This unique history/travelogue examines the influence of this great divider which remains the most powerful symbol separating Yankee from Rebel. Most boundaries between states and nations have been determined by land features, such as rivers and mountains. But the Mason-Dixon Line does not follow anything palpable; it runs along uneven latitudes and longitudes, and at no point does it touch any prominent landmark. Except for its stone markers, it is invisible -- an arbitrary and man-made demarcation, direct and true, but without dimension. Ecenbarger calls it "simultaneously, a product of reason and a national landmark." The Mason-Dixon Line was originally drawn in 1768 by two British surveyors, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, sent to settle a land dispute. The line later became the dividing point between the free North and the slaveholding South. Ecenbarger, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, walked the accessible parts of the 365-mile line and sought out people with stories to tell that would shed light on the line's historical and racial significance. Ecenbarger also cites Charles Mason's journal, courthouse records, and interviews with residents of Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania who live along the line. The Mason-Dixon Line represents racial tensions and mirrors animosities that have persisted through slavery, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the civil rights era, and even today, with some towns practicing unofficial racial division. Highlighting this checkered history, Ecenbarger visited Harriet Tubman's Underground Railroad and the site of reverse operation, where free blacks were sold into slavery in the South. This is an interesting look at a national landmark that is "embedded in the national psyche as a powerful racial symbol." Vanessa Bush Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved "Using the infamous Line as his guide, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ecenbarger travels across the region, investigating the history of race and culture in the U.S. Part travelogue, part historical essay, this book is a well-written and a dramatic examination of history, geography and race." -- Publishers Weekly "This is an interesting look at a national landmark that is embedded in the national psyche as a powerful racial symbol." -- ALA Booklist (Starred Review) Winner of a Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Award "The Mason-Dixon Line divides North and South, and Ecenbarger decided to explore its social and cultural significance by walking along this survey line to see the differences on either side. Although intended as a division, the line also serves as something to bind the nation, and Ecenbarger's engaging style draws us into this journey. -- Society of American Travel Writers Foundation "A fascinating trip into the past that illuminates the present. A tasty feast of heroes and rascals, myths and legends." -- Philadelphia Inquirer "Part travelogue, part historical essay, this book is a well-written and dramatic examination of history, geography, and race." -- Publisher's Weekly "I had originally intended to tell the story of how the Mason-Dixon Line came to be and to walk and talk along the Line to discover what had happened in the past and what it was like now.  But the narrower them became inescapable -- for no matter how many ways I could shuffle the deck, the race card kept coming to the top. And so I resolved to view the Line through the lens of race and learn more about this awful thing that runs so deeply in American life." William Ecenbarger has walked as much as humanly possible of the Mason-Dixon Line -- the line that defines the border of Pennsylvania and Maryland -- from its beginnings on Fenwick Island, Delaware to its end at Brown's Hill, Pennsylvania. All the while he made side trips, diverting right and left to interview the people who live along its border. In 1780, the Pennsylvania Assembly passed a law calling for the gradual end of slavery, making the Mason-Dixon Line a lightning rod for racial conflict that continue to this day. This unique history/travelogue examines the influence of this great divider, which remains the most powerful symbol separating Yankee from Rebel, oatmeal from grits, and North from South. Ecenbarger quotes generously from Charles Mason's journals as he describes the original journey that the two surveyors completed in 1768 -- ending eighty-seven years of dispute between the Calverts and the Penns, who, in one of history's ironies, would lose their land to the Revolution in eight years. As he walks the Line, the author also traverses history, weaving the history of the Mason-Dixon Line into the present, and describing the full relevance of its dimensions. William Ecenbarger is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of  Glory by the Wayside: The Old Churches of Hawaii and Kids for Cash: Two Judges, Thousands of Children and a $2.6 Million Kickback Scheme." And he is the co-author of  Catching Lightning in a Bot