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This is the story of Colonial Virginia in its fullest flowering. From its unique culture to its excellent people, from the glorious Georgian mansions for which it is still remembered to the political leaders its tobacco plantations produced, this is how the special society that grew out of the Virginia Tidewater turned into the cradle of the American Revolution. Particularly, we discuss why the Virginia gentry produced such excellent leaders as it did, and how the culture of leadership and command, when paired with the sense of dignity and refinement for which the classic Virginia Gentlemen were known, created most of America’s greatest heroes and most important leaders.
In this episode, we dive into both those leaders and what enabled them to be such. We uncover the importance of architecture to the Virginia gentry’s social dominance, how leadership was built at the local level and cultivated from the ground up, how the political culture of Virginia’s Golden Age produced the Founders, and how their reliance on depleted soil, London merchants, and British debt became a budding economic crisis for colonial Virginia. But, most of all, we discuss how the civil society of the Golden Age was refined and cultivated, and how that produced the men who led the Revolution and created the Early American Republic.
Listen on YouTube here:
Sources for the Episode
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Sydnor, Charles S.: Gentlemen Freeholders: Political Practices in Washington’s Virginia: https://amzn.to/3R0ujKf
Isaac, Rhys: The Transformation of Virginia, 1740-1790: https://amzn.to/4dEcMiL
Evans, Emory G.: The “Topping People”: The Rise and Decline of Virginia’s Old Political Elite, 1680-1790: https://amzn.to/430Fmpi
Bruce, Philip Alexander: Economic History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century: https://amzn.to/4eEocVF
Wertenbaker, Thomas J.: The Planters of Colonial Virginia, https://amzn.to/4uDFJ4Y
Morton, Richard L.: Colonial Virginia, https://amzn.to/4ua3bqY
Dowdey, Clifford: The Golden Age: A Climate for Greatness, https://amzn.to/4wkvVi7
Stanard, Mary Newton: Colonial Virginia: Its People And Customs, https://amzn.to/4u5X2Mm
Wright, Louis B.: The First Gentlemen of Virginia, https://amzn.to/3PgaHRM
Bridenbaugh, Carl: Seat of Empire, https://amzn.to/42WMhQn
