For the bi-centennial year, Norton, a prestigious American publisher, published a new state history of each of the 50 states. They lucked out with West Virginia. John Alexander Williams, a West Virginia native, and - at the time - the Director of the Appalachian Center at Appalachian State University - agreed to do it. The is also the author of the definitive history of the Appalachian region, and, now retired, one of our foremost regional scholars. What is especially great about this book is that each chapter begins with the story of an event that captures what was going on in the state during its era.
New York: Norton, a 1984 reprint of this 1976 release, since 2004 in print from West Virginia University Press, 212 pages with an index