"Gregg Kimball's American City, Southern Place: A Cultural History of Antebellum Richmond, takes southern urban history to a new level of research and interpretation. Looking at the city from the perspectives of its diverse population, Kimball pieces together a portrait of a city that was distinctly southern, to be sure, yet tied to the broader national and international economies. At the same time, the growing industrial and cosmopolitan nature of both its work force and its middle-class, solidified Richmond's ties with the values of antebellum southern civilization. The work not only presents an excellent analysis of life in antebellum Richmond, but helps us understand the nature of Virginia politics and society after the war. The book also demonstrates the benefits of a collaboration between public history and academic history as Kimball applied many of the sources he had gathered during his long curatorial career, including material resources and prints and photographs, to reconstructing antebellum life."-David Goldfield, Robert Lee Bailey Professor of History, UNC-Charlotte

"Kimball's training and experience as both an academic and public historian combine the former's interpretive insights with the latter's talent for communicating succinctly and clearly with an eye for the relevant detail. A complex picture emerges of a city and a people carefully balancing their economic involvement with a larger urban world and their cultural attachment to Virginia and the South."-David Goldfield, Southern Cultures