Download or read book Virginians and Their Histories written by Brent Tarter and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2020-05-26 with total page 608 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Histories of Virginia have traditionally traced the same significant but narrow lines, overlooking whole swathes of human experience crucial to an understanding of the commonwealth. With Virginians and Their Histories, Brent Tarter presents a fresh, new interpretive narrative that incorporates the experiences of all residents of Virginia from the earliest times to the first decades of the twenty-first century, affording readers the most comprehensive and wide-ranging account of Virginia’s story. Tarter draws on primary resources for every decade of the Old Dominion's English-language history, as well as a wealth of recent scholarship that illuminates in new ways how demographic changes, economic growth, social and cultural changes, and religious sensibilities and gender relationships have affected the manner in which Virginians have lived. Virginians and Their Histories interweaves the experiences of Virginians of different racial and ethnic backgrounds and classes, representing a variety of eras and regions, to understand what they separately and jointly created, and how they responded to economic, political, and social changes on a national and even global level. That large context is essential for properly understanding the influences of Virginians on, and the responses of Virginians to, the constantly changing world in which they have lived. This groundbreaking work of scholarship—generously illustrated and engagingly written—will become the definitive account for general readers and all students of Virginia’s diverse and vibrant history.
Download or read book Cradle of America written by Peter Wallenstein and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2014-08-15 with total page 552 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the site of the first permanent English settlement in North America, the birthplace of a presidential dynasty, and the gateway to western growth in the nation’s early years, Virginia can rightfully be called the “cradle of America.” Peter Wallenstein traces major themes across four centuries in a brisk narrative that recalls the people and events that have shaped the Old Dominion. The second edition is updated with new material throughout, including a new chapter on Virginia and world affairs from the Korean War through 9/11 and beyond, and, an expanded bibliography. Historical accounts of Virginia have often emphasized harmony and tradition, but Wallenstein focuses on the impact of conflict and change. From the beginning, Virginians have debated and challenged each other’s visions of Virginia, and Wallenstein shows how these differences have influenced its sometimes turbulent development. Casting an eye on blacks as well as whites, and on people from both east and west of the Blue Ridge Mountains, he traces such key themes as political power, racial identity, and education. Bringing to bear his long experience teaching Virginia history, Wallenstein takes readers back, even before Jamestown, to the Elizabethan settlers at Roanoke Island and the inhabitants they encountered, as well as to Virginia’s leaders of the American Revolution. He chronicles the state’s dramatic journey through the Civil War era, a time that revealed how the nation’s evolution sometimes took shape in opposition to the vision of many leading Virginians. He also examines the impact of the civil rights movement and considers controversies that accompany Virginia into its fifth century. The text is copiously illustrated to depict not only such iconic figures as Pocahontas, George Washington, and Robert E. Lee, but also such other prominent native Virginians as Carter G. Woodson, Patsy Cline, and L. Douglas Wilder. Sidebars throughout the book offer further insight, while maps and appendixes of reference data make the volume a complete resource on Virginia’s history.
Download or read book The Grandees of Government written by Brent Tarter and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2013-10-17 with total page 619 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the formation of the first institutions of representative government and the use of slavery in the seventeenth century through the American Revolution, the Civil War, the civil rights movement, and into the twenty-first century, Virginia’s history has been marked by obstacles to democratic change. In The Grandees of Government, Brent Tarter offers an extended commentary based in primary sources on how these undemocratic institutions and ideas arose, and how they were both perpetuated and challenged. Although much literature on American republicanism focuses on the writings of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, among others, Tarter reveals how their writings were in reality an expression of federalism, not of republican government. Within Virginia, Jefferson, Madison, and others such as John Taylor of Caroline and their contemporaries governed in ways that directly contradicted their statements about representative—and limited— government. Even the democratic rhetoric of the American Revolution worked surprisingly little immediate change in the political practices, institutions, and culture of Virginia. The counterrevolution of the 1880s culminated in the Constitution of 1902 that disfranchised the remainder of African Americans. Virginians who could vote reversed the democratic reforms embodied in the constitutions of 1851, 1864, and 1869, so that the antidemocratic Byrd organization could dominate Virginia’s public life for the first two-thirds of the twentieth century. Offering a thorough reevaluation of the interrelationship between the words and actions of Virginia’s political leaders, The Grandees of Government provides an entirely new interpretation of Virginia’s political history.
