In this rich and fascinating history, Susan Schulten tells a story of Americans beginning to see the world around them, tracing U.S. attitudes toward world geography from the end of nineteenth-century exploration to the explosion of geographic interest before the dawn of the Cold War. Focusing her examination on four influential institutions—maps and atlases, the National Geographic Society, the American university, and public schools—Schulten provides an engaging study of geography, cartography, and their place in popular culture, politics, and education.

Susan Schulten is an assistant professor of history at the University of Denver.