Drawing the Line : How Mason and Dixon Surveyed the Most Famous Border in America

This is the second time I have purchased this book. This time as a gift for my father-in-law. We both love historical documentary books that give one a real understanding of what went into endeavor that changes the world in some way. This so well researched and written.

A few years ago, I was kidding around with a high school senior in our school library in northern Illinois, and I quipped, "Well, as Mason said to Dixon, you've got to draw the line somewhere." I expected at least a chuckle in return. The student, academically rated in the top 10% of his class, stared blankly back at me. "Mason and Dixon?" I asked. Nothing. "The Mason-Dixon Line?" Nada. "The border between Pennsylvania and Maryland? The boundary between The North and The South? The whole premise behind the Civil War?" Nope. He had never heard of it. The Line, I mean; of course, he knew about the Civil War.Maybe I took it for granted, since I grew up in a suburb about 25 miles north of the Line, in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The Line was there, but nobody made a big deal about it. I don't recall being taught anything about it, myself. I made a mental note to someday rectify that omission.When Thomas Pynchon's _Mason & Dixon_ was released, I was ready and interested. Ready and interested, that is, until I spied a copy in a bookstore, randomly opened it, and tried to actually read and understand the words on that single page. Hmmm. I returned the book to its display and allowed it to entice another potential buyer.As soon as Danson's book came out, I was ready and interested in the subject matter once again. And I believe I made the right choice with this one. There's A LOT of trigonometry and technical information in parts, and all of the math teachers in my past wouldn't be a bit surprised that I sort of skimmed over those paragraphs. But the extent of the politics and 18th-century science involved is intriguing. Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon had to contend with scientific authorities and governmental offices on both sides of the Atlantic -- not to mention local hostilities between European settlers and native Indians. In spite of a variety of challenges, they were ultimately successful in their mission and got little recognition (and even less pay) for their hard work in the colonial wilderness.My favorite passages in _Drawing the Line_ were in the details surrounding the actual surveying of the PA-MD border, which had to be done in four separate phases. I followed the text along with a road atlas in my lap and could envision some of the familiar terrain. And I nodded at the descriptions of violent thunderstorms and crippling blizzards. Been there, done that ... though certainly not while living in a surveyor's tent.Reading this book will help to answer the inevitable teenager lament, "When would ANYONE ever use trigonometry in real life?" And if you have a hankering to know more about life on the North American East Coast before the Revolution, here's a way to experience it without getting cold and wet. Or scalped.

When Isaac Newton wrote that he was "standing on the shoulders of giants" about100 years before Mason and Dixon made their line, he remarked about a technological revolution that not many authors can conventionally delve into with an interesting and well-paced narrative. Any reader of Danson's work should be struck with the innovation of the surveyors and also the context of mathematical and scientific endeavor prevalent at the time. These are all giants on whose shoulders we stand, without even realizing it, when we access Google Maps, our GPS, or hundreds (thousands?) of other devices of modern convenience. Unfortunately, the majority of our common core objectives steer as far away from innovation and the recognition of these intellectual giants as possible, as if all of our tech today comes from coincidence, magic, or people's ability to just get along.Most notable in the achievement of Mason and Dixon is the astronomy of Mason. As a "competent" mathematician (p 55), he worked with the tools of John Bird and made just as many revisions of measure as he made original measures. These 300 year old people practiced measuring the zenith distance of a star, using softwood levels, and calculating "seven-figure logarithmic tables" (70). Add to this the scale of the work, not just the precision. And for anybody looking to read about colonial times from a less technical perspective, Danson covers the highly relevant topic of Pontiac's rebellion and the Paxton boys that made venturing too far west a matter of being spied by warring tribe members with hatchets of their own at the ready. The humor of the book comes from the legendary rivalry between Lord Baltimore, I believe the 5th, and the Penns arguing like next-door neighbors over where a stone can be staked.I live on the south of this line. If possible soon, I would rather move to the north. William Styron wrote in "Sophie's Choice" that the South, when his character made it down to Washington DC, is where people hear your last name and ask if you are related to other people nearby who share that name. There's that distinction, plus much more.

I applaud the author's intent to bring this episode in engineering and science history to the limelight, but more information about geometric and astronomical concepts are required if this book is to be fully understood by even those in scientific and technical fields. But, having said that, there is far more good about this book than any failings in the details. Land surveying is much more than just geometry. As shown, there is a great deal of interpreting land descriptions (this hasn't changed at all since then!), heeding political sensitivities, and lots of very hard work. I recommend this book to anybody studying land surveying, cartography, geography (physical or social), or civil engineering. This book is mainly concerned with HOW boundaries are established. To understand about WHY boundaries are established in a particular location, see Andro Linklater's *The Fabric of America*More on the fundamentals of applied astronomy would be helpful. The illustration depicting the length of a degree of latitude appears to be geometrically incorrect and very confusing (see my explanation in the discussion area below). A reader should consider reading some generalized geodesy references along this book. A publication titled: "NOAA Reprint of Basic Geodesy" is very helpful.

I have loved Thomas Pynchon's novel Mason & Dixon for many years, and tend to read it annually, usually around Christmas which fits in with the storytelling in the novel. Having had the large and heavy hardback version since 1997 or thereabouts, I finally decided to reduce the risks of bedtime reading by getting a kindle edition. As I was searching for it, I came across Edwin Danson's historical account of the drawing of the eponymous line, which also provides some insights into the characters involved. It's a fine read in its own right as well as a good companion to the novel. As other reviewers have noted, you might need to take your time over some of the astronomical trigonometry, but you'll follow it eventually, and this will further illuminate the novel for you, if that's part of the reason you're reading it, and give you some insights into 18th century astronomy as well (go visit the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, as well, if this catches your interest).

I like tge yellow cover

An excellent book. It arrived on time, well packed. The book has been difficult to put down once started. An eye opener to a non historian

This proved to be a good to read. However, at times is was very technical at times but none the less very informative.

The history if this book is truly fascinating. The events that occurred as Mason and Dixon worked to draw the line and the evenet