How James Madison and the milieu of the Virginia countryside he called home shaped one another

James Madison’s World is a time-lapse of life in two central Virginia counties that captures two centuries of continuity and change. From the time that the first white settlers arrived in the early 1700s to the early 1900s some things—like agricultural cycles and the rhythm of life on the farm—remained essentially unaltered. Others, like the sources of political authority and the abolition of chattel slavery, changed life for residents fundamentally.

Taking Orange and Greene Counties—home to the illustrious Madison family—as his setting, John Schlotterbeck focuses not on the father of the Constitution but rather on the ordinary people who lived before, during, and after he made his mark on US history. In so doing, Schlotterbeck unveils a rich tapestry of women and men, enslavers and the enslaved, laborers and employers, yeomen and gentry, saints and sinners. He describes in vivid detail how they, together, experienced and contested economic, social, political, religious, and cultural change as the country crept toward realizing the democratic promises woven into its founding. Bridging historical periods that most scholars treat in isolation, Schlotterbeck has produced a holistic picture of how a particular place, and its people, navigated the vicissitudes of American history.