“[Baker] shows how coordinated resistance against white supremacists both can work and will be required again in the coming years. A vivid account that capably illuminates the evils half-hidden under a flickering torch.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“In Charlottesville, the brilliant biographer Deborah Baker turns her deep understanding of character and her researcher’s eye to her hometown and the horrible events that unfolded there as fascism marched—and murdered—in August 2017. Baker offers us a new way of understanding the threat of the far right by surrounding it, in this heart-stopping and heartbreaking narrative, with a rich and complex story of how the everyday people of a small city fought for justice long before the tiki torches blazed. Charlottesville is essential history, reportage, and maybe how-to for all who care for that struggle.”—Jeff Sharlet, NYT bestselling author of The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War

“No work of nonfiction I have read over the past decade has moved me as much as Charlottesville. Seldom has one place and time come to stand so hauntingly for a country on the precipice of catastrophe. With the precision of a master pointillist painter, Deborah Baker puts human faces on the buried truths that imperil American democracy while also amplifying the unheeded voices of the kind of unsung citizens who may yet save it. A must-read feat of spellbinding storytelling that packs the power of prophetic truth.”—Nancy MacLean, author of Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America

“No one has explained the struggle for contemporary America's soul as masterfully as Deborah Baker does in Charlottesville. Whether she's depicting the battles of ordinary citizens against provocateurs in the street or the pentimento effect of the past in the present, Baker puts her readers right there, on the spot. A family tragedy, a ghost story and a political thriller all at once, this book is a gripping and terrifying portrait of our time.”—Deborah Cohen, author of Last Call at the Hotel Imperial


Praise for Deborah Baker

“[Baker] keeps the big events always in view, dramatizing and humanizing the workings of history…in a way a novelist would—by making it a story of individuals.”—The Wall Street Journal

“Baker writes beautifully, and she’s done ample research….She crafts memorable portraits of dynamic, flawed men and women.”—San Francisco Chronicle