Cradle of America: Four Centuries of Virginia History

Forside
University Press of Kansas, 2007 - 476 sider
Virginia is definitely for lovers—of history!

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." In this first single-authored history of Virginia since the 1970s, Peter Wallenstein traces major themes across four centuries in a brisk narrative that recalls the people and events that have shaped the Old Dominion.

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 Edgar Allan Poe, Carter G. Woodson, and Patsy Cline. Sidebars throughout the book offer further insight, while maps and appendixes of reference data make the volume a complete resource on Virginia's history.

As people in Virginia and elsewhere prepare to observe the 400th anniversary of Jamestown's settlement, Wallenstein's fresh interpretation marks a significant commemoration of that beginning of Virginia—and America—and shows us that the adventure of Virginia has in many ways been the adventure of America.
 

Innhold

1580s1760s
1
How They Catch Fish
11
Jamestown
14
Pocahontas
20
John Farrers map
27
Land and Labor
32
William Byrd II
42
The West
49
Collision of Three Virginias
140
The Virginia and Tennessee Railroad
153
Sam Houston
166
Edmund Ruffin
187
Powhatan Beaty
203
Blanche K Bruce
223
John Mercer Langston
237
1890s1940s
249

George Washingtons map
56
1760s1820s
61
George Mason IV
72
Daniel Morgan
79
Life of George Washingtonthe Farmer
89
Virginia and a New Union
94
James Madison
95
Washingtons second inaugural 1793
104
Mother of Presidents Mother of States
107
Dolley Madison
116
1820s1890s
125
Charles Fenton Mercers plantation Aldie
131
Radford Farm Virginia
256
Ellen Glasgow
272
The Womans Land Army of America
295
19452007
327
Virginia since the 1970s
381
Into Virginias Fifth CenturyControversy
399
Governors of Virginia 17762007
409
Virginia and Presidential Elections 17892004
418
Virginia and the Census Returns 17902000
424
Acknowledgments
443
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Om forfatteren (2007)

Peter Wallenstein is professor of history at Virginia Tech.

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