Includes bibliographical references and index.

This book is a unique biography of George Washington inspired by the maps he used throughout his life--offering new insight into the historic events of his era. From his teens until his death, the maps George Washington drew and purchased were always central to his work as a surveyor, military leader, private citizen, and statesman. After his death, many of the most important maps he had acquired were bound into an atlas. The atlas remained in his family for almost a century before it was sold and eventually ended up at Yale University's Sterling Memorial Library. Inspired by these remarkable maps, historian Barnet Schecter has crafted a unique portrait of our first Founding Father, placing the reader at the scenes of his early career as a surveyor, his dramatic exploits in the French and Indian War (his altercation with the French is credited as the war's spark), his struggles throughout the American Revolution as he outmaneuvered the far more powerful British army, his diplomacy as president, and his shaping of the new republic. Beautifully illustrated in color, with twenty-four of the full atlas maps, dozens more detail views from those maps, and numerous additional maps (some drawn by Washington himself), portraits, and other image--and produced in an elegant large format--George Washington's America allows readers to visualize history through Washington's eyes, and sheds fresh light on the man and his times. -- Publisher.