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Charlottesville: An American Story
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About This Book
The events of August 11th and 12th 2017, in which a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville led to the murder of a young woman, are a flashpoint of recent American history. Pulitzer Prize finalist Deborah Baker has written a definitive, dramatic, panoptic, terrifying, and surprising account of what happened.In this major work of social history, Baker focuses on the people of Charlottesville while tracing the paths of the far-right figures who planned and attended the rally. She tells the story of the civic leaders who debated the fate of a statue of Robert E. Lee; the Black clergy, who were divided about how to respond to the gathering threat; the university administrators and police who bungled the city's response; and the activists (including clergy, faculty, and city residents) who saw what was coming and tried to protect their community.Baker also describes a similar event that took place a generation earlier, when a rabble rouser named John Kasper came to Charlottesville with the intention of starting a race war. Kasper was a protégée of famed poet and fascist sympathizer Ezra Pound. The story of Kasper and Pound, as well as of a Charlottesville housewife who crossed Kasper's path, foreshadow what was to come. In Charlottesville, Baker joins these disturbing events to illustrate the fractious history of the United States and agitate the myths that have sustained us as a nation.
Reviews
"A vivid account that capably illuminates the evils half-hidden under a flickering torch ..."
"An in-depth, forensic, and panoramic view of the long road to the Unite the Right rally."
"Baker...devotes much of this book to portraiture of the combatants—arguably too many—but acknowledges being better able to stomach the counterprotesters ..."
"Answers are elusive, but Baker expertly limns prevailing anxieties."
"Brings a historian's insight to bear on a minute-by-minute report of the August 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville."
"One of Charlottesville's most impressive qualities is Baker's subtle insistence on keeping her eye on guns."
"Baker offers hope in the example of those who defended the city."
"Baker's writing style delivers an on-the-ground feel of what it was like in Charlottesville, including a harrowing account of the night torch-wielding white nationalists marched through the University of Virginia's campus."
"But, as described by Baker, the events couldn't be timelier."
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