Today, we welcome a guest post from Anthony Chaney, author of Runaway: Gregory Bateson, the Double Bind, and