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February 4, 2019

Gene R. Nichol: Fighting for Literacy in North Carolina

Gene R. Nichol is arguably our state’s leading expert on the subject of poverty. His new book, The Faces of Poverty in North Carolina, reveals the many years of interviews and research he’s done on the subject. Nichol will be interviewed by the best-selling novelist John Grisham at Orange Literacy’s annual fundraiser, Writers for Readers. In today’s post, Nichol discusses… Continue Reading Gene R. Nichol: Fighting for Literacy in North Carolina

Categories Author blog entry/Current Events/Education/North Carolina/Politics/UNC Press Authors/UNC Press News
September 26, 2018

Mary-Elizabeth B. Murphy: Supreme Court Matters

Today we welcome a guest post from Mary-Elizabeth B. Murphy, author of Jim Crow Capital:  Women and Black Freedom Struggles in Washington, D.C., 1920–1945, which UNC Press will publish in November. In her new book, Murphy tells the story of how African American women in D.C. transformed civil rights politics in their freedom struggles between 1920 and 1945. Even though no… Continue Reading Mary-Elizabeth B. Murphy: Supreme Court Matters

Categories African American History/African American Studies/Author blog entry/Current Events/Law / Legal History/Politics/UNC Press Authors/UNC Press News/Women's Studies
July 10, 2018

Nortin M. Hadler, M.D., and Stephen P. Carter, J.D.: Redesigning the American Health Care System

Today we welcome a guest post from Nortin M. Hadler, M.D., and Stephen P. Carter, J.D., authors of a new open-access pamphlet published by UNC Press, Promoting Worker Health:  A New Approach to Employee Benefits in the Twenty-First Century. In this extended essay, the authors introduce a new approach to reforming the American health-care system–a plan they call the Universal… Continue Reading Nortin M. Hadler, M.D., and Stephen P. Carter, J.D.: Redesigning the American Health Care System

Categories Author blog entry/Health / Medicine/Politics/Public Policy/UNC Press Authors/UNC Press News
February 26, 2018

John Weber: Walls and Other Monuments to Failure

Today we welcome a guest post by John Weber, author of From South Texas to the Nation: The Exploitation of Mexican Labor in the Twentieth Century. In the early years of the twentieth century, newcomer farmers and migrant Mexicans forged a new world in South Texas. In just a decade, this vast region, previously considered too isolated and desolate for… Continue Reading John Weber: Walls and Other Monuments to Failure

Categories Author blog entry/Civil Rights/Latino Studies/Politics/UNC Press News
February 23, 2018

Rebecca de Schweinitz: Youth Activism, Yesterday and Today

Today we welcome a guest post from Rebecca de Schweinitz, author of If We Could Change the World: Young People and America’s Long Struggle for Racial Equality. Hers is the first book to connect young people and shifting ideas about children and youth with the black freedom struggle, and in it she explains how popular ideas about youth and young… Continue Reading Rebecca de Schweinitz: Youth Activism, Yesterday and Today

Categories African American Studies/Author blog entry/Civil Rights/Current Events/Politics/UNC Press Authors/UNC Press News
January 17, 2018

Alice Elizabeth Malavasic: The Republic’s Need for Civility

Today we welcome a guest blog post from Alice Elizabeth Malavasic, author of The F Street Mess:  How Southern Senators Rewrote the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Pushing back against the idea that the Slave Power conspiracy was merely an ideological construction, The F Street Mess argues that some southern politicians in the 1850s did indeed hold an inordinate amount of power in… Continue Reading Alice Elizabeth Malavasic: The Republic’s Need for Civility

Categories Author blog entry/Civil War/Politics/UNC Press Authors/UNC Press News
December 21, 2017

Adam I. P. Smith: The Conservatism of Revolution

Today we welcome a guest post from Adam I.P. Smith, author of The Stormy Present:  Conservatism and the Problem of Slavery in Northern Politics, 1846–1865. In The Stormy Present, an engaging and nuanced political history of Northern communities in the Civil War era, Adam I. P. Smith offers a new interpretation of the familiar story of the path to war… Continue Reading Adam I. P. Smith: The Conservatism of Revolution

Categories Author blog entry/Civil War/Politics/UNC Press Authors/UNC Press News
December 5, 2017

Alice Elizabeth Malavasic: The Momentous Issue of Our National Soul

Today we welcome a guest blog post from Alice Elizabeth Malavasic, author of The F Street Mess:  How Southern Senators Rewrote the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Pushing back against the idea that the Slave Power conspiracy was merely an ideological construction, The F Street Mess argues that some southern politicians in the 1850s did indeed hold an inordinate amount of power in… Continue Reading Alice Elizabeth Malavasic: The Momentous Issue of Our National Soul

Categories Civil War/Politics/UNC Press Authors/UNC Press News
November 28, 2017

Michael D. Robinson: Where Was the Political Middle Ground during the Secession Crisis?

