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These are the works I read to study and learn about the history of Virginia, from the earliest days of colonization into the modern, postbellum era. Collectively, these are a good way of learning about practically every aspect of the Old Dominion over that time period, from managing a plantation and Cavalier culture, to the mechanics of politics in the state and Westward expansion.
In this video, I discuss which ones are best for getting a general history of the state, learning about the development of the Virginia Gentry, understanding plantation life and the economics of the plantations, understanding what set Virginia apart from the rest of the South, and getting into learning about the great men of the state’s history. I’ll also cover which ones are terrible, and should be avoided.
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Note: I am an Amazon affiliate. If you would like to help support the show at no cost to yourself, you can do so by using the link I have attached for each book, if that book is one you would like to read.
A Disease in the Public Mind: A New Understanding of Why We Fought the Civil War By Thomas Fleming, https://amzn.to/4oeeRqs
A “Topping People”: The Rise and Decline of Virginia’s Old Political Elite, 1680-1790 By Emory G. Evans, https://amzn.to/4o7ILN0
Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America By David Hackett Fischer, https://amzn.to/4fHA89R
Behold Virginia: The Fifth Crown By George F. Willison, https://amzn.to/3RZUalS
Colonial Virginia: Its People and Customs By Mary Newton Stanard, https://amzn.to/4e2nT4W
Colonial Virginia, Volume I: The Tidewater Period, 1607-1710 By Richard L. Morton, https://amzn.to/3SjTUy8
Colonial Virginia, Volume II: Westward Expansion and Prelude to Revolution, 1710-1763 By Richard L. Morton, https://amzn.to/3SjTUy8
Economic History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I and II By Philip Alexander Bruce, https://amzn.to/4vsQ4RP
Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815 By Gordon S. Wood, https://amzn.to/4xcNUaO
First Families: The Making of an American Aristocracy By Nathaniel Burt, https://amzn.to/4dWhGaJ
Gentlemen Freeholders: Political Practices in Washington’s Virginia By Charles S. Sydnor, https://amzn.to/4dZsPaZ
George Washington, Entrepreneur: How Our Founding Father’s Private Business Pursuits Changed America and the World By John Berlau, https://amzn.to/4ui7PCq
Lee By Clifford Dowdey, https://amzn.to/4o7H7Lk
Lee Chronicle: Studies of the Early Generations of the Lees of Virginia By Cazenove Gardner Lee, Jr., https://amzn.to/43dYssh
Myths & Realities: Societies of the Colonial South By Carl Bridenbaugh, https://amzn.to/4dMbKlV
Old Virginia: The Pursuit of a Pastoral Ideal by Robert S. Tilton and William M. S. Rasmussen, https://amzn.to/4e2mueG
Patrician and Plebeian in Virginia: Or the Origin and Development of the Social Classes of the Old Dominion By Thomas J. Wertenbaker, https://amzn.to/43efFll
Robert Carter of Nomini Hall: A Virginia Tobacco Planter of the Eighteenth Century By Louis Morton, https://amzn.to/4xmlX0e
Savage Kingdom: The True Story of Jamestown, 1607, and the Settlement of America By Benjamin Woolley, https://amzn.to/43ccJWA
Seat of Empire: The Political Role of Eighteenth-Century Williamsburg By Carl Bridenbaugh, https://amzn.to/4ellGmz
Sir William Berkeley and the Forging of Colonial Virginia By Warren M. Billings, https://amzn.to/49FDqqd
Social Life in Old Virginia Before the War By Thomas Nelson Page, https://amzn.to/4fXkhUn
Social Life of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century By Philip Alexander Bruce, https://amzn.to/4x2jkk5
The Age of Federalism: The Early American Republic, 1788-1800 By Stanley M. Elkins and Eric L. McKitrick, https://amzn.to/3QfnQuR
The Birth of Virginia’s Aristocracy By James C. Thompson II, https://amzn.to/4dZDoun
The British Gentry, the Southern Planter, and the. Northern Family Farmer: Agriculture and Sectional Antagonism in North by James L. Huston, https://amzn.to/4uhZOgx
The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787 By Gordon S. Wood, https://amzn.to/4uVFwLi
The First Gentlemen of Virginia: Intellectual Qualities of the Early Colonial Ruling Class By Louis B. Wright, https://amzn.to/43dW3Oh
The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789 By Robert Middlekauff, https://amzn.to/4uIXcJH
The Golden Age: A Climate for Greatness, Virginia 1732-1775 By Clifford Dowdey, https://amzn.to/4obCIXQ
The Great Plantation: A Profile of Berkeley Hundred and Plantation Virginia from Jamestown to Appomattox by Clifford Dowdey, https://amzn.to/4vkxLy2
The Landed Gentry By Sophy Burnham, https://amzn.to/4vq7Vss
The Lees of Virginia: Biography of a Family By Burton J. Hendrick, https://amzn.to/3RL7nip
The Lees of Virginia: Seven Generations of an American Family By Paul C. Nagel, https://amzn.to/4opLnWN
The Old Dominion: Her Making and Her Manners By Thomas Nelson Page, https://amzn.to/4uNU0wn
The Planters of Colonial Virginia By Thomas J. Wertenbaker, https://amzn.to/4dNhls9
The Radicalism of the American Revolution By Gordon S. Wood, https://amzn.to/43xdklT
The Revolution in Virginia, 1775-1783 By John E. Selby, https://amzn.to/4uer7sa
The Sociology of Colonial Virginia By Morris Talpalar, https://amzn.to/4o8Ny0v
The Soul of a Nation: The Founding of Virginia and the Projection of New England By Matthew Page Andrews, https://amzn.to/4dMwUjV
The Transformation of Virginia, 1740-1790 By Rhys Isaac, https://amzn.to/4e4YZSs
The Virginia Dynasties: The Emergence of “King” Carter and the Golden Age By Clifford Dowdey, https://amzn.to/4o8o2Zm
The Virginia Plutarch, Volumes I and II By Philip Alexander Bruce, https://amzn.to/4uTuAxy
Tobacco Coast: A Maritime History of Chesapeake Bay in the Colonial Era By Arthur Pierce Middleton, https://amzn.to/4dRzKmg
Tobacco Culture: The Mentality of the Great Tidewater Planters on the Eve of Revolution By T. H. Breen,https://amzn.to/43N4FLY
Virginia, 1705-1786: Democracy or Aristocracy? By Robert E. and B. Katherine Brown, https://amzn.to/3S3TLil
Virginia Baron: The Story of Thomas 6th Lord Fairfax By Stuart E. Brown Jr, https://amzn.to/4uVBIK0
Virginia: The English Heritage in America By Parke Rouse, Jr., https://amzn.to/4x4dcrg
Virginia: The New Dominion By Virginius Dabney, https://amzn.to/4vjjSQO
Virginia, The Old Dominion By Matthew Page Andrews, https://amzn.to/4dZmjB3
Virginia Under the Stuarts, 1607-1688 By Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker, https://amzn.to/4o8LPIz
Washington By Douglas Southall Freeman, https://amzn.to/4fY4rJe
