The men who united the States : America's explorers, inventors, eccentrics, and mavericks, and the creation of one nation, indivisible / Simon Winchester.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Simon Winchester, the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of Atlantic and The Professor and the Madman, delivers his first book about America: a fascinating popular history that illuminates the men who toiled fearlessly to discover, connect, and bond the citizenry and geography of the U.S.A. from its beginnings.

How did America become "one nation, indivisible"? What unified a growing number of disparate states into the modern country we recognize today? To answer these questions, Winchester follows in the footsteps of America's most essential explorers, thinkers, and innovators, such as Lewis and Clark and the leaders of the Great Surveys; the builders of the first transcontinental telegraph and the powerful civil engineer behind the Interstate Highway System. He treks vast swaths of territory, from Pittsburgh to Portland, Rochester to San Francisco, Seattle to Anchorage, introducing the fascinating people who played a pivotal role in creating today's United States.

Throughout, he ponders whether the historic work of uniting the States has succeeded, and to what degree. Featuring 32 illustrations throughout the text, The Men Who United the States is a fresh look at the way in which the most powerful nation on earth came together.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• List of Maps and Illustrations (p. xi)
• Author's Note (p. xiii)
• Preface: The Pure Physics of Union (p. xv)
• Part I When America's Story was Dominated By Wood, 1785-1805 (p. 1)
• A View across the Ridge (p. 3)
• Drawing a Line in the Sand (p. 6)
• Peering through the Trees (p. 17)
• The Frontier and the Thesis (p. 24)
• The Wood Was Become Grass (p. 32)
• Encounters with the Sioux (p. 41)
• First Lady of the Plains (p. 49)
• High Plains Rafters (p. 52)
• Passing the Gateway (p. 55)
• Shoreline Passage (p. 65)
• Part II When America's Story Went Beneath the Earth, 1809-1901 (p. 73)
• The Lasting Benefit of Harmony (p. 75)
• The Science That Changed America (p. 77)
• Drawing the Colors of Rocks (p. 80)
• The Wellspring of Knowledge (p. 83)
• The Tapestry of Underneath (p. 88)
• Setting the Lures (p. 91)
• Off to See the Elephant (p. 96)
• The West, Revealed (p. 104)
• The Singular First Adventure of Kapurats (p. 113)
• The Men Who Gave Us Yellowstone (p. 129)
• Diamonds, Sex, and Race (p. 139)
• Part III When the American Story Traveled by Water, 1803-1900 (p. 163)
• Journeys to the Fall Line (p. 165)
• The Streams beyond the Hills (p. 171)
• The Pivot and the Feather (p. 180)
• The First Big Dig (p. 188)
• The Wedded Waters of New York (p. 196)
• The Linkman Cometh (p. 214)
• That OF Man River (p. 222)
• Part IV When the American Story was Fanned by Fire, 1811-1956 (p. 239)
• May the Roads Rise Up (p. 241)
• Rain, Steam, and Speed (p. 248)
• The Annihilation of the In-Between (p. 252)
• The Immortal Legacy of Crazy Judah (p. 259)
• Colonel Eisenhower's Epiphanic Expedition (p. 280)
• The Colossus of Roads (p. 294)
• And Then We Looked Up (p. 312)
• The Twelve-Week Crossing (p. 316)
• Part V When the American Story was Told Through Metal, 1835-Tomorrow (p. 329)
• To Go, but Not to Move (p. 331)
• The Man Who Tamed the Lightning (p. 335)
• The Signal Power of Human Speech (p. 351)
• With Power for One and All (p. 357)
• Lighting the Corn, Powering the Prairie (p. 375)
• The Talk of the Nation (p. 385)
• Making Money from Air (p. 396)
• Television: The Irresistible Force (p. 406)
• The All of Some Knowledge (p. 417)
• Epilogue (p. 429)
• Acknowledgments (p. 435)
• Bibliography (p. 441)
• Index (p. 451)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Popular historian and prolific author Winchester (The Professor and the Madman) focuses on the history of his adopted country and the individuals who contributed to its functioning as a cohesive whole. He organizes what are for the most part biographical sketches thematically, yet chronologically, in five sections named for elements: "Wood," "Earth," "Water," "Fire," and "Metal." Under this scheme, the immense Eastern Woodlands forest offers the first unifying context, as Winchester writes about the trip across the continent by Lewis and Clark and their Shoshone guide Sacagawea. Next, "Earth" includes efforts of pioneering geologist William Maclure, his 1809 geologic map of the Appalachian Mountains, and its unifying scientific impact. "Water" transportation routes include the creation of the Erie Canal and those who championed its economic importance to local businessmen, such as flour merchant Jesse Hawley. Robert Fulton's steam engine used "Fire" to make railroads practical and efficient. "Metal" stitched together the country through Samuel Morse's use of telegraph wires to increase the speed of communication; FDR brought electricity to rural America over the objections of power companies. VERDICT Along the way, Winchester provides surprising insights into our social history, further enriching his narrative with accounts of his personal odysseys around the country. The results are highly recommended for public and school libraries and all readers looking for new and stimulating perspectives on the history of America. [See Prepub Alert 4/1/13.]--Nathan Bender, Albany Cty. P.L., -Laramie, WY (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