Today, we welcome a guest post from Michael D. Robinson, author of A Union Indivisible:  Secession and the Politics of Slavery in the Border South. Many accounts of the secession crisis overlook the sharp political conflict that took place in the Border South states of Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri. In A Union Indivisible, Michael D. Robinson expands the scope… Continue Reading Michael D. Robinson: Where Was the Political Middle Ground during the Secession Crisis?

Categories African American History/African American Studies/Author blog entry/Civil War/Politics/UNC Press Authors/UNC Press News
November 21, 2017

Alice Elizabeth Malavasic: What’s in a Name?

Today we welcome a guest blog post from Alice Elizabeth Malavasic, author of The F Street Mess:  How Southern Senators Rewrote the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Pushing back against the idea that the Slave Power conspiracy was merely an ideological construction, The F Street Mess argues that some southern politicians in the 1850s did indeed hold an inordinate amount of power in… Continue Reading Alice Elizabeth Malavasic: What’s in a Name?

Categories African American History/Author blog entry/Civil War/Current Events/History/Politics/UNC Press Authors/UNC Press News
October 23, 2017

Muriel R. Gillick, M.D.: Happy Birthday, Medicare

Today, we welcome a guest post from Dr. Muriel R. Gillick, author of Old and Sick in America:  The Journey through the Health Care System, on the founding of the national health insurance program we call Medicare. Since the introduction of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965, the American health care system has steadily grown in size and complexity. Old and… Continue Reading Muriel R. Gillick, M.D.: Happy Birthday, Medicare

Categories Health / Medicine/Politics/Public Policy/UNC Press Authors/UNC Press News
October 4, 2017

Stephanie Hinnershitz: Before Loving: How the Naim v. Naim Case Challenges Civil Rights Narratives

Today we welcome a guest blog post from Stephanie Hinnershitz, author of A Different Shade of Justice: Asian American Civil Rights in the South, on the global nature of struggles over civil rights. From the formation of Chinese and Japanese communities in the early twentieth century through Indian hotel owners’ battles against business discrimination in the 1980s and ’90s, Stephanie… Continue Reading Stephanie Hinnershitz: Before Loving: How the Naim v. Naim Case Challenges Civil Rights Narratives

Categories Asian Studies/Author blog entry/Civil Rights/History/Law / Legal History/Politics/Sociology/Southern Studies/UNC Press Authors/UNC Press News
September 29, 2017

John Hayes: On Class, Religion, and Politics

Today we welcome a guest post from John Hayes, author of Hard, Hard Religion:  Interracial Faith in the Poor South, on the history behind the increasing importance of class and religion on today’s American political landscape. In his captivating study of faith and class, John Hayes examines the ways folk religion in the early twentieth century allowed the South’s poor–both… Continue Reading John Hayes: On Class, Religion, and Politics

Categories African American Studies/Current Events/Political Science/Politics/Religion/Southern Studies/UNC Press Authors/UNC Press News
July 27, 2017

Chris Myers Asch & George Derek Musgrove: Chocolate City

Chocolate City: A History of Race and Democracy in the Nation’s Capital by Chris Myers Asch and George Derek Musgrove is the most up-to-date and comprehensive history of race and race-relations in the nation’s capital. Thoroughly researched yet very readable, Chocolate City focuses on African American history, but does not neglect Native American and white components of DC history. Continue Reading Chris Myers Asch & George Derek Musgrove: Chocolate City

Categories African American History/African American Studies/American History/History/Native Amer./Indigenous Studies/Politics/Public Policy
July 25, 2017

