Posted by
Ellen on
2 September 2010, 9:47 am
We welcome a guest post today from Susan Nance, author of How the Arabian Nights Inspired the American Dream, 1790-1835. Americans have always shown a fascination with the people, customs, and legends of the “East,” such as the stories of the Arabian Nights, the performances of Arab belly dancers and acrobats, the feats of turban-wearing [...] Read more »
Posted by
Ellen on
24 August 2010, 11:24 am
Historian David Cecelski writes about the Beaufort, N.C., menhaden fishing fleet and chanteymen featured in Panel 3 of Colin Quashie’s SERVICE mural. Read more »
Posted by
MHHunt on
19 August 2010, 10:44 am
Barack Obama’s Afghanistan commanders are something else. First, they promoted a highly debatable counter-insurgency strategy. Then, despite the numerous and cogent contemporary critiques, they got the president to buy into their particular brand of wishful thinking, and they got from him the additional troops supposedly needed for success. They have since failed to deliver. There [...] Read more »
Filed under American History, Current Events, Guest Bloggers, Michael H. Hunt, Military History, Military Studies, Politics.
Tagged afghanistan, barack obama, general mcchrystal, general petraeus, hamid karzai, michael mullen, robert gates, vietnam
Posted by
Ellen on
12 August 2010, 9:42 am
We welcome a guest post today from Bernadette McNary-Zak, coeditor of Resurrecting the Brother of Jesus: The James Ossuary Controversy and the Quest for Religious Relics, a collection of essays exploring the circumstances of an archaeological hoax in which a box of skeletal remains was passed off as belonging to James, the brother of Jesus. [...] Read more »
Posted by
MHHunt on
5 August 2010, 10:48 am
Developments over the last month or so have put the U.S. commitment in Afghanistan under a dark cloud. The McChrystal affair and the WikiLeaks revelations are symptomatic of deeper troubles: the rapid bankruptcy of counterinsurgency, a surge in U.S. casualties, the persistently problematic role of Pakistan, the continued immobility of the Karzai regime, the sluggish [...] Read more »
Posted by
Ellen on
2 August 2010, 9:20 am
Today we welcome a guest post from Tiya Miles, author of The House on Diamond Hill: A Cherokee Plantation Story. Last weekend she attended a gathering to celebrate the historic plantation home and held a signing event for her new book. Over the course of her day, past and present were juxtaposed in an experience [...] Read more »
Filed under African American Studies, American History, Genealogy, Guest Bloggers, Native American Studies, Religion, Southern Studies, UNC Press Authors.
Tagged cherokee, georgia, james vann, slavery, tiya miles
Posted by
Ellen on
28 July 2010, 2:38 pm
We welcome a guest post today from Jennifer Brier, author of Infectious Ideas: U.S. Political Responses to the AIDS Crisis. When the Obama administration announced a new HIV/AIDS strategy, we asked Brier to unpack the news and help give historical perspective to the new plan.–ellen Reading President Obama’s new HIV/AIDS strategy, released on July 13, [...] Read more »
Filed under Current Events, Gay / Lesbian Studies, Guest Bloggers, Health / Medicine, Politics, Public Policy.
Tagged aids policy, barack obama, hiv/aids, homophobia, jennifer brier, pepfar, usaid
Posted by
MHHunt on
2 July 2010, 8:59 am
There is good reason to pity the poor historian, who has been tested especially severely during the recent McChrystal-Obama imbroglio as the eruption of historical parallels and lessons have ranged from the wrong-headed to the off-kilter. Read more »
Filed under American History, Current Events, Guest Bloggers, Michael H. Hunt, Military History, Politics.
Tagged afghanistan, general arthur macarthur, general mcchrystal, henry kissinger, korean war, phillippines, vietnam war
Posted by
MHHunt on
9 June 2010, 1:47 pm
In the world of U.S. foreign policy, the release of a new National Security Strategy is a big deal. This congressionally mandated exercise offers an opportunity for the executive to grapple with basic issues, and it may even herald the birth of a “doctrine” (as it did for George W. Bush in 2002). The Obama [...] Read more »
Filed under American History, Current Events, Guest Bloggers, Michael H. Hunt, Politics.
