New Dominion - by John G Milliken

About the Book

This book "analyzes the key Virginia elections that shaped the political Virginia of today. Whereas many observers tend to see the rising Blue Virginia to be the result of very recent and rapid demographic changes, the editors and contributors argue that the process of the political transformation of the Commonwealth has its roots in the twentieth centuries' critical elections. As each contributor analyzes significant twentieth-century political moments and elections, with essays building on one another and moving the story forward in chronological order from the 1920s to today, the result is a detailed and comprehensive overview of the Commonwealth's political evolution over the past 100 years"--

Book Synopsis

The New Dominion analyzes six key statewide elections to explore the demographic, cultural, and economic changes that drove the transformation of the state's politics and shaped the political Virginia of today. Countering the common narrative that the shifting politics of Virginia is a recent phenomenon driven by population growth in the urban corridor, the contributors to this volume consider the antecedents to the rise of Virginia as a two-party competitive state in the critical elections of the twentieth century that they profile.

Review Quotes

A timely and important book on Virginia's evolutionary politics. It takes us through the long evolution from machine-controlled, patronage plutocratic government and segregation, through the distinct sorting of Virginia politics into dynamic, organized parties to the subsequent 'modernization' of Virginia politics, including the disruptions caused by the evangelicals on the right and the emergence of both Doug Wilder and also the transformation of Northern Virginia into part of the national Democratic coalition.

--Keith Gaddie, University of Oklahoma, author, with Charles Bullock, of Georgia Politics in a State of Change

Milliken and Rozell have given us a readable book tracing a path through the tumultuous changes that drove the politics of Virginia in the last half of the twentieth century.

--Senator Mark Warner, (D-VA)

Virginia has a long and complicated political history, some of it good, and some of it not so good. Virginia's political evolution, from a solidly blue state that was dominated by political machines like the old Byrd Machine; to a state that was viewed as a reliable Republican stronghold; to a state that is much more competitive than it once was, has been fascinating and instructive to watch. This evolution has been marked at different times by defining statewide political campaigns that reflected where Virginia voters were in terms of their political thought and the issues that were important to them. In their new book, The New Dominion: The Twentieth Century Elections That Shaped Modern Virginia, John Milliken and Mark Rozell, along with their carefully selected guest authors, do a wonderful job discussing the most important political campaigns that helped paint Virginia's political landscape from the rise and fall of the Byrd Organization in the early to mid-1900s to the rise of a competitive Republican Party in the 1990s. If you love Virginia politics, this is a book you will not be able to put down, and who knows, you might just learn something new along the way. I know I did!

--Bill Bolling, former Lieutenant Governor of Virginia

About the Author

John G. Milliken is Senior Fellow in Residence at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. Mark J. Rozell is Dean and the Ruth D. and John T. Hazel Faculty Chair in Public Policy at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University and co-author of The South and the Transformation of US Politics.