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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Civil War in Virginia
The Civil War in Virginia was markedly different from the experience of other Confederate states in its position as a front line state that was actively defended throughout the duration of the conflict by resident Confederate armies defending against repeated, not to say continuous Union incursions. We begin this blog with “Notes from the Ground”...
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Jefferson, Slavery and Hemingses
The topic of Thomas Jefferson, slavery and Hemingses has been the subject of several scholarly works and popular histories in recent years. Here we look at six titles representing several points of view on the subject over the course of thirty years. The considerable sustained interest in the topic has enabled all to remain in...
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Free blacks, Artisans and Slave Hires
In this Virginia History Blog, we explore the developments leading antebellum Virginia to hold the largest free black population, with artisans free and slave, with slave hires for industrial work and construction on canals and railroads. Virginia 1820-1860 was a slave state with an emerging market economy, industrialization and substantial out-migration of whites and blacks....
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Slave State Virginia
We begin our look at titles about antebellum Virginia as a slave state 1824-1860 with two studies of slave rebellion. “Whispers of Rebellion” explores the slave agency in the 1800 Gabriel Conspiracy, and “”The Land Shall be Deluged in Blood” describes the 1830 Nat Turner Rebellion and its aftermath. We continue our antebellum Virginia reviews...
Religion in New Nation Virginia
Looking again at religion in New Nation Virginia, “Wellspring of Liberty” explores the role of religious dissenters in the American Revolution and their subsequent efforts to secure religious liberty in the New Nation period. “Establishing Religious Freedom” in Virginia traces the evolution from dissenter toleration to religious freedom of conscience. “Bodies of Belief” compares and...
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Revolution and New Nation revisited
We begin our revisit to Virginia’s Revolution and New Nation era with the political history “Dunmore’s New World” about the last royal governor in Virginia, followed by the “Accommodating Revolutions”, a case study of the Revolutionary period in the Northern Neck. We then look at two titles addressing African American slave agency during war and...
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Life in 1700s Virginia
Life in 1700s Virginia is explained by two of the four British folkways transmitted in major immigration streams that established persistent cultural expressions even with subsequent settlements in “Albion’s Seed”. Life in the Church of England parish in colonial Virginia is described in “A Blessed Company, and the religious practices of the gentry are explained...
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Frontier and Imperial Virginia 1730-1763
We return to Late Colonial history with Frontier and Imperial Virginia 1730-1763 that ends with the conclusion of the French and Indian War. “In the Absence of Towns” looks at the frontier of piedmont Southside Virginia. “Gentry and Commonfolk” consider the class relations on the Virginia frontier from 1730 through the Revolution. “Diversity and Accommodation”...
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Tobacco with Slaves in Late Colonial Virginia
We begin our look at the cultivation of tobacco with slaves in Late Colonial Virginia by focusing on the transition from the white indentured cash crop labor force to the hereditary African-descent cultivation of tobacco. “Tobacco and Slaves” studies the formation of the slave-plantation society in the Chesapeake, “Motives of Honor, Pleasure & Profit” explains...
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The Royal Colony in 1600s Virginia
Our second look at the royal colony in 1600s Virginia begins with a look at how the English immigrants in the Chesapeake built their society. “Adapting to a New World” describes the English overseas, “Ann Orthwood’s Bastard” shows how English customary and common law was modified for producer-planter interests, and “The Formation of a Society”...
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