Real NASCAR: White Lightning, Red Clay, and Big Bill France, by Daniel S. Pierce, is hot off the press and hitting bookstores now. If you’re a racing fan or southern history buff, this book is the can’t-miss backstory behind what has become a billion-dollar industry and one of the most popular spectator sports in America. Pierce writes as a historian… Continue Reading Real NASCAR in Real Time: Dan Pierce is blogging!
We welcome a guest post today from Michael J. Allen, author of Until the Last Man Comes Home: POWs, MIAs, and the Unending Vietnam War. In his book, Allen analyzes the effects that activism by POW and MIA families had on U.S. politics before and after the Vietnam War’s official end. In this post, marking the anniversary of the first… Continue Reading Bringing the War Home: Operation Homecoming and the Unending Vietnam War
UNC Press is excited to now offer some of our best-selling and award-winning Civil War books in easy-to-read, Large-Print format. Set in 16-point type, these books have been designed to make some of our most requested titles accessible to a larger number of readers than ever before. A dozen books are ready now, and more are on the way in… Continue Reading Civil War books now available in Large-Print format
Over at Religion and Ethics Newsweekly, Andrew Finstuen offers a response to the spiritual tones within President Obama’s State of the Union address last night, noting that the president summoned a unifying “civil faith” to lead the country through challenging times. Finstuen is author of Original Sin and Everyday Protestants: The Theology of Reinhold Niebuhr, Billy Graham, and Paul Tillich… Continue Reading Andrew Finstuen on Obama’s Civil Faith
iBook’s bookshelf view (not actual size) Earlier today, Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled his company’s latest creation: the iPad, a half-iPhone/half-laptop device. On the UNC Press Blog, we’ll leave it to the experts to explain most of the bells and whistles, but we’d be remiss if we didn’t take a look at one specific feature included in the completely-touchscreen answer… Continue Reading Digital Publishing: the Evolution and Future of E-Books
Harvey Neptune, author of Caliban and the Yankees: Trinidad and the United States Occupation, offered some background on Haiti for the arts blog at Temple University (where he is an assistant professor of history). I wanted to share some of his comments on the country’s history as well as his challenge for lovers of freedom to help Haiti rebuild–not just… Continue Reading Harvey Neptune on Haiti’s history
When it comes to medical advice, Dr. Nortin M. Hadler is an authority–his books Stabbed in the Back: Confronting Back Pain in an Overtreated Society and Worried Sick: A Prescription for Health in an Overtreated America are go-to guides for those interested in the way medical care works, as well as how it needs to change. Recently, Hadler’s name and… Continue Reading The Doctor Is In: Catching Up with Nortin M. Hadler, M.D.
In this first post of the new year, new decade, as concerns over the nuclear programs of countries such as Iran and North Korea continue to make headlines, we welcome the following commentary from Shane J. Maddock, author of Nuclear Apartheid: The Quest for American Atomic Supremacy from World War II to the Present (forthcoming March 2010). In his book,… Continue Reading The Delicate Art of Nuclear Jujutsu
Today we welcome a guest post from Lee Bernstein, author of America Is the Prison: Arts and Politics in Prison in the 1970s (forthcoming June 2010). In his book, Bernstein explores the forces that sparked a dramatic “prison art renaissance” in the 1970s, when incarcerated people produced powerful works of writing, performance, and visual art. One of the important figures… Continue Reading Miguel Pinero: prisoner, playwright
As global climate talks wrap up in Copenhagen, Denmark, Frank Stasio at WUNC’s State of Things welcomes a couple of guests to talk about a recent report from the National Wildlife Federation that argues that restoring the once vibrant stands of longleaf pine forests could help southern states deal with the effects of global warming. It turns out that the… Continue Reading From Copenhagen to Carolina: Can the longleaf pine make a comeback to combat global warming?
We announced last January that UNC Press was one of four university presses awarded a Mellon grant for a collaborative project to publish books in indigenous studies. As part of the joint project, some of our colleagues have set up a blog for the First Peoples: New Directions in Indigenous Studies series. You can get to know more about the… Continue Reading Reaction to the Cobell Settlement
Hearty congratulations to multiple UNC Press authors who have recently been honored by the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources for their outstanding work in North Carolina history and culture. Anna Hayes was awarded the Ragan Old North State Award for Nonfiction for Without Precedent: The Life of Susie Marshall Sharp. The award is given yearly by the North Carolina… Continue Reading North Carolina Award Winners
Before we close up shop for the Thanksgiving holiday, I wanted to highlight some excellent commentary on President Obama’s impending decision about how to proceed with the war in Afghanistan. The President is scheduled to make an announcement next Tuesday, December 1, about his intentions for America’s next steps. Between now and then, we would do well to consider the… Continue Reading Obama and Afghanistan
We love fan mail here at UNC Press. Who doesn’t, right? Fan mail from kids is extra awesome, though. Here’s something that really made our day recently. Eight-year-old Sydney C., of Asheville, North Carolina, was one of the guests at last month’s Asheville book party (which Rachel has blogged about). Sydney met Press authors Foy Edelman and Bill Ferris as… Continue Reading 8-year-old Fan Gives Molly Whuppie Two Thumbs Up
In the mid-1950s, Septima Poinsette Clark (1898-1987), a former public school teacher, developed a citizenship training program that enabled thousands of African Americans to register to vote and then to link the power of the ballot to concrete strategies for individual and communal empowerment. In Freedom’s Teacher: The Life of Septima Clark, Katherine Mellen Charron demonstrates Clark’s crucial role–and the… Continue Reading Charron Discusses the Life of Septima Clark on the State of Things today
Last night as I was driving home I heard an NPR story about a new album by Loudon Wainwright III called High Wide & Handsome: A Tribute to Charlie Poole. Poole was among those early-twentieth-century musicians from Piedmont North Carolina mill villages whose hillbilly music and tunes from the textile mills helped shape what we now call country music. Wainwright… Continue Reading The Charlie Poole Backstory
Speaking of the State Fair: Monday’s News and Observer highlighted burgeoning interest in canning over the past couple of years. State Fair contest entries of jams, jellies, salsas, chutneys, and an array of other preserved goodies have nearly doubled since 2007. Part of the increasing popularity may be a result of a sagging economy and increased home cooking. I suspect… Continue Reading Canning Time
The call of carnies. The largest pig you’ve ever seen. The cotton candy. The midway. The chocolate-dipped bacon. The rides that click up, up, up, then, suddenly—drop—and the shrieks of the riders as they fall. And up they go again. All the many-colored lights—the fried food—the livestock clucking, hopping, mooing. And the crowds, crowds, crowds on these crisp October nights.… Continue Reading Sweet Carolina and the Sweet State Fair
It’s official! The University of North Carolina Tar Heels kick off their 2009-2010 Men’s Basketball season tonight with the annual “Late Night with Roy” festivities at the Dean E. Smith Center in Chapel Hill. And that means UNC Press is off and running with the publication of One Fantastic Ride: The Inside Story of Carolina Basketball’s 2009 Championship Season! As… Continue Reading Late Night with Roy + One Fantastic Ride = Tar Heel Basketball Heaven
Tom Bowers is author of Making News: One Hundred Years of Journalism and Mass Communication at Carolina, distributed by UNC Press for the School of Journalism and Mass Communication of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In Making News, Bowers relates the story of how the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina… Continue Reading Tom Bowers to speak about the early years of journalism education at UNC
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