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Kenneth E. Koons And Warren R. Hofstra, Eds. ListingsIf you cannot find what you want on this page, then please use our search feature to search all our listings. Click on Title to view full description
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After the Backcountry: Rural Life in the Great Valley of Virginia, 1800–1900
Kenneth E. Koons and Warren R. Hofstra, eds.
Reg. Price: $48.00
2000, 2001; 344 pp., Illustrations, cloth, University of Tennessee Press
Among historians, the Great Valley of Virginia has long attracted attention as a battlefield and site of strategic importance during the Civil War. More recently, scholars have shown increasing interest in its early development during the eighteenth century-the "backcountry" era when white settlers, pursuing property and land, took control of this vital region at the western edges of established English communities. But what of the valley's development after the passing of the frontier? How did it become a significant rural, agrarian, and small-town society of the Upper South? And how did its inhabitants respond to the new conditions unleashed by the Civil War?
Seeking answers to such questions, the contributors to this volume focus on the social, economic, and cultural processes that shaped the lives of ordinary people in the region over the course of the nineteenth century. They look at how these inhabitants secured livelihoods, interacted with one another, and built or transmitted culture. Further, they strive to illuminate the values and mentalities that informed the conduct of these activities.
The first group of essays analyzes economic growth in the valley and the central importance of wheat cultivation. Subsequent essays discuss the landscape and material culture of the region; the key roles within valley society of race, religion, and gender; and, finally, its politics and political culture. An epilogue assesses the current state of historical scholarship about rural areas.
Employing a wide range of sources, disciplinary perspectives, and methodologies, this groundbreaking volume demonstrates the interconnectedness of economic activity, social environment, material life, and cultural fabric in the Valley of Virginia during a critical phase of its development. It thus goes far in remedying a long-term historical neglect.
The Editors: Kenneth E. Koons is professor of history at Virginia Military Institute. He is a contributor to The Encyclopedia of Social History and to the forthcoming collection To Peal This Earth:Historical Archaeology and the War Between the States.
Warren R. Hofstra is professor of American history at the Shenandoah University and editor of George Washington and the Virginia Backcountry. He has contributed articles to the Journal of American History, the Journal of Historical Geography, the Journal of Southern History, and other publications.
The Contributors: Hal S. Barron, David W. Coffey, Ellen Eslinger, Clarence R. Geier, Michael J. Gorman, Warren R. Hofstra, Audrey J. Horning, Tonia Woods Horton, Joan M. Jensen, Kenneth W. Keller, Kenneth E. Koons, Stephen L. Longenecker, Ann E. McCleary, John M. McDaniel, Robert D. Mitchell, Lynn A. Nelson, L. Scott Philyaw, Joseph T. Rainer, Judith Ridner, David A. Rawson, Kurt C. Russ, Katherine T. Wood, J. Susanne Simmons, Nancy T. Sorrells, Katherine T. Wood.
330724
Price:
48.00 USD
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The Planting of New Virginia: Settlement and Landscape in the Shenandoah Valley
Warren R. Hofstra
Reg. Price: $25.00
2005 [2004] 432 pp. 54 illustrations, paper, paperback, Johns Hopkins University Press
In the eighteenth century, Virginia's Shenandoah Valley became a key corridor for America's westward expansion through the Cumberland Gap. Known as "New Virginia," the region west of the Blue Ridge Mountains set off the world of the farmer from that of the planter, grain and livestock production from tobacco culture, and a free labor society from a slave labor society. In The Planting of New Virginia Warren Hofstra offers the first comprehensive geographical history of one of North America's most significant frontier areas. By examining the early landscape history of the Shenandoah Valley in its regional and global context, Hofstra sheds new light on social, economic, political, and intellectual developments that affected both the region and the entire North American Atlantic world.
Paying special attention to the Shenandoah Valley's backcountry frontier culture, Hofstra shows how that culture played a unique role in the territorial struggle between European empires and Native American nations. He weaves together the broad cultural and geographic threads that underlie the story of the valley's place in the early European settlement of eastern North America. He also reveals the distinctive ways in which settlers shaped the valley's geography during the eighteenth century, a pattern that evolved from "discrete open-country neighborhoods" into a complex "town and country settlement" that would come to characterize-and in many ways epitomize-middle America.