Download or read book Forced Founders written by Woody Holton and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2011-01-20 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this provocative reinterpretation of one of the best-known events in American history, Woody Holton shows that when Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and other elite Virginians joined their peers from other colonies in declaring independence from Britain, they acted partly in response to grassroots rebellions against their own rule. The Virginia gentry's efforts to shape London's imperial policy were thwarted by British merchants and by a coalition of Indian nations. In 1774, elite Virginians suspended trade with Britain in order to pressure Parliament and, at the same time, to save restive Virginia debtors from a terrible recession. The boycott and the growing imperial conflict led to rebellions by enslaved Virginians, Indians, and tobacco farmers. By the spring of 1776 the gentry believed the only way to regain control of the common people was to take Virginia out of the British Empire. Forced Founders uses the new social history to shed light on a classic political question: why did the owners of vast plantations, viewed by many of their contemporaries as aristocrats, start a revolution? As Holton's fast-paced narrative unfolds, the old story of patriot versus loyalist becomes decidedly more complex.
Download or read book Arrival of the First Africans in Virginia written by Ric Murphy and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2020-08-31 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1619, a group of thirty-two African men, women and children arrived on the shores of Virginia. They had been kidnapped in the royal city of Kabasa, Angola, and forced aboard the Spanish slave ship San Juan Bautista. The ship was attacked by privateers, and the captives were taken by the English to their New World colony. This group has been shrouded in controversy ever since. Historian Ric Murphy documents a fascinating story of colonialism, treason, piracy, kidnapping, enslavement and British law.
Download or read book The Internal Enemy Slavery and War in Virginia 1772 1832 written by Alan Taylor and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2013-09-09 with total page 585 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for History Finalist for the National Book Award Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize "Impressively researched and beautifully crafted…a brilliant account of slavery in Virginia during and after the Revolution." —Mark M. Smith, Wall Street Journal Frederick Douglass recalled that slaves living along Chesapeake Bay longingly viewed sailing ships as "freedom’s swift-winged angels." In 1813 those angels appeared in the bay as British warships coming to punish the Americans for declaring war on the empire. Over many nights, hundreds of slaves paddled out to the warships seeking protection for their families from the ravages of slavery. The runaways pressured the British admirals into becoming liberators. As guides, pilots, sailors, and marines, the former slaves used their intimate knowledge of the countryside to transform the war. They enabled the British to escalate their onshore attacks and to capture and burn Washington, D.C. Tidewater masters had long dreaded their slaves as "an internal enemy." By mobilizing that enemy, the war ignited the deepest fears of Chesapeake slaveholders. It also alienated Virginians from a national government that had neglected their defense. Instead they turned south, their interests aligning more and more with their section. In 1820 Thomas Jefferson observed of sectionalism: "Like a firebell in the night [it] awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once the knell of the union." The notes of alarm in Jefferson's comment speak of the fear aroused by the recent crisis over slavery in his home state. His vision of a cataclysm to come proved prescient. Jefferson's startling observation registered a turn in the nation’s course, a pivot from the national purpose of the founding toward the threat of disunion. Drawn from new sources, Alan Taylor's riveting narrative re-creates the events that inspired black Virginians, haunted slaveholders, and set the nation on a new and dangerous course.
Download or read book Virginia History Government Geography written by Francis Butler Simkins and published by . This book was released on 1957 with total page 696 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Talk about Trouble written by Nancy J. Martin-Perdue and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 524 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Talk about Trouble presents 61 Writers' Project life histories that depict Virginia men and women, both blacks and whites, and offer a cross-section of ages, occupations, experiences, and cultural and class backgrounds. Headnotes set the context for each life history and introduce people and themes that link individual events and experiences.
Download or read book The Story of Virginia written by Jamie O. Bosket and published by Giles. This book was released on 2018 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tells a highly visual and accessible story of Virginia, and its importance in the history of America, from the late 1500s to the early 21st century.
