Mid-Afternoon Map: A Middle East Misadventure

Welcome to Mid-Afternoon Map, our exclusive members-only newsletter that provides a cartographic perspective on current events, geopolitics, and history from the Caucasus to the Carolinas. Subscribers can look forward to interesting takes on good maps and bad maps, beautiful maps and ugly ones — and bizarre maps whenever possible. In the 19th century, Americans simultaneously knew quite a bit and very little about the Middle East. The region’s Biblical geography gave it a unique importance, inscribed on the American landscape in place names ranging from Palmyra, Pennsylvania to Moab, Utah. American merchants and missionaries were also becoming increasingly active in