An important addition to scholarship of the geography and history of colonial and early America, The Planting of New Virginia , rethinks American history and the evolution of the American landscape in the colonial era.
About Author
Warren R. Hofstra is the Stewart Bell Professor of History at Shenandoah University in Winchester, Virginia.
Reviews
"A thorough, wide-ranging analysis of the complex issues surrounding the white settlement of the Shenandoah Valley."—Thomas J. Humphrey, William and Mary Quarterly
"A welcome addition to the economic and geographic history of the valley, chronicling the area's transformation from an exchange to a market economy."— Choice
"Historians will welcome a new look at the geography and culture of the Shenandoah Valley . . . Hofstra furnishes a scholarly appraisal of how those who stopped short of the Gap and settled in the Valley created a 'New Virginia.' Far different from the planters of Tidewater and the Piedmont, these hardy settlers thrived in their own backwoods culture."—Ann Lloyd Merriman, Richmond Times-Dispatch
"A fascinating picture of the ways in which 18th-century Virginians crafted, controlled, and imagined their landscapes."—Robert G. Parkinson, Virginia Quarterly Review
"This is a must read for anyone looking for information on the Shenandoah Valley during the colonial period."—Katherine Rindt, Potomac Appalachian
" The Planting of New Virginia is the product of years of patient, meticulous research and careful historical interpretation. It represents, in fact, a life's work. One of the most important contributions this book makes to the scholarship of colonial America is the success with which Hofstra places settlement in the Shenandoah Valley, and the communities, cultural landscapes and commercial networks that sprang from it, in the international context of strategic imperial decisions. The result is a richly textured history of the Valley in the eighteenth century that balances the aspirations of individual settlers with the broader imperial concerns of British ministers and colonial governors."—Carter L. Hudgins, Hofer Distinguished Professor of Early American Culture and Historic Preservation at Mary Washington College
"Dense and well-argued . . . Hofstra meticulously matches . . . rural cultural mentalities with the geology and land covers of the Shenandoah subregion."—Jack Temple Kirby, American Historical Review
"Persuasively depicts the evolving landscape and society of Virginia's eighteenth-century Shenandoah Valley . . . Required and pleasurable reading for anyone interested in the development of the early American frontier."—Albert H. Tillson Jr., Journal of Southern History
"At once masterful synthesis and bold exploration . . . a history, not just of 'planting new Virginia,' but of planting . . . new America."—Marion Nelson Winship, Journal of American History
"Hofstra has ably woven together the many strands of the private and business lives of Shenandoah Valley residents during the formative colonial and early national eras . . . Comprehensive and well-written."—Keir B. Sterling, Environmental History
"An important contribution to the growing body of literature on the backcountry . . . The definitive work on the development of the Shenandoah Valley landscape."—Gabrielle M. Lanier, Journal of Social History
"A masterful analysis of the first century of European settlement in the region . . . An impressive body of primary research and historical and geographical literature."—A. Glenn Crothers, Virginia Magazine of History and Biography
"Hofstra is masterful at digging through individuals' records of accounts to try to discover not only how people lived on a daily basis, but to enter into their mentalité."—James Edward Scanlon, Agricultural History
" The Planting of New Virginia is the product of years of patient, meticulous research and careful historical interpretation. It represents, in fact, a life's work . . . [It] places settlement in the Shenandoah Valley and the communities, cultural landscapes and commercial networks that sprang from it, in the international context of strategic imperial decisions."—Carter L. Hudgins, Appalachian Heritage
"This is a must read for anyone looking for information on the Shenandoah Valley during the Colonial Period."—Katherine Rindt, Appalachian Heritage
"Thoroughly researched . . . highly recommended for all scholars interested in the early American backcountry, ethnohistory, environmental history, economic history, and community studies."—L. Scott Philyaw, Journal of Backcountry Studies
"We need a historian and geographer with the attention to detail and erudition Warren Hofstra demonstrates in his fine book."—Gregory Massey, Journal of Backcountry Studies
"Hofstra's is certain to become the definitive work in the field."— Journal of Backcountry Studies
"As is typical of fine scholarship, Hofstra's study opens up a variety of possiblities for further inquiry."—Ellen Holmes Pearson, Journal of Backcountry Studies
882710
Price:
25.00 USD
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