Speaking of a new book on Va., in Nov LSU Press will release "Sir William
Berkeley and the Forging of Colonial Virginia," by Warren M. Billings [ISBN
0-8071-3012-5 ].
The publisher includes this info on its website:


Sir William Berkeley (1605–1677) influenced colonial Virginia more than any
other man of his era. An Oxford-educated playwright, soldier, and diplomat,
Berkeley won appointment as governor of Virginia in 1641 after a decade in
the court of King Charles I. Between his arrival in Jamestown the following
year and his death, Berkeley became Virginia’s leading politician and
planter, indelibly stamping his ambitions, accomplishments, and, ultimately,
his failures upon the colony. In a masterly biography, Warren M. Billings
offers the first full-scale treatment of Berkeley’s life, revealing the
extent to which Berkeley shaped early Virginia and linking his career to the
wider context of seventeenth-century Anglo-American history. 

Under Berkeley’s rule, Virginia increased trade with markets in North
America, the West Indies, and Holland. Berkeley’s plantation, Green Spring,
served as a model for Virginia’s planter aristocracy, and his creation of
the General Assembly helped establish the origins of American political
self-rule. But his increasingly questionable policies also precipitated
Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676, which prompted tighter control of Virginia from
London and Berkeley’s return to England in disgrace. 

Despite his central role in the development of Virginia, Berkeley has been
as misunderstood by historians as he was by his contemporaries, his motives
and character a source of contention for three centuries. Deeply informed
and engagingly told, this biography offers the meticulous attention its
remarkable subject has long deserved. 
http://www.lsu.edu/lsupress/catalog/Fall2004/books/Billings_Berkeley.html


John Maass
Department of History
The Ohio State University
106 Dulles Hall
230 W 17th Avenue
Columbus OH 43210
Ph:     614-292-4909
Fax:    614-292-2282
http://people.cohums.ohio-state.edu/maass2/

 

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