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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Jamestown in Virginia 1607-1620s
In this blog we look at the early colony of Virginia in Jamestown, 1607-1620s, the period of struggle resulting in an English template for future colonial success after a succession of near disasters. “A Tale of Two Colonies” looks at the contemporary English colonization efforts in Virginia and Bermuda of the early 1600s. “Pocahontas and...
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Powhatan in Virginia (Tsenacomacoh)
In our first revisit to Early Colonial era 1600-1763, we begin with Powhatan in Virginia part one. The “Powhatan Landscape” describes what would become Virginia from 500 B.C.E. to the early 1600s. “Commoners, Tribute and Chiefs” explains the Algonquin civilization focusing on the Potomac Valley Chicagoan tribe. “Nature and History in the Potomac Country” looks...
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New Dominion in Virginia part two
In the New Dominion Virginia 1970-present part two, we look at four ways the Virginia cultural landscape changed, with the G.I. Bill in “Soldiers to Citizens”, with the growth of suburbia in “Crabgrass Frontier”, with regionalizing by automobile and trucks in “Divided Highways”, and state resource management with “The Oyster Question”. Modern social history is...
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New Dominion in Virginia 1970 to present
We begin our look at the New Dominion in Virginia, 1970-present looking at an overview of politics, society and economy in “The New South, 1945-1980”. “The Dynamic Dominion” describing party realignment and the emergence of a two-party system over the same period, and “Virginia in the Vanguard” brings the story forward 1981-2000. The grassroots foundation...
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Civil Rights in Virginia part three
In our blog for Civil Rights in Virginia part three, we examine the particulars of local and grassroots organization in desegregating Virginia schools in the 1950s and 60s. “Grassroots to the Supreme Court” studies the activists of communities located in Virginia and five other states. The local strategies of the NAACP to implement the Brown...
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Civil Rights in Virginia part two
Civil Rights in Virginia part two features the courts and the Virginians contributing to the civil rights litigation. We begin with an overview, “Making Civil Rights Law” describing the centrality of the NAACPs Legal Defense Fund. “From Jim Crow to Civil Rights” traces Supreme Court Cases from 1900 to 1954 on racial matters that set...
Civil Rights in Virginia part one
We begin our reviews of titles related to Civil Rights in Virginia 1945-1970 with an overview of political conditions in Virginia following World War II. The classic “Southern Politics” studies Virginia along with ten other Southern states, and “Harry Byrd of Virginia” analyses Virginia’s central political figure of the time. “Parting the Waters” analyzes Martin...
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Great Depression and New Deal Virginia part two
Our titles on the Great Depression and New Deal Virginia part two, begin with biographies of two black leaders, “Perils and Prospects” about professor and Baptist pastor Gordon Blaine Hancock, and “Song in a Weary Throat” about professor and Episcopal priest Pauli Murray. The milieu that they worked in for racial advancement is described in...
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Great Depression and New Deal Virginia part one
Our titles for the Great Depression and New Deal period include a comprehensive political, economic and social survey in “Depression and New Deal in Virginia”, which we follow with “Talk About Trouble” presenting the lives of Virginias across a variety of types and conditions during this time. “This Business of Relief” studies Richmond Virginia’s private...
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Civil War Memory, white and black
We look at Civil War memory, white and black, in our Jim Crow Virginia part four. We begin with looking at how differences emerged in shared memories using “Race and Reunion”, “Cities of the Dead” and “Southern Past”. How women in associations and in their published writing of memoirs, novels and histories established the Lost...
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