This classic text retains the superb scholarship of the first edition in a thoroughly revised and accessibly written new edition. With both new and updated essays by distinguished American and Canadian authors, the book provides a comprehensive historical overview of the formation and growth of North American regions from European exploration and colonization to the second half of the twentieth century. Collectively the contributors explore the key themes of acquisition of geographical knowledge, cultural transfer and acculturation, frontier expansion, spatial organization of society, resource exploitation, regional and national integration, and landscape change. With six new chapters, redrawn maps, a new introduction that explores scholarly trends in historical geography since publication of the first edition, and a new final chapter guiding students to the basic sources for historical geographic enquiry, North America will be an indispensable text in historical geography courses.

Since 1732, when Georgia was created out of South Carolina territory, the boundary between the two states has been disputed. This controversy reignited in the 1970s, culminating in a suit filed by Georgia in the U. S. Supreme Court to ascertain the location of the true boundary line between the states.

De Vorsey's book grows out of this controversy and is a detailed examination of the historical geography of that boundary. After reviewing the events that led to the 1977 litigation, De Vorsey provides a detailed analysis of Georgia's original charter and the 1787 Treaty of Beaufort--two documents crucial to an understanding of the dispute. Using documentary and cartographic resources, he reconstructs the geographical conditions that existed at the time the documents were drafted and investigates how eighteenth-century Georgians and South Carolinians perceived these conditions.

In the course of his inquiry he discusses the tremendous natural forces that have sculpted and re-sculpted the unstable shorelines and islands formed by geologically youthful delta sediments. He considers, too, the impact of man on the environment as he attempted to control nature and improve navigability on the Savannah River.

The study concludes with a discussion of the particular areas of the Savannah River's shores and islands involved in the Supreme Court litigation.