Tagged al qaeda, anti-muslim sentiment, barack obama, bush doctrine, diplomacy, george w. bush, globalization, hamas, hezbullah, hizbullah, islamist, jimmy carter, national security, national security strategy, taliban
Posted by
Alyssa on
27 May 2010, 10:58 am
Alan Jabbour, who authored Decoration Day in the Mountains: Traditions of Cemetery Decoration in the Southern Appalachians with his wife Karen Singer Jabbour, provides some insight to a grassroots ritual that led to the creation of a federal holiday. –alyssa Many rural community cemeteries in western North Carolina hold “decorations.” A decoration is a religious [...] Read more »
Filed under American History, American Studies, Appalachian Studies, Author blog entry, Cultural Studies, Guest Bloggers, North Carolina, Southern Studies, folklore.
Tagged appalachian cemeteries, appalachian culture, appalachian mountain customs, appalachian traditions, blandford cemetery, cemetery decorations, confederate memorial day, decoration day, dinner on the ground, folklorist alan jabbour, fontana lake, general john a. logan, grand army of the republic, great smoky mountains national park, ladies memorial association, mary logan, memorial day, petersburg virginia, union veterans
Posted by
Ellen on
25 May 2010, 8:49 am
We welcome a guest post today from Patrick Cullom, an archivist at Wilson Library on the UNC campus, who has a special connection to the new book by Robert Korstad and James Leloudis, To Right These Wrongs: The North Carolina Fund and the Battle to End Poverty and Inequality in 1960s America.–ellen Last month I [...] Read more »
Filed under American History, Civil Rights, Guest Bloggers, North Carolina, Public Policy.
Tagged billy barnes, billy barnes photo collection, billy ebert barnes, civil rights movement, nathan garrett, North Carolina Fund, patrick cullom, rubye gattis, Terry Sanford, visual materials archivist, william friday, wilson library special collections
Posted by
Ellen on
12 May 2010, 9:42 am
We welcome a guest post today from Lauren Rebecca Sklaroff, author of Black Culture and the New Deal: The Quest for Civil Rights in the Roosevelt Era. In her book, Sklaroff argues that New Deal cultural programs supporting notable black intellectuals, celebrities, and artists (including Lena Horne, Joe Louis, Duke Ellington, and Richard Wright) represent [...] Read more »
Filed under African American Studies, American History, Civil Rights, Film, Guest Bloggers.
Tagged american guide series, betty grable, black actresses, black freedom struggle, black pioneers, cabin in the sky, dorothy dandridge, duke ellington, federal theater project negro units, halle berry, joe louis, lena horne, liberal white americans, negro affairs division of the federal writers' project, new deal cultural programs, racism, richard wright, stormy weather
Posted by
Ellen on
6 May 2010, 10:35 am
The U.K. edition of A Vietnam War Reader: A Documentary History from American and Vietnamese Perspectives hits bookstores across the pond today — just as Britons head to the polls to elect a new Prime Minister. In a previous guest post, editor Michael H. Hunt addressed one of the more striking similarities between the Vietnam [...] Read more »
Filed under American History, Asian Studies, Guest Bloggers, Michael H. Hunt, Military History.
Tagged ho chi minh, john f. kennedy, lbj, le duan, lyndon johnson, mao zedong, north vietnam, Richard Nixon, robert mcnamara, south vietnam, tet offensive, vietnam war, vo nguyen giap
Posted by
Ellen on
30 April 2010, 9:15 am
When we got wind of Michael Steele’s recent comments about the Republican Party continuing a “Southern Strategy” for the past 40 years, we turned to an expert on southern politics for insight into Steele’s allusion to the Nixon-era strategy of racial exclusion. Michael Perman is author of Pursuit of Unity: A Political History of the [...] Read more »
Filed under African American Studies, American History, Civil Rights, Current Events, Guest Bloggers, History, Politics.
Tagged Michael Perman, Political History, Political Science, Pursuit of Unity, Souther Studies
Posted by
Ellen on
29 April 2010, 8:23 am
We welcome a guest post today from Stan Ulanski, author of The Gulf Stream: Tiny Plankton, Giant Bluefin, and the Amazing Story of the Powerful River in the Atlantic. After the deadly explosion on an oil rig off the coast of Louisiana last week, thousands of gallons of oil started pouring into the waters of [...]
Filed under Environmental Studies, Guest Bloggers, Nature, Science.
Tagged biodegradation, crude oil, gulf of mexico, gulf stream, loop current, marine ecosystem, oceanic currents, oceanic organisms, oil slick, oil spill, planktonic organisms, sea wildlife, seawater, straits of florida, tar balls, water contamination
