I am mapping the world, in some traditions developed by the ancients. Men like Ptolemy and Strabo and Pliny the Elder and Isidore of Seville knew what they knew about the world. Which is to say, a limited amount. They knew nothing about sub-Saharan Africa. They knew nothing about what we call the Americas. Australia wasn’t even a land mass to them. They knew the Mediterranean, and the Gaul region up to modern-day Britain, and the spice trade routes forever east.
I am mapping their mapping, with a fuller cartography in mind. I am starting in Richmond, with the Civil War in mind. For the past number of years I have been writing a book series on the transition from the antebellum to the postbellum, and how we’ve never exited that era of time. What better place to start this journey than Richmond. I want to follow the Lincoln Walk. I want to touch the Richmond Slavery Reconciliation Statue. I want to document the many, many slave auction sites in America, and beyond. I want to play tennis. I am paying a tennis coach, a former professional player, for a weekend of lessons. My goal is to join the ATP. I want to win the French Open.
I will spend a little time in Washington, D.C., and then I am traveling by train across the country, documenting some of the original towns on the first transcontinental railroad. From San Francisco, I will be flying to Portugal, then moving into Spain, and down to North Africa. I have southeastern Italy on my itinerary, and Greece, including a month-long stay at a monastery to write a story on some Byzantine-era art. I have Crete on my itinerary, including a month on an archeological dig, and Türkiye. I have Uzbekistan on my itinerary. The map goes on…
On this blog I want to talk about histories, large and small. I envision this blog as a social history. I want to record my conversations with people across the globe. I want to laugh, and tear up, and talk about injustices. I want to talk about tennis and other sports. I want to talk about war. I want to talk about the Bible. I want to talk about ever-shifting borders. I want to talk about modern archeology rewriting what we think we know. I want to talk about what we think we know. The list goes on…
Before digging into my emerging map, let me credit a writer for the name of this blog. George Saunders began his writing career with CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, published in 1996. The story centers on one narrator, as he serves as park manager at a historical reenactment theme park. It’s a zany ride, with undertones and overtones of dark humor, violence, failure, and small-brain thinking. It’s a brilliant debut story, and as a burgeoning writer in my late 20s, I was shell-shocked by it. Shell-shocked in a good way.
Here’s what George Saunders didn’t know. The Civil War is a war among multitudes ad nauseam. In the United States, we capitalize the conflict and we think of it as an absolutely defining era. I’m not here to argue. But zoom out and what we see are civil wars everywhere, throughout time. An argument can be made that all wars are civil wars.
So let’s dive into the travel. My World Map begins on Friday, October 30, 2026. I awake early. Moments before the neighborhood bars close for the night. Hours before my upstairs neighbor blares her television as alarm. I make coffee. I make my bed. I brush my teeth. I pack a few last-minute items. I spend some moments in the dark, sipping hot coffee while gazing out through the dirty windowpanes at the stillness outside. My windows look out at a series of row house backyards. Usually, the cats use the nocturnal to stalk their environs, unimpeded by human imposition at that hour. Not this morning, for reasons unknown.
I bid my apartment goodbye, slip a daypack over my shoulders, sling a large duffel bag over one shoulder, lock the door, and set out for points known and unknown. I catch an F-train into the city. I manage to get myself to Penn Station for a 5:35 a.m. Amtrak. I buy a coffee. The train pushes off…