Emily Herring Wilson: The Three Graces of Val-Kill

The Three Graces of Val-Kill changes the way we think about Eleanor Roosevelt. Emily Wilson examines what she calls the most formative period in Roosevelt’s life, from 1922 to 1936, when she cultivated an intimate friendship with Marion Dickerman and Nancy Cook, who helped her build a cottage on the Val-Kill Creek in Hyde Park on the Roosevelt family land. Continue Reading Emily Herring Wilson: The Three Graces of Val-Kill

Categories American History/Biography / Autobiography/History/Politics/Women's Studies
July 14, 2017

Sarah S. Elkind: Energy Corporations in Schools: Then and Now

Today, fossil fuel companies have engaged in a similar propaganda war—funding questionable research, donating questionable curriculum to hard-pressed schools, and touting their contributions to the public welfare in advertising campaigns—for similar self-interested reasons. Recent reports out of Oklahoma exposed the oil and gas industry’s science curriculum and the incentives like fully-funded field trips and free supplies and lab equipment. This echoes a similar story about coal-funded classroom materials published and later withdrawn by Scholastic, Inc., in 2009. Continue Reading Sarah S. Elkind: Energy Corporations in Schools: Then and Now

Categories American History/Author blog entry/Education/Guest Bloggers/History/Politics/Public Policy/UNC Press Authors
June 19, 2017

The History of Juneteenth: 5 Facts You Need to Know

Juneteenth is a celebration of the Emancipation Proclamation, given by President Abraham Lincoln, that declared freedom for all slaves in states still in rebellion. Continue Reading The History of Juneteenth: 5 Facts You Need to Know

Categories African American History/African American Studies/Civil Rights/Civil War/Cultural Studies/Current Events/Events/Guest Bloggers/History/Politics/UNC Press Authors
April 20, 2017

Brian Tochterman: Mailer for Mayor of the 51st State

Norman Mailer and Jimmy Breslin are part of a sometimes roving band of supporting characters that populate The Dying City. Mailer plays the role of the contrarian provocateur who challenges the dying city narrative, whether it’s holding up the risky brotherhood of New York City’s various youth gangs as an antidote to the “national disease” of boredom within the pages of Dissent or publishing a large format book on the cultural significance of the 1970s’ most otherwise reviled contemporary art form, spray-paint writing. Breslin, the longtime voice of New York within the pages of various dailies, is perhaps most famously known outside of the city as the epistolary confidant of David Berkowitz, a.k.a. Son of Sam, who addressed a cryptic letter to Breslin, then at the Daily News, during his 1977 killing spree. He also co-authored The Lonely Crimes, “or the crimes you don’t hear about,” series from October 1965 that is examined in my book. Continue Reading Brian Tochterman: Mailer for Mayor of the 51st State

Categories American History/American Studies/Author blog entry/Guest Bloggers/History/Politics/Sociology
April 6, 2017

Julie M. Weise: African Americans and Immigrants’ Rights in the Trump Era

Back in 2008 when Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton vied for the Democratic nomination, the “Will Latinos support a black candidate?” narrative dominated the news cycle. “Many Latinos are not ready for a person of color,” said a young Latina in a typical quote featured by the New York Times. “I don’t think many Latinos will vote for Obama.” Academic social science from new Latino settlement areas in the U.S. South seemingly confirmed the narrative: “Latino Immigrants come to the U.S. with negative stereotypes of black Americans,” declared a Duke research team after conducting a survey in Durham, N.C., in 2003. Yet though Clinton did dominate among Latinos in the 2008 primary, they rallied to Obama’s side once he clinched the nomination, delivering the country’s first black president a historically large margin of Latino votes that November. Continue Reading Julie M. Weise: African Americans and Immigrants’ Rights in the Trump Era

Categories African American Studies/American Studies/Author blog entry/Guest Bloggers/Law / Legal History/Politics/Roundtable
April 3, 2017

Off the Page: Roundtable 1: Immigration

UNC Press is proud to host this first in a series of week-long virtual roundtables, featuring Press authors drawing on their work to address issues of contemporary concern. This week we share five short essays by leading scholars of immigration, including Elliott Young, Deirdre M. Moloney, Mireya Loza, Julie M. Weise, and Erika Lee. Continue Reading Off the Page: Roundtable 1: Immigration

Categories American History/American Studies/Asian Studies/Current Events/History/Latin American/Caribbean Hist./Latino Studies/Law / Legal History/Politics/Roundtable/Sociology