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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
"Comprehensively demonstrates how internet hatemongering and gun ubiquity are endangering pluralism, civic participation and good-faith debate ..."
"This stark account of the 2017 white supremacist 'Unite the Right' rally seeks perspective but cannot shake deep feelings of dread ..."
"Church in Charleston, S.C.) and 2020 (the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis) ..."
"A vivid account that capably illuminates the evils half-hidden under a flickering torch ..."
"The result is not merely smart but shattering."
"Brings a historian's insight to bear on a minute-by-minute report of the August 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville."
"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."
"The book's numerous character studies untangle seemingly everything about Charlottesville through the four centuries of its existence ..."
"While Baker ably describes the coalition of white nationalists, neo-Nazis, Klanspeople, and armed militia members who descended on Charlottesville...she is more focused on the city residents who mounted a coordinated response ..."
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