A deadly white nationalist rally convulsed a Virginia city in 2017. Deborah Baker's "Charlottesville" comprehensively demonstrates how internet hatemongering and gun ubiquity are endangering pluralism, civic participation and good-faith debate.

Baker, the author of books about Minnesota poet Robert Bly ("Making a Farm"), Britain's erstwhile empire ("The Last Englishmen") and modernist poet Laura Riding ("In Extremis," a Pulitzer Prize finalist), grew up in Virginia. She also went to the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, which touts its scholarly pedigree.

The vile Unite the Right march left her confounded. "What hadn't I understood about the city I was born in?" she writes.

Seeking an answer, Baker obtained transcripts and recordings of public meetings; scrutinized archived soc

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