Maryland, A Middle Temperament

[An] altogether exemplary history.. In following the middle course, Maryland has chosen the American way; this, it seems to me, is the deepest and most important truth in Robert J. Brugger's thoroughly admirable book.

The most comprehensive and readable history of the Free State ever published. It's absolutely the only account I've ever seen that makes almost all our state history seem important or entertaining or both. It will doubtless be used for generations as the most reliable reference work on its subject.

It is comprehensive in scope yet concise in treatment, scholarly in content yet engaging in prose, cautious in judgement yet adventurous in interpretation. Maryland's historical record has been both controversial and proud; now, in Brugger's volume, its people have a history of that experience of which they can, without controversy, be very proud.

This is the best single-volume history of Maryland in print.

This is wonderful stuff, a whole new way of writing local history.. Here at last is a bridge between the old antiquarian history and the most modern scholarship in a way that is fresh, attractive, and a contribution to understanding.