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.

Ultimately, the book chronicles a dual process of rebirth, as Virginians simultaneously formed a republic and became evangelical Christians.Winner of the Walker Cowen Memorial prize for an outstanding work of scholarship in eighteenth-century studies

In Jefferson and the Virginians, renowned scholar Peter S. Onuf examines the ways in which Thomas Jefferson and his fellow Virginians—George Washington, James Madison, and Patrick Henry—both conceptualized their home state from a political and cultural perspective, and understood its position in the new American union. The conversations Onuf reconstructs offer glimpses into the struggle to define Virginia—and America—within the context of the upheaval of the Revolutionary War. Onuf also demonstrates why Jefferson’s identity as a Virginian obscures more than it illuminates about his ideology and career. Onuf contends that Jefferson and his interlocutors sought to define Virginia’s character as a self-constituted commonwealth and to determine the state’s place in the American union during an era of constitutional change and political polarization. Thus, the outcome of the American Revolution led to ongoing controversies over the identity of Virginians and Americans as a “people” or “peoples”; over Virginia’s boundaries and jurisdiction within the union; and over the system of government in Virginia and for the states collectively. Each debate required a balanced consideration of corporate identity and collective interests, which inevitably raised broader questions about the character of the Articles of Confederation and the newly formed federal union. Onuf’s well-researched study reveals how this indeterminacy demanded definition and, likewise, how the need for definition prompted further controversy.

In the late sixteenth century, the English started expanding westward, establishing control over parts of neighboring Ireland as well as exploring and later colonizing distant North America. Audrey Horning deftly examines the relationship between British colonization efforts in both locales, depicting their close interconnection as fields for colonial experimentation. Focusing on the Ulster Plantation in the north of Ireland and the Jamestown settlement in the Chesapeake, she challenges the notion that Ireland merely served as a testing ground for British expansion into North America. Horning instead analyzes the people, financial networks, and information that circulated through and connected English plantations on either side of the Atlantic. In addition, Horning explores English colonialism from the perspective of the Gaelic Irish and Algonquian societies and traces the political and material impact of contact. The focus on the material culture of both locales yields a textured specificity to the complex relationships between natives and newcomers while exposing the lack of a determining vision or organization in early English colonial projects.

Three remarkable Virginians stand out in their service to the new nation: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison. Kaminski presents a series of biographical portraits that brings these three men remarkably to life for the modern reader.

Tracing a little-known period of colonial history, this book explores the lives of the brave men and women who brought their families west from Virginia to settle the rough frontier. 20 photos. 26 maps.

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.

In the spring of 1861, Virginians confronted destiny—their own and their nation’s. Pivotal decisions awaited about secession, the consequences of which would unfold for a hundred years and more. But few Virginians wanted to decide at all. Instead, they talked, almost interminably. The remarkable record of the Virginia State Convention, edited in a fine modern version in 1965, runs to almost 3,000 pages, some 1.3 million words. Through the diligent efforts of William W. Freehling and Craig M. Simpson, this daunting record has now been made accessible to teachers, students, and general readers. With important contextual contributions—an introduction and commentary, chronology, headnotes, and suggestions for further reading—the essential core of the speeches, and what they signified, is now within reach. This is a collection of speeches by men for whom everything was at risk. Some saw independence and even war as glory; others predicted ruin and devastation. They all offered commentary of lasting interest to anyone concerned about the fate of democracy in crisis.