off aggression at the borders,
walking the razor's edge of neutrality to keep the fledgling country out
of war—and his ongoing efforts to shape and unite the new republic. And
they also explain Washington's relentless passion for acquiring land—he
amassed tens of thousands of acres in Virginia, the Ohio country, and
western New York—and his ongoing interest in making the Potomac River
the primary connection between the eastern and western states.
In addition to the atlas maps and details, a dozen of Washington's own
hand-drawn maps enrich his story. These include his first survey, done
at age fifteen, of his brother's turnip patch; an evocative rendering of
his own lands along the Ohio River; a sketch of the townhouses he owned
in the District of Columbia; and the splendid survey he completed of his
estates at Mount Vernon. Portraits of many of the notable figures with
whom Washington interacted—whose exploits also play out on the maps—add
resonance the saga of his life and times.
By allowing readers to visualize history through Washington's eyes, to
see events as they unfolded on the maps he studied, George Washington's
America offers a unique perspective on history, and important new
insight into Washington's character and his transformation from private
citizen to founding father.