Winchester's latest history profiles a huge cast of eclectic characters who helped transform America from a cluster of colonies to a unified nation through the taming of the wilderness and the expansion of the country's infrastructure. The sweeping narrative is cleverly organized into five sections-each corresponds to one of the classical elements (wood, earth, water, fire, metal) and focuses on a different phase of American exploration or development. Winchester (The Alice Behind Wonderland) masterfully evokes the excitement of the nation's early days-when opportunity and possibility were manifest in uncharted mountains and new technologies-while bringing each of his subjects to life. Some, like Lewis and Clark, are familiar, while others-like the many topographers who set down the Mexican and Canadian boundaries-are more obscure, but no less interesting. Winchester, a Brit who recently became an American citizen, also incorporates personal travel anecdotes to comment on pivotal locations. This bold decision is the key to the book's greatest achievement: conveying the large-scale narrative of unification via the small-scale experience of the individual-the creation of a people by the agglomeration of persons. Illus. and maps. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Booklist Review

*Starred Review* The ratification of the U.S. Constitution in 1788 provided a common legal and political framework to bind 13 supposedly sovereign states to a stronger federal government. But the U.S. was still more of a theoretical nation than an actual one. The War of 1812 and the Mexican War engendered surges of nationalism, but it required a Civil War to administer the death blow to the most extreme forms of sectionalism. Winchester, the widely acclaimed author, is a native of Great Britain who recently became an American citizen. His focus here is on the more subtle aspects of nation building. He examines the accomplishments of a variety of characters, some famous and some obscure, whose visions and mastery of emerging technologies drew Americans closer together as our geographic size expanded. Thomas Jefferson's vision of an empire of liberty led to the acquisition of the Louisiana Territory and the Lewis and Clark expedition. William Maclure, a hyperactive Scottish immigrant, provided a geological survey of vast areas of the eastern U.S. and then promoted the value of a practical education for ordinary citizens. Winchester provides a fascinating portrayal of Samuel Morse, the man who tamed the lightning, and the vital role of the telegraph in bridging distances. This is a finely crafted and valuable reminder that the evolution of our united nation was a process often accelerated by unlikely, sometimes eccentric men who operated outside the political sphere. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: A 10-city author tour, e-book promotions, academic marketing, and an online publicity campaign round out the publisher's push behind this celebrated author's new book.--Freeman, Jay Copyright 2010 Booklist

Kirkus Book Review

Using a nifty structure around the five classic elements of wood, earth, water, fire and metal, Winchester (Atlantic: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms, and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories, 2010, etc.) celebrates the brains and brawn that forged America's Manifest Destiny. The author tells the story of the tremendous movement East to West of pioneers, explorers, miners, mappers and inventors whose collective labors made the U.S. truly e pluribus unum. Men take most of the spotlight here. Lewis and Clark's Native American guide Sacagawea is one of the only females singled out by the author, who writes that she was "the key that opened the gates of the West and allowed the white men through." Nonetheless, Winchester can tell a good yarn with evident relish, enlisting the element in question to aid in delineating his big themes: Thomas Hutchins' visionary survey system of 1785 became the model for parceling up the vast expanse of the American West, township by township; William Maclure made the first truly detailed geological map of the U.S. in 1809; the discovery of the "fall line" in many American rivers suddenly rendering them impassable prompted the brilliant use of the canal system as employed by Loammi Baldwin; the building of the interstate road system, beginning with the very first in Cumberland, Md., constructed by John McAdam's new crushed-rock method in 1812; and finally, the advent of the ubiquitous telegraph wires across the country by 1860, carrying information and spelling the beginning of the new age and the end of the old. In between these milestones are a myriad other stories of American ingenuity, which Winchester recounts with enormous gusto and verve. Another winning book from a historian whose passion for his subjects saturates his works.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.