Saturday, November 20, 2010
George Washington and His Maps
In Smithsonian, there's a discussion about how our first president used cartography to get a feel of the young nation.
From the article...
First in war.
First in peace.
First to look at a map whenever he had a question about waging the former and sustaining the latter.
It’s not how we typically picture George Washington: bent over a map by candlelight, scrutinizing, measuring and in some cases actually drawing the topographical details that would help conquer a wilderness, win a war, create a republic. But as historian Barnet Schecter shows us in his illustrated new history, George Washington’s America: a Biography through His Maps, many of our first president’s decisions during his long career as a surveyor, soldier and statesman were made only after careful readings of the existing cartographical materials.
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