Veteran Washington Post reporter and award-winning writer Eugene L. Meyer directs a tour across the "Free State" that is part love letter, part oral history, part obituary. He explores what makes Maryland special, the people who make it unique, and the places and livelihoods that have vanished over the years. The whole of the American experience is found within or close to the state's borders and between the covers of this book-megalopolis, Appalachia, the Chesapeake Bay, the Deep South, the industrial North, rich farmland, a major port, the nation's capital, the primary car and rail routes carrying East Coast interstate traffic. Maryland Lost and Found Again transcends the state to comment on the American landscape.

The Chesapeake Bay is the nation's largest estuary, stretching 185 miles from the Susquehanna River to the Virginia capes, touching more than 8,000 miles of shoreline. This country of mists and tranquil waters harbours a rare abundance of wildlife, as well as the last commercial sailing fleet in the United States-the famous skipjacks, or oyster-dredging boats. The bay and its rivers are home to isolated villages that preserve early colonial dialects; to historic plantations, such as Mount Vernon; and to considerable cities, including Washington, D.C., Baltimore, and Richmond. Beautifully photographed and written, Chesapeake Country tells the story of the bay in all its aspects: its waterscape and wildlife; its delicate ecology; its rich history as the seedbed of American liberty as well as American slavery; and its uncertain present, as the population of watermen who live by crabbing and oystering dwindles, and that of prosperous newcomers seeking a respite from city life grows. This new edition also discusses the future of the bay in the era of climate change and brings us up to date on the places and personalities that make the Chesapeake so unique. For those who live on the bay, Chesapeake Country is a celebration. For those who do not, it is an invitation to explore. And for everyone, it is a journey of discovery.