This volume explores the ironies, contradictions and compromises that give "America's oldest state" its special character. It assesses the state's political, economic, social and cultural heritage and explains its "middle temperament".

Maryland: A Middle Temperament explores the ironies, contradictions, and compromises that give "America's oldest border state" its special character. Extensively illustrated and accompanied by bibliography, maps, charts, and tables, Robert Brugger's vivid account of the state's political, economic, social, and cultural heritage -- from the outfitting of Cecil Calvert's expedition to the opening of Baltimore's Harborplace -- is rich in the issues and personalities that make up Maryland's story and explain its "middle temperament."