Welcome to the Virginia History Blog. Titles selected for book reviews are taken from the bibliographies of scholarly, peer reviewed Virginia history surveys. Titles related to the topic and recent publications by authors are also included.
Additional books are chosen from those reviewed in the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, the Journal of Southern History and the Journal of American History.
After the books are reviewed in the Blog, they are redistributed among historical eras at The Virginia Historian.com: (1) Early and Late Colonial 1600-1763, (2) Revolution-Constitutional-New Nation 1750-1824, (3) Antebellum, Civil War-Reconstruction 1820-1883, (4) Gilded Age, New South, 20th Century 1880-present.
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Virginia’s racial New South, Jim Crow and Desegregation
Virginia’s racial New South, Jim Crow and Desegregation begins with six books. “Before Jim Crow” addresses the post-Civil War politics of race and “Freedpeople in the Tobacco South” examines the political economy in 24 Virginia counties. “Managing White Supremacy” investigates race, politics and citizenship in Jim Crow Virginia through the first half of the 20th...
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African-American Virginia History
Our look at African-American Virginia History begins with two general surveys, “‘Don’t Grieve After Me’: The Black Experience in Virginia, 1619-1986” and the earlier WPA Virginia Writer’s Project reprint, “The Negro in Virginia”. Two complementary volumes on politics, both published by the UVA Press, but half a century apart follow, “The Negro in Virginia Politics,...
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Colonial Virginia in the Atlantic World
Colonial Virginia in the Atlantic world is an approach to Virginia history stressing commerce and trade. The web of interconnections extend not only among the British Isles, the Algonquin Native Americans, and Africa. The Dutch, French, and Spanish and their colonies as well as intercolonial trade along the British North American seaboard all had their...
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Virginia Colonial Wars
Virginia Colonial Wars are introduced with two volumes focusing on English and Native American conflict with “Dominion and Civility” and “Pocahontas, Powhatan, Opechancanough”. Bacon’s Rebellion both as Indian war and colonial rebellion is described in “Tales from a Revolution”, and it is put in context of Virginia’s early colonial wars in the social history, “The...
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Late Colonial Virginia
The Virginia Historian introduces Late Colonial Virginia with six histories. The first is the political history of “Colonial Virginia” early and late periods, from 1607 to 1780; here the review describes the book’s Late Colonial narrative. The second is “Tobacco Coast”, a maritime history emphasizing 1660 to 1763, and extending into the Revolutionary era....
Early Colonial Virginia – Part II
Early Colonial Virginia is classically marked out between 1607-1689 in “The Southern Colonies in the 17th Century”, with Virginia center stage as the largest colony along with the study of Maryland and Carolina. “Indians and English” treats the encounter between the two cultures. “The Old Dominion in the 17th Century” uses interpretive essays to introduce...
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Early Colonial – part I
Early Colonial Virginia is introduced with seven histories that focus on political developments and colonial economic classes. The first is the political history of “Colonial Virginia” early and late periods, from 1607 to 1780. “The Barbarous Years” charts the expulsion of Native Americans in the British North American colonies. “Colonial Chesapeake Society” is a social...
Virginia’s Gilded Age New South: Overviews
Virginia’s Gilded Age New South is introduced in five books. New Spirits: Americans in the Gilded Age, encompasses American political, economic, and cultural history 1865 to 1905, then Origins of the New South looks at the time period as a political history including Virginia, and The Promise of the New South treats economic and cultural...
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Virginia’s Free African Americans, 1780-1865
Here are four histories of free Blacks in Virginia highlighting self reliant communities in a slave society. Of course, Virginia’s free African Americans have a history dating from 1619 with their importation as “servants” with subsequent freedom and voting rights in the 1600s. But these focus on the era of their substantial expansion and integration...
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Virginia History Surveys
Survey histories of Virginia are important to beginning your discovery of Virginia History. Reading Virginia history books with bibliographies enables the amateur historian to drill down in a field of interest by paying attention to the writer’s sources. These can become a to-buy list for building a personal library. See Twelve Steps to a Personal Library on Virginia....
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