Includes bibliographical references (pages 253-254) and indexes.

Introduction : Revealing a city/exploring its maps / Alex Krieger -- A brief history of Boston / Sam Bass Warner, Jr. -- Diagramming the growth of Boston / Nancy S. Seasholes and Amy Turner -- The mapping of New England before 1800 / Barbara McCorkle -- The Boston map trade of the eighteenth century / David Bosse -- Windows to our past : mapping in the nineteenth century and beyond / David Cobb -- The New England plates -- Gaining ground : Boston's topographical development in maps / Nancy S. Seasholes -- Experiencing Boston : encounters with the places on the maps / Alex Krieger -- The Boston plates -- Map of good hope : Boston in the American imagination / James Carroll. "To the attentive user even the simplest map can reveal not only where things are but how people perceive and imagine the spaces they occupy. Mapping Boston is an exemplar of such creative attentiveness - bringing the history of one of America's oldest and most beautiful cities alive through the maps that have depicted it over the centuries." "The book includes both historical maps of the city and maps showing the gradual emergence of the New England region from the imaginations of explorers to a form that we would recognize today. Each map is accompanied by a full description and by a short essay offering an insight into its context. The topics of these vignettes by Anne Mackin include people both familiar and unknown, landmarks, and events that were significant in shaping the landscape or life of the city. A highlight of the book is a series of new maps detailing Boston's growth."--Jacket.