This is the second, expanded edition. Curtis J. Badger's Wilderness Regained award-winning book Salt Tide - Cycles and Currents of Life Along the Coast has become a classic when it comes to exploring the natural history of barrier islands and seaside salt marshes. In it, Badger called the chain of islands that lies along the Virginia coast the last of the coastal wilderness, a landscape as wild and unspoiled as the mountains of the West, or the tundra of Alaska. In Wilderness Regained - The Story of the Virginia Barrier Islands, Badger turns his attention to the human presence on the islands. Although wild and remote today, the islands played a colorful and vibrant role in the history of the Eastern Shore and coastal Virginia for more than three centuries. Wilderness Regained tells the story of the many ways in which human lives touched the islands, and how, ultimately, the islands became protected as one of America's unique coastal preserves. "Along with John S. Wise, Curtis J. Badger is the best prose stylist the Eastern Shore has produced." - Brooks Miles Barnes