How the States Got Their Shapes
by Mark Stein
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List Price: $22.95
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Manufacturer: Collins
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 917.3
EAN: 9780061431388
ISBN: 0061431389
Label: Collins
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 352
Publication Date: 2008-06-01
Publisher: Collins
Release Date: 2008-05-27
Studio: Collins
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: How the States Got Their Shape
Comment: Thanks to C-SPAN I saw an interview with the author. Thanks to Amazon I purchased several copies for Christmas gifts. Each recipient has been delighted and each person has commented, "I always wondered how (name of state)got to be that way." Fun facts.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A Shapeless History
Comment: This book offers many interesting tidbits for the geography buff. There are indeed interesting stories behind the borders of many of the American states, like some forgotten bloodshed over the deceptively straightforward borders of Kansas, or how Maryland's piecemeal geography is the result of losing every border dispute it ever got into. We learn that the older states have crooked borders due to colonial shenanigans and faulty surveying, and that many of the newer states have purposefully similar heights and widths. It's interesting how much American states used to care about the exact placement of their borders, with gamesmanship and even wars surprisingly common in the age before integrated economies and effective national government.
But as several other reviewers have noticed, this book has some crucial structural weaknesses. The states are presented alphabetically, and regardless of any advantages from a presentation standpoint, this method still leads to boredom for the reader as most boundaries are described in the chapters for both of the states involved. A regional or chronological structure would have worked better, especially because Stein attempts to inject historical trends into his analysis but usually is only able to deliver non-sequiturs to wrap up repetitive chapters. Stein commits a fair number of factual errors (see some of the other reviews for details) and misses some kinks in borders that he describes as perfect straight lines, such as Colorado/Utah, Wyoming/Montana (within Yellowstone National Park), the north border of Vermont, and New Mexico at the junction of Texas and Oklahoma.
Most importantly, Stein does not adequately cite his sources, which shouldn't be a big deal except that he tries to insert historical drama with no support, particularly his dozens of statements about how the government was concerned about "equality" when creating most of the states that came about after the Revolution. This might have been evident in some of Stein's sources, but he offers no evidence of what type of "equality" was desired (geographical? economic? population?) and does not elaborate on why this was important, if it was true. So in the end, this book remains interesting, in an encyclopedic sort of way, for fans of American geography. But Stein attempted to add a historical narrative which ends up being shapeless. [~doomsdayer520~]
Customer Rating:
Summary: Decent Read
Comment: I thought the topic and the content was great. Very interesting, along with good maps and detail. However, the setup was poor. Instead of going in alphabetical order, it should have gone by time sequence. Alphabetically caused the book to jump around and lose focus causing it to get boring.
Customer Rating:
Summary: DON'T SKIP THIS (You'll just have to come back later)
Comment: I love this sort of thing, and so I found Mark Stein's stroll through the history of the borders of the American states pretty interesting. I can imagine not everyone feels that way, and so might find this book boring or even inexplicable. But even if the only chapter you read is the one on your own state, I'm willing to bet most readers will come away from "How the States Got Their Shapes" having uncovered a few interesting facts.
There are a few different ways Mark Stein could have approached this topic, but his decision to do it on a state-by-state basis makes the most sense and is certainly the best option for engaging browsers' attention. However, this necessarily leads to a certain amount of repetition between chapters, as decisions affecting one state's lines of demarcation affect others as well. Many of the most important causes for where the lines are where they are, are summarized in a section in the front titled "DON'T SKIP THIS (You'll just have to come back later)." Stein points readers to this section frequently, which gets a little old when you're reading the book cover to cover as I did. For browsing, however, I imagine it's less of a distraction.
Another thing that became a bit of a distraction was the author's closing each chapter with an explanation of what each state's borders "teach us" about compromise in the political process, the need for ideals to give way to reality sometimes, and related concerns. The more valuable "lesson" this book reinforced for me -- unstated in the text though clear in every implication -- is that borders, national as well as state, are political, and by and large arbitrary, concepts. What this means for the sort of patriotism that teaches we're to feel brotherly, even sacrificial, love for everyone on "our" side of a given line and some combination of hatred, fear, or contempt for everyone on the other side of it, is worth considering. But even if this book doesn't give rise to such weighty thoughts and just gives you a few minutes or hours of entertainment exploring a topic most of us don't give much thought to, "How the States Got Their Shapes" is definitely worth picking up.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great use of maps but poor organization
Comment: Stein explains the border origins for each of the fifty United States of America. The book contains 179 maps that each overlay current and previous state borders and supplement the main text. Each chapter explores one state and opens with a few questions about that particular state border's eccentricities. The highlight is the ten-page introductory chapter that explains several multi-state borders resulting from territorial acquisition or Congressional edict. This section is labeled "Don't Skip This!" and often referenced throughout the rest of the book. I was surprised to learn how many state borders are whole number degrees of latitude and longitude and the equality of height and/or width among many western states.
As other reviewers have noted, the unfortunate alphabetical organization of the material results in frequent repetition and "See State X" cross-referencing. Grouping the states by region or admission into the Union might have yielded a better overall flow. I started with my home state of Pennsylvania and a half-dozen others, but eventually lost interest and did not finishing reading this book before it was due back at the library.
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Editorial Reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: How the States Got Their Shape
Comment: Thanks to C-SPAN I saw an interview with the author. Thanks to Amazon I purchased several copies for Christmas gifts. Each recipient has been delighted and each person has commented, "I always wondered how (name of state)got to be that way." Fun facts.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A Shapeless History
Comment: This book offers many interesting tidbits for the geography buff. There are indeed interesting stories behind the borders of many of the American states, like some forgotten bloodshed over the deceptively straightforward borders of Kansas, or how Maryland's piecemeal geography is the result of losing every border dispute it ever got into. We learn that the older states have crooked borders due to colonial shenanigans and faulty surveying, and that many of the newer states have purposefully similar heights and widths. It's interesting how much American states used to care about the exact placement of their borders, with gamesmanship and even wars surprisingly common in the age before integrated economies and effective national government.