Download or read book Virginia a History of the People Classic Reprint written by John Esten Cooke and published by Forgotten Books. This book was released on 2017-11-19 with total page 530 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from Virginia a History of the People The work before the reader attempts to draw an out line of the people, and to present a succinct narrative of the events of their history. For the portrait of the Virginians, the general histories afford little assistance. The material, and above all, the coloring must be looked for elsewhere in the writings of the first adventurers, which are the relations of eye-witnesses or contempo raries in forgotten pamphlets, family papers, the curi ous laws passed by the Burgesses, and in those traditions of the people which preserve the memory of events in the absence of written records. It appeared to the writer that this was the true material of history, and that he ought not to go to the modern works as long as it existed. The likeness of the Virginians is only to be found in these remote sources; and the writer has patiently studied the dusty archives, and endeavored to extract their meaning, with no other object than to as certain the truth, and to represent the men and events in their true colors. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Download or read book Colonial Virginians at Play written by Jane Carson and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 1989 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Bound Away written by David Hackett Fischer and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study of the migration patterns that characterized the colony and (later) state of Virginia over the three century history following its European founding. Dividing the topic into three patterns--migration to, within, and from Virginia--Fischer (history, Brandeis U) and Kelly (Virginia Historical Society) study the reasons behind the migrations of various populations, paying special attention to African Americans, and explore the cultural legacy of the migrations. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Download or read book A Murder in Virginia written by Suzanne Lebsock and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2004 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recounts the events surrounding the dramatic post-Civil War trial of a young African American sawmill hand who was accused of ax murdering a white woman on her Virginia farmyard and who implicated three other women in the crime.
Download or read book Daydreams and Nightmares written by Brent Tarter and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2015-04-29 with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The decision of the eventual Confederate states to secede from the Union set in motion perhaps the most dramatic chapter in American history, and one that has typically been told on a grand scale. In Daydreams and Nightmares, however, historian Brent Tarter shares the story of one Virginia family who found themselves in the middle of the secession debate and saw their world torn apart as the states chose sides and went to war. George Berlin was elected to serve as a delegate to the Virginia Convention of 1861 as an opponent of secession, but he ultimately changed his vote. Later, when defending his decision in a speech in his hometown of Buckhannon, Upshur County, he had to flee for his safety as Union soldiers arrived. Berlin and his wife, Susan Holt Berlin, were separated for extended periods--both during the convention and, later, during the early years of the Civil War. The letters they exchanged tell a harrowing story of uncertainty and bring to life for the modern reader an extended family that encompassed both Confederate and Union sympathizers. This is in part a love story. It is also a story about ordinary people caught up in extraordinary events. Although unique in its vividly evoked details, the Berlins’ story is representative of the drama endured by millions of Americans. Composed during the nightmare of civil war, the Berlins’ remarkably articulate letters express the dreams of reunion and a secure future felt throughout the entire, severed nation. In this intimate, evocative, and often heartbreaking family story, we see up close the personal costs of our larger national history. A Nation Divided: Studies in the Civil War
Download or read book George Washington s Virginia written by John R. Maass and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2017 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: George Washington was first and foremost a Virginian. Born in the state's Tidewater region, he was reared near Fredericksburg and took up residence at Mount Vernon along the Potomac River. As a young surveyor, he worked in Virginia's backcountry. He began his military career as a Virginia militia officer on the colony's frontier. The majority of his widespread landholdings were in his native state, and his entrepreneurial endeavors ranged from the swamplands of the Southeast to the upper Potomac River Valley. Historian John Maass explores the numerous sites all over the Commonwealth associated with Washington and demonstrates their lasting importance.
Download or read book The History of Virginia written by Robert Beverley and published by . This book was released on 1855 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Virginia Dynasty written by Lynne Cheney and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-09-22 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A vivid account of leadership focusing on the first four Virginia presidents--George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe--from the bestselling historian and author of James Madison. From a small expanse of land on the North American continent came four of the nation's first five presidents--a geographic dynasty whose members led a revolution, created a nation, and ultimately changed the world. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe were born, grew to manhood, and made their homes within a sixty-mile circle east of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Friends and rivals, they led in securing independence, hammering out the United States Constitution, and building a working republic. Acting together, they doubled the territory of the United States. From their disputes came American political parties and the weaponizing of newspapers, the media of the day. In this elegantly conceived and insightful new book from bestselling author Lynne Cheney, the four Virginians are not marble icons but vital figures deeply intent on building a nation where citizens could be free. Focusing on the intersecting roles these men played as warriors, intellectuals, and statesmen, Cheney takes us back to an exhilarating time when the Enlightenment opened new vistas for humankind. But even as the Virginians advanced liberty, equality, and human possibility, they held people in slavery and were slaveholders when they died. Lives built on slavery were incompatible with a free and just society; their actions contradicted the very ideals they espoused. They managed nonetheless to pass down those ideals, and they became powerful weapons for ending slavery. They inspired Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass and today undergird the freest nation on earth. Taking full measure of strengths and failures in the personal as well as the political lives of the men at the center of this book, Cheney offers a concise and original exploration of how the United States came to be.
