Books published by publisher Smithsonian Press

This book is dedicated to Michael Gannon and explicitly updates his 1965 The Cross in the Sand but views the subject from a different perspective: Where Gannon focused on the mission effort from the missionaries' point of view, Jerald T. Milanich is interested in the way Florida missions affected and were affected by the southeastern Indians they attempted to convert. In eight chapters he outlines the problem of the "lost" missions and the archaeology that has rediscovered them; describes the indigenous peoples of Florida at the time of contact with Europeans; recounts the major events of Spanish exploration; describes early Jesuit missions that failed; introduces the Franciscan missions that succeeded; provides detailed descriptions of Indian life in the mission settlements; traces significant Indian resistance to colonization and missionization; and finally recounts the collapse of the mission system under the inexorable onslaught of English attacks.

Born of the linguistic fascination of a noted paleontologist, Composition of Scientific Words includes a brief introduction to the history and elementary structure of English, Greek, and Latin, followed by a guide for the formulation of technical terms. The main selection, the lexicon, is an alphabetical list of key words. It gives their synonyms and cognates in English, Latin, and Greek, as well as occasional additions from among thirty-eight other languages. This section is a storehouse of fact and lore on the derivation of both everyday and technical terms. Numerous cross-references make the book fully accessible.

Why does Oklahoma have that panhandle? Did someone make a mistake? We are so familiar with the map of the United States that our state borders seem as much a part of nature as mountains and rivers. Even the oddities—the entire state of Maryland(!)—have become so engrained that our map might as well be a giant jigsaw puzzle designed by Divine Providence. But that's where the real mystery begins. Every edge of the familiar wooden jigsaw pieces of our childhood represents a revealing moment of history and of, well, humans drawing lines in the sand. How the States Got Their Shapes is the first book to tackle why our state lines are where they are. Here are the stories behind the stories, right down to the tiny northward jog at the eastern end of Tennessee and the teeny-tiny (and little known) parts of Delaware that are not attached to Delaware but to New Jersey. How the States Got Their Shapes examines: Why West Virginia has a finger creeping up the side of Pennsylvania Why Michigan has an upper peninsula that isn't attached to Michigan Why some Hawaiian islands are not Hawaii Why Texas and California are so outsized, especially when so many Midwestern states are nearly identical in size Packed with fun oddities and trivia, this entertaining guide also reveals the major fault lines of American history, from ideological intrigues and religious intolerance to major territorial acquisitions. Adding the fresh lens of local geographic disputes, military skirmishes, and land grabs, Mark Stein shows how the seemingly haphazard puzzle pieces of our nation fit together perfectly.