Measuring America
Measuring America: How an Untamed Wilderness Shaped the United States and Fulfilled the Promise of Democracy by Linklater Andro
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This was one of those books that added much to my understanding of America. Every time I look at a map of the U.S., I marvel at the number of small towns in the South, and the relative paucity of them in the North. I wondered why the Western states all have boundaries that can be drawn with a ruler, a few quite nearly square, while none east of the Mississippi have that characteristic. I wondered how in the world anyone surveyed the boundary between Virginia and North Carolina: it is, after all, the Dismal Swamp.
Can boundary lines influence culture? Is American individualism an outgrowth of the links and chains of a surveyor? Why was being a surveyor such a dangerous occupation?
If you can still find it, probably somewhere on Amazon, I very highly recommend reading this book.