Subject: Daniel M. Friedenberg
Date: Saturday 10 October 2011. 4:40 pm.
To: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history 
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From: Jim Glanville <[log in to unmask]>

List Members:

Sadly, I report the death of Daniel M. Friedenberg on 28 August 2011. 
His obituary is posted at the following link:

http://obits.oregonlive.com/obituaries/oregon/obituary.aspx?n=daniel-m-friedenberg&pid=153593357.

I knew Friedenberg only through his 1993 book "Life, Liberty, and the 
Pursuit of Land: The Plunder of Early America." The following excerpt 
from William Wyckoff's review of that book ("The William and Mary 
Quarterly," Third Series, 50(3): 627-629, 1993" will serve as a 
suitable remembrance for Friedenberg here:

Wyckoff wrote: "As the title suggests, Friedenberg argues that no one 
can understand the evolution of colonial America, the Revolutionary 
War era, or the early national period without heightened appreciation 
for the role land speculation and real estate schemes, both real and 
imagined, played in the process. The result of Friedenberg's effort 
is an impressive, though sometimes single-minded, synthesis that 
sweeps the reader through a dizzying series of land transactions and 
admirably displays the talents of a versatile and engaging scholar. 
Indeed, the volume succeeds in its two principal tasks. It makes 
coherent the complex story of land speculation in America before 
1800, and it offers a plausible case for reinterpreting important 
chapters of the colonial and Revolutionary periods to recognize the 
pivotal role of land hunger in almost every major political conflict 
and decision."

Requiescat in pace Dan Friedenberg.

Jim Glanville
Blacksburg-in-former-Fincastle-County

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