Map Geek
I must confess that I am a map geek and
there are some really terrific historical maps in Denver University Professor
Susan Schulten’s book of 100 maps. I especially liked the maps portraying the
slave trade, the Anglo-French rivalry over North America in the 1700s, the 1823
map that made manifest destiny so evident 20 years before the phrase was
coined, Sherman’s use of census maps to plan his march through Georgia, Harlem
nightlife in the 1930s, the 1961 Freedom Rides and Disneyland.
My problem with her book is what she
leaves out, her negative characterizations of industry and she is way too
equivalent with to the Cold War. To me any map book on the history of America
would have to include three maps on the wiring of America. Specifically the
electrical, telephonic and internet grids. The same holds true for the
expansion of the railroads. Her comment on the railroads largely follows the
populist narrative not how the strategic vision of Abraham Lincoln bound the
nation with the Pacific Railway Act. It is obvious to me that she is not
familiar with Robert Gordon’s now classic “The Rise and Fall of American
Growth.”
With respect to the Cold War she views
it more as a big power rivalry rather than in Ronald Reagan’s words a fight
against “the focus of evil in the modern world.”
We were the good guys. She soft pedals
the role of Soviet agents in the counsels of government by calling them “a few
civil servants in the Roosevelt and Truman administrations.” I don’t think
Alger Hiss at State and Harry Dexter White at Treasury viewed themselves as
cogs in the bureaucracy.
Those criticisms aside, there is much to
be learned from Susan Schulten’s book. Look at the maps and read the commentary
with a critical eye.
For the full amazon URL see: https://www.amazon.com/review/RYPW1A2TGM0ZS/ref=pe_1098610_137716200_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv
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