Or-and this is a curious one-Robert Jenkins, the sea captain whose severed ear played a key role in establishing the boundary between Florida and Georgia. People like Roger Williams, the Puritan minister who was expelled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for advocating against the Church of England and established the township of Providence at the tip of the bay, and Anne Hutchinson, also banished, who secured the rights to a small island called Aquidneck by the Indians and Rhode Island by the British. This equally informative follow-up puts the spotlight on the people responsible for shaping those borders. Stein’s How the States Got Their Shapes (2008) described why the American states look the way they do-how their borders landed where they did. A winning effort.-John Carver Edwards, Univ. The book offers a perfect blend of optimism, tongue-in-cheek humor, and universal appeal. VERDICT Stein’s major and minor vignettes are well chosen from a wide array of primary and secondary sources. Readers will be inspired by Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton’s dogged campaign to win statehood for the District of Columbia. The author also treats lands we attempted to annex but lost: Canada, the remainder of Mexico, Cuba, and the persistent issue of Puerto Rico. boundaries grew exponentially to include Texas and all lands between the Rockies and the Pacific, producing a colossal headache for Congress and a dilemma largely solved by such outsize local personalities as Sam Houston and Brigham Young.

Readers are reminded that under President James K. The personalities, both the notable (e.g., Thomas Jefferson, Daniel Webster, Ethan Allen, Charles Mason, and Jeremiah Dixon) and the more obscure (Zebulon Butler, Clara Nichols, John Meares) and their agendas are central to the book. In an evocative sequel to his popular How the States Got Their Shapes, Stein presents a plentitude of varied and compelling biographical sketches associated with the setting of our national boundaries.

How the States Got Their Shapes Too: The People Behind the Borderlines.

Book how the states got their shapes