The Pseudo-Suburbanist's Dilemma

There’s an old map that I love inside the Library of Congress, upstairs through the Great Hall and a short walk into the marble-tiled gallery where the story of the creation of the United States unfolds. I carry a facsimile of it in my mind and a surreptitious snapshot of it on my cell phone. It is vast, about 5 feet by 7 feet, and it takes up most of a temporary display wall next to a small reproduction of a letter from Virginia surveyor and frontier soldier George Mercer letting George Washington know that yes, he definitely would like to join that English scouting group hoping to exploit Indian lands west of the Ohio River.

My map – "a map of the British and French dominions in North America, with the roads, distances, limits, and extent of the settlements" – is inscribed in the lower right-hand corner, inside an elaborate inset of palm fronds, plump angels and supplicating natives, by the Earl of Halifax’s most obliged and very humble servant, John Mitchell. His world dates to 1755.