A depiction of the history of North America and the United States told through maps old and new. The history starts with the peoples who first settled the land tens of thousand years ago, and continues to the present day. Includes a timeline of American history, a guide to the fifty U.S. states, and a map showing the birthplace of every U.S. president.

A chronicle of the early sixteenth-century creation of the Waldseem©ơller map offers insight into how monks, classicists, merchants, and other contributors from earlier periods shaped the map's creation.