Iconic Books From the Past 100 Years: Part 4

Over the past 100 years UNC Press is proud to have published an extensive catalog of award winning and highly praised books. As we celebrate our centennial, we’ve looked back at these prestigious titles to highlight some of our most influential and iconic books. Find the first three installations in our Iconic Books blog series here.

Slave Counterpoint: Black Culture in the Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake and Lowcountry by Philip D. Morgan

1999 Bancroft Prize, Columbia University

A 1998 Choice Outstanding Academic Title

A 1998 New York Times Book Review Notable Book

1999 Library of Virginia Literary Award for Non-fiction

1998 Best Book Award, South Carolina Historical Society

1999 Frank L. and Harriet C. Owsley Award, Southern Historical Association

1998 Albert J. Beveridge Award, American Historical Association

1999 Elliot Rudwick Prize, Organization of American Historians

Captives & Cousins: Slavery, Kinship, and Community in the Southwest Borderlands by James F. Brooks

2003 Bancroft Prize, Columbia University

2003 Honor Book, Caroline Bancroft Western History Prize

2003 W. Turrentine Jackson Prize, Western History Association

2003 Frederick Jackson Turner Award, Organization of American Historians

2003 Francis Parkman Prize, Society of American Historians

Remaking the American Patient: How Madison Avenue and Modern Medicine Turned Patients into Consumers by Nancy Tomes

Bancroft Prize, Columbia University

A 2016 Choice Outstanding Academic Title

“A fluent and immensely readable chronology, minutely referenced, instructive and ruefully entertaining.”—New York Times

“This fascinating book . . . will intrigue health care professionals and policymakers as well as interested lay readers.”—Library Journal, starred review

Illusions of Emancipation: The Pursuit of Freedom and Equality in the Twilight of Slavery by Joseph P. Reidy

Bancroft Prize, Columbia University

2020 John Nau Book Prize in American Civil War Era History, John L. Nau III Center for Civil War History at the University of Virginia

“Reidy’s important book shows that the movement toward freedom was neither linear nor inevitable but was and must be constant. In that, he speaks to not only history but our own day.”—Library Journal

“Reidy peers into the lives of enslaved people during emancipation, paying special attention to their experiences under Confederate authority.”—Choice Reviews

“[A] comprehensive analysis of of the journey from slavery to freedom”—Civil War Times

Black Smoke: African Americans and the United States of Barbecue by Adrian Miller

2022 James Beard Foundation Book Award (Reference, History and Scholarship)

2022 Colorado Book Awards (History)

A Garden and Gun Best Book of 2021

“[Miller] details the history of barbecue back to its Indigenous roots in pre-Columbian days, and recounts how it became part of the culture of enslaved Africans.”—New York Times

“Miller is creating a lexicon to ensure that these Black contributions to American culture can’t be written out of history.”—Washington Post

“Fascinating . . . Sets the record straight on who actually created barbecue.”—Daily Beast

Visit our centennial page for more info about our 100th anniversary.