1. WELL INTO the 18th century,

2. John Smith, a FOUNDER of the colony of Virginia in 1607, BLATANTLY rewrote reality a decade later by naming a vast SWATHE of the eastern seaboard “New England”, REPLACING native villages WITH FICTITIOUS English towns.

['bleɪtəntlɪ]公然地；[sweɪð] a long broad strip or belt

3. An imaginative history

4. what has and hasn’t changed

5. AT THE HEART OF the Confederacy during AMERICA’S CIVIL WAR,

6. ASKED FOR a map

7. COLOURED like a patchwork quilt,

pieces of cloth of various colors and shapes sewn together to form a covering

8. was LIKE NONE produced before it.

9. with data from the 1860 CENSUS: THE POPULATION OF WHITES, slaves and MEN OF MILITARY AGE, HEADS OF LIVESTOCK and ACRES OF CROPS.

[ˈlaɪvstɑ:k]

10. CHARGING TOWARDS

11. KNEW EXACTLY WHERE TO supply his Union army, which fields of sugar and cotton to burn, and crucially, where resistance would be THIN ON THE GROUND.

12. Without this DATA-RICH map, he later wrote, his mission would have “BEEN SUBJECTED TO BLIND CHANCE, and it may be to UTTER failure”.

13. Maps are often THOUGHT OF AS records of facts and terrain RATHER THAN ACTORS IN HISTORY.

14. But Sherman’s experience, and THAT OF legions of explorers, colonists and native peoples in North America, SUGGESTS OTHERWISE.

15. A map does not MERELY illustrate THE LIE OF THE LAND,

16. who UNEARTHED Sherman’s data TROVE and much more besides for “A History of America in 100 Maps”, a LAVISH and fascinating ATLAS.

[trəʊv] （物主不明的） 发掘出来的金银财宝; /ˈætləs/ a book of maps

17. It is also AN INSTRUMENT OF persuasion and sometimes of conquest.

18. sought a ROUTE WEST from America to China,

19. INVENTED waters SPANNING THE CONTINENT to CONVINCE MONARCHS TO pay their way.

/ˈmɒnək/ a person who rules a country, for example a king or a queen

20. Well into the 18th century, meanwhile, California was pictured as an island, A STATE OF AFFAIRS that many Californians might CHEERFULLY FAVOUR today.

a state of affairs: a situation

21. Beautiful and strange, THIS PARADE OF VISUALISATIONS reclaims the American story from the textbooks and MAKES IT VIVID AND NEW.

22. Like a giant, grown-up flip-book, it demonstrates, STEP BY STEP, how America CAME INTO BEING.

grown-up: mentally and physically an adult

23. “Wildly ERRONEOUS” /ɪˈrəʊniəs/ and intentionally deceptive though the earliest of the maps Ms Schulten includes may be, like CONTEMPORARY LETTERS AND DIARIES they are SNAPSHOTS of how cartographers and their sponsors thought, and HOW A NEW COUNTRY FORMS.

Snapshots: a short description or a small amount of information that gives you an idea of what something is like

24. To name territory is to CLAIM it, ENTICING SETTLERS, FOSTERING A SENSE OF NATIONHOOD, ERASING THE INDIGENOUS /ɪnˈdɪdʒənəs/ POPULATION and bison that LIE IN THE WAY.

25. there was “nothing INEVITABLE about the EVENTUAL ENGLISH DOMINATION OF North America”,

26. were all founded AT ROUGHLY THE SAME TIME.

27. Until the MID-19TH century the continent was a STEWPOT OF CONFLICTING IMPERIAL AIMS, FROM RUSSIAN AND BRITISH FUR TRADERS TO FRENCH EXPLORERS TO THE SPANISH WHO ONCE DOMINATED THE SOUTH-WEST.

28. The book is a BRILLIANT REBUTTAL /rɪˈbʌtl/ TO the myth of “MANIFEST DESTINY”,

the act of saying or proving that a statement or criticism is false

29. replacing the idea of a SINGLE historical NARRATIVE with SOMETHING MESSIER AND MORE TRUE: the SHEER CONTINGENCY /kənˈtɪndʒənsi/ OF EVENTS that might easily HAVE GONE ANOTHER WAY.

an event that may or may not happen

30. History, it shows, is as MALLEABLE /ˈmæliəbl/ and fluid as the MEANDERS of the Mississippi river, the VARYING COURSES OF WHICH are pictured over thousands of years

easily influenced or changed

31. were “RED-LINED” as “hazardous” /ˈhæzədəs/ credit risks

32. the “vice” of San Francisco’s Chinatown was CHARTED shop-by-shop

33. BY CONTRAST, the NIGHTLIFE of Harlem in 1932 (above) was a RAUCOUS /ˈrɔːkəs/ BLEND OF DIFFERENT RACES AND BOOZE /buːz/.

alcoholic drink

34. Ms Schulten weaves in EYE-POPPING facts of sharp contemporary relevance.

so exciting, large or impressive that it is very surprising or difficult to believe

35. approved an ELECTORAL DISTRICT resembling a salamander /ˈsæləmændə(r)/（蝾螈）, inspiring the term “Gerry-Mander” for what became an ENDURING POLITICAL RUSE /ruːz/.

a way of doing something or of getting something by cheating somebody

36. it is discombobulating /ˌdɪskəmˈbɒbjuleɪtɪŋ/ until the reader grasps that the colours are reversed

confusing and making you slightly anxious

37. show the CENTRALITY /senˈtræləti/ of enslaved Africans TO the growth of the tobacco economy.

the fact of being the most important or a very important part of something

38. Her aim, she says, is to AMPLIFY SELDOM HEARD VOICES, particularly those of African-Americans and native peoples SILENCED by the HEADLONG RUSH of WESTWARD EXPANSION.

done without thinking carefully before doing something

39. But neither does she SHORTCHANGE America’s FABLED CAN-DO SPIRIT, SPOTLIGHTING the engineering AUDACITY /ɔːˈdæsəti/ of the Erie and Panama canals and the voyage to the Moon.

brave but rude or shocking behaviour

40. Strikingly, the CLEAVAGE /ˈkliːvɪdʒ/ between North and South runs like A FAULT LINE through the development of slavery and women’s SUFFRAGE /ˈsʌfrɪdʒ/ TO THE POLITICS OF TODAY.

a difference or division between people or groups

(geology) a place where there is a long break in the rock that forms the surface of the earth and where earthquakes are more likely to happen

the right to vote in political elections

41. STILL, at a time when the country’s TECTONIC plates GRIND ever more fiercely AGAINST one another, this book is a reminder that LITTLE IN ITS DESTINY IS TRULY FIXED.

however

构造的，建筑的;

42. Like the mighty Mississippi, the American experiment continually OVERFLOWS and reshapes its banks.