Book cover of Measuring America: How the United States Was Shaped By the Greatest Land Sale in History

Book description

In 1790, America was in enormous debt, having depleted what little money and supplies the country had during its victorious fight for independence. Before the nation's greatest asset, the land west of the Ohio River, could be sold it had to be measured out and mapped. And before that could…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Measuring America as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I love learning about the seemingly mundane but so very important parts of the United States' becoming a nation. One critical piece was how the millions of new settlers could own their own land, which meant surveying.

I was also fascinated by how we almost became a metric country (which Thomas Jefferson would have loved); that story involves the French Revolution, privateers, an unlucky school teacher, and the origins of Enlightenment science.

If you love Measuring America...

Book cover of These Blue Mountains

These Blue Mountains by Sarah Loudin Thomas,

A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.

German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…

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