Mapping America: The Incredible Story and Stunning Hand-Colored Maps and Engravings That Created the United States

The story of the exploration and birth of America is told afresh through the unique prism of hand-colored maps and engravings of the period.

Before photography and television, it was printed and hand-colored maps that brought home the thrill of undiscovered lands and the possibilities of exploration, while guiding armies on all sides through the Indian Wars and the clashes of the American Revolution. Only by looking through the prism of these maps, can we truly understand how and why America developed the way it did.

Mapping America illuminates with scene-setting text and more than 150 color images--from the exotic and fanciful maps of Renaissance explorers to the magnificent maps of the Golden Age and the thrilling battle-maps and charts of the American Revolutionary War, in addition to paintings from the masters of eighteenth century art, scores of photographs, and detailed diagrams.

In total, this informative and lushly illustrated volume developed by rare maps collector Neal Asbury, host of "Neal Asbury's Made in America," and National Geographic historian Jean-Pierre Isbouts offers a new and immersive look at the ambition, the struggle, and the glory that attended and defined the exploration and making of America.

Jean-Pierre Isbouts is a historian, doctoral professor at Fielding Graduate University, and the author of ten books, including The Biblical World, In the Footsteps of Jesus, and The Story of Christianity, which have together sold nearly two million copies, and The Da Vinci Legacy and The Dalí Legacy. Dr. Isbouts has been on numerous radio and TV shows and is the host of the TV series In Search of Masterpieces. He has directed several programs for Disney, ABC, Hallmark, and the History Channel, working with actors such as Leonard Nimoy, Charlton Heston, Dick Van Dyke, and Morgan Freeman, and produced recordings with orchestras around the world. Dr. Isbouts lives in Santa Monica, California.

Neal Asbury is a global entrepreneur, chief executive of the Legacy Companies, and the host of the nationally syndicated weekly radio talk show Neal Asbury's Made in America, produced by Radio America. He is a frequent guest on CNBC, Fox News, MSNBC, and BBC, has published more than two hundred articles on global trade issues, and is the author of Conscientious Equity: An American Entrepreneur's Solutions to the World's Greatest Problems. Asbury has received the President's "E-Star" Export Award and the Export Achievement Award from the U.S. Department of Commerce and was the 2008 recipient of the United States National Champion Exporter of the Year Award. He lives in Weston, Florida.