But as several other reviewers have noticed, this book has some crucial structural weaknesses. The states are presented alphabetically, and regardless of any advantages from a presentation standpoint, this method still leads to boredom for the reader as most boundaries are described in the chapters for both of the states involved. A regional or chronological structure would have worked better, especially because Stein attempts to inject historical trends into his analysis but usually is only able to deliver non-sequiturs to wrap up repetitive chapters. Stein commits a fair number of factual errors (see some of the other reviews for details) and misses some kinks in borders that he describes as perfect straight lines, such as Colorado/Utah, Wyoming/Montana (within Yellowstone National Park), the north border of Vermont, and New Mexico at the junction of Texas and Oklahoma.
Most importantly, Stein does not adequately cite his sources, which shouldn't be a big deal except that he tries to insert historical drama with no support, particularly his dozens of statements about how the government was concerned about "equality" when creating most of the states that came about after the Revolution. This might have been evident in some of Stein's sources, but he offers no evidence of what type of "equality" was desired (geographical? economic? population?) and does not elaborate on why this was important, if it was true. So in the end, this book remains interesting, in an encyclopedic sort of way, for fans of American geography. But Stein attempted to add a historical narrative which ends up being shapeless. [~doomsdayer520~]
Customer Rating:
Summary: Decent Read
Comment: I thought the topic and the content was great. Very interesting, along with good maps and detail. However, the setup was poor. Instead of going in alphabetical order, it should have gone by time sequence. Alphabetically caused the book to jump around and lose focus causing it to get boring.
Customer Rating:
Summary: DON'T SKIP THIS (You'll just have to come back later)
Comment: I love this sort of thing, and so I found Mark Stein's stroll through the history of the borders of the American states pretty interesting. I can imagine not everyone feels that way, and so might find this book boring or even inexplicable. But even if the only chapter you read is the one on your own state, I'm willing to bet most readers will come away from "How the States Got Their Shapes" having uncovered a few interesting facts.
There are a few different ways Mark Stein could have approached this topic, but his decision to do it on a state-by-state basis makes the most sense and is certainly the best option for engaging browsers' attention. However, this necessarily leads to a certain amount of repetition between chapters, as decisions affecting one state's lines of demarcation affect others as well. Many of the most important causes for where the lines are where they are, are summarized in a section in the front titled "DON'T SKIP THIS (You'll just have to come back later)." Stein points readers to this section frequently, which gets a little old when you're reading the book cover to cover as I did. For browsing, however, I imagine it's less of a distraction.
Another thing that became a bit of a distraction was the author's closing each chapter with an explanation of what each state's borders "teach us" about compromise in the political process, the need for ideals to give way to reality sometimes, and related concerns. The more valuable "lesson" this book reinforced for me -- unstated in the text though clear in every implication -- is that borders, national as well as state, are political, and by and large arbitrary, concepts. What this means for the sort of patriotism that teaches we're to feel brotherly, even sacrificial, love for everyone on "our" side of a given line and some combination of hatred, fear, or contempt for everyone on the other side of it, is worth considering. But even if this book doesn't give rise to such weighty thoughts and just gives you a few minutes or hours of entertainment exploring a topic most of us don't give much thought to, "How the States Got Their Shapes" is definitely worth picking up.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great use of maps but poor organization
Comment: Stein explains the border origins for each of the fifty United States of America. The book contains 179 maps that each overlay current and previous state borders and supplement the main text. Each chapter explores one state and opens with a few questions about that particular state border's eccentricities. The highlight is the ten-page introductory chapter that explains several multi-state borders resulting from territorial acquisition or Congressional edict. This section is labeled "Don't Skip This!" and often referenced throughout the rest of the book. I was surprised to learn how many state borders are whole number degrees of latitude and longitude and the equality of height and/or width among many western states.
As other reviewers have noted, the unfortunate alphabetical organization of the material results in frequent repetition and "See State X" cross-referencing. Grouping the states by region or admission into the Union might have yielded a better overall flow. I started with my home state of Pennsylvania and a half-dozen others, but eventually lost interest and did not finishing reading this book before it was due back at the library.
Why does Oklahoma have that panhandle? Did someone make a mistake? We are so familiar with the map of the United States that our state borders seem as much a part of nature as mountains and rivers. Even the oddities—the entire state of Maryland(!)—have become so engrained that our map might as well be a giant jigsaw puzzle designed by Divine Providence. But that's where the real mystery begins. Every edge of the familiar wooden jigsaw pieces of our childhood represents a revealing moment of history and of, well, humans drawing lines in the sand. How the States Got Their Shapes is the first book to tackle why our state lines are where they are. Here are the stories behind the stories, right down to the tiny northward jog at the eastern end of Tennessee and the teeny-tiny (and little known) parts of Delaware that are not attached to Delaware but to New Jersey. How the States Got Their Shapes examines: - Why West Virginia has a finger creeping up the side of Pennsylvania
- Why Michigan has an upper peninsula that isn't attached to Michigan
- Why some Hawaiian islands are not Hawaii
- Why Texas and California are so outsized, especially when so many Midwestern states are nearly identical in size
Packed with fun oddities and trivia, this entertaining guide also reveals the major fault lines of American history, from ideological intrigues and religious intolerance to major territorial acquisitions. Adding the fresh lens of local geographic disputes, military skirmishes, and land grabs, Mark Stein shows how the seemingly haphazard puzzle pieces of our nation fit together perfectly.
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