NPR’s Kojo Nnamdi welcomed Mapping Virginia author William Wooldridge to his show last week. Wooldridge appeared for the full hour, discussing the the fascinating shifts over time in the cartographical conception of Virginia. Long after Columbus, he explains, many explorers and map makers thought the Pacific lay not far beyond Virginia (a ten-day journey, according to one). A long period of grappling with the basic shape of the land finally gave way to surveying, the drawing up of state and county lines, as Virginia and the rest of the country was carved into sharply defined properties. The entire episode may be heard here on the Kojo Nnamdi Show official site. The web page also features a frankly stunning gallery of fifteen of the book’s maps, each with a descriptive caption, from which one can get an idea of the scope and quality of the project.

Ivor Noël Hume’s Belzoni, an epic biography of the man who procured for the British Museum  many of its most celebrated Egyptian artifacts, is among the New York Times’ 100 Notable Books of 2012. The complete list available here.

In this captivating biography, Ivor Noël Hume re-creates an early nineteenth century in which there was no established archaeological profession, only enormous opportunity. Among the many treasures Belzoni would bring back was the seven-ton stone head of Ramesses II, the “Young Memnon.” Today, however, the typical museum visitor knows nothing of Belzoni, and many modern archaeologists dismiss him as an ignorant vandal. In her original Times review, Alida Becker described Belzoni’s life as “nearly impossible to resist.”