ABSTRACT
World history at Loomis Chaffee: Year One, Day One, September 14, 1993: A group of students holds up and presents its world map drawn from memory on poster board with magic marker. We are not sure how many world maps they remember from the summer, but that does not matter. Other groups with their masterpieces wait patiently, listening and looking at the map presently on display. Furrowed brows seem to abound as this particular group strives to explain why North America, and specifically the United States, appears so large (and so central), easily dwarfing Africa and Asia combined. Another group arises and proceeds to show a map with South America somewhat oversized and the nation of Colombia (again rather centrally located) casting a giant shadow over Brazil and Argentina. A third group’s map would assuredly satisfy the natives of Greenland (and posthumously, mapmaker Mercator), and a fourth’s would make the Micronesian sailor cringe as land masses appear to cover six-sevenths of the entire poster board, even though there is a fair amount of terra incognita. (Perhaps Columbus was familiar with such a map?)
