title: George Washington's America: A Biography Through His Maps
author:  Barnet Schecter 
description: *Starred Review* From the dispersal of George Washingtons papers after his death, an intriguing item survived that today reposes in Yale Universitys library. Its a collection of 40 or so maps that Washington collected or personally drew and bound into an atlas. Historian Schecter (The Battle for New York, 2002) capitalizes on it to trace both Washingtons travels through colonial, revolutionary, and early republican America, and military and political events that Washington followed through cartographic study. Arranged by Washingtons biographical arc, starting with his expeditions of the French and Indian War and ending with his wills disposition of his land and slaves, reproductions of each whole map accompany magnifications of the particular areas where Washington journeyed in person or in mind. Due to map references embedded in the text, the narrative oscillates between image and word, inducing avid readers to flip pages back and forth to follow the action. Augmented by portraits of Washington and his contemporaries and scenes of places and episodes of the times, Schecters conception of converting Washingtons atlas into a full-scale illustrated biography results in smashing success. Conveying how Washington visualized North America from the minute to the continental scale, it will fascinate history buffs now and should be durably library-useful. --Gilbert Taylor
zlib_text: ###  [Table of Contents](text00000.html#filepos0000002172)
  
  ###  [List of Illustrations](text00000.html#filepos0000009946)
  
  spines
  
  monument
  
  **Site of Washington's Birthplace**
  
  _Showing the monument erected by the United States Government to mark the
  house in which George Washington was born, February 22, 1732._
  
  ### THE
  
  # LIFE
  
  ### OF
  
  # GEORGE WASHINGTON,
  
  ### COMMANDER IN CHIEF
  
  ### OF THE
  
  ## AMERICAN FORCES,
  
  ### DURING THE WAR WHICH ESTABLISHED THE INDEPENDENCE OF HIS COUNTRY,
  
  ### AND
  
  ## FIRST PRESIDENT
  
  ### OF THE
  
  ## UNITED STATES.
  
  ### COMPILED UNDER THE INSPECTION OF
  
  ### THE HONOURABLE BUSHROD WASHINGTON,
  
  ### FROM
  
  ###  _ORIGINAL PAPERS_
  
  ### BEQUEATHED TO HIM BY HIS DECEASED RELATIVE, AND NOW IN POSSESSION OF THE
  AUTHOR.
  
  ### TO WHICH IS PREFIXED,
  
  ## AN INTRODUCTION,
  
  ### CONTAINING A COMPENDIOUS VIEW OF THE COLONIES PLANTED BY THE ENGLISH ON
  THE
  
  ### CONTINENT OF NORTH AMERICA,
  
  ### FROM THEIR SETTLEMENT TO THE COMMENCEMENT OF THAT WAR WHICH TERMINATED IN
  THEIR
  
  ## 