Maps the Most Important Items in George Washington's Library

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Link to October 13 "Daily Me" feature in the Los Angeles Times, "The world that George Washington saw".

Excerpt: The most important items in George Washington's library at Mount Vernon were maps. After his death in 1799, an inventory revealed that the library "contained more than ninety maps and atlases," writes historian Barnet Schecter in his fascinating, novel approach to the life of the first U.S. president, "George Washington's America: A Biography Through His Maps" (Walker & Co., 304 pp., $67.50).

Understanding North American geography in every detail -- roads, rivers, woods and mountain ranges -- not to mention the continent's context among its neighbors, was vitally important to Washington because, the author argues, it "shaped his vision of America as 'a rising empire in the New World.'"