Climate disruption is often discussed on a global scale, affording many a degree of detachment from what is happening in their own backyards. Yet the consequences of global warming are of an increasingly acute and serious nature. In Virginia Climate Fever, environmental journalist Stephen Nash brings home the threat of climate change to the state of Virginia. Weaving together a compelling mix of data and conversations with both respected scientists and Virginians most immediately at risk from global warming’s effects, the author details how Virginia’s climate has already begun to change. In engaging prose and layman’s terms, Nash argues that alteration in the environment will affect not only the state’s cities but also hundreds of square miles of urban and natural coastal areas, the 60 percent of the state that is forested, the Chesapeake Bay, and the near Atlantic, with accompanying threats such as the potential spread of infectious disease. The narrative offers striking descriptions of the vulnerabilities of the state’s many beautiful natural areas, around which much of its tourism industry is built. While remaining respectful of the controversy around global warming, Nash allows the research to speak for itself. In doing so, he offers a practical approach to and urgent warning about the impending impact of climate change in Virginia.

The modern political landscape of Virginia bears little resemblance to the past. The commonwealth is a nationally influential swing state alongside stalwarts like Florida or Ohio. But with increased power comes greater scrutiny--and corruption. Governor Bob McDonnell received a jail sentence on federal corruption charges, later vacated by the U.S. Supreme Court. Corporate influence on the state legislature and other leaders resulted in numerous ethics violations. Scandal erupted at the prestigious University of Virginia when the school ousted its president amid political drama and intrigue. Author Jeff Thomas reveals the intersection of money, power and politics and the corrosive effect on government in a new era.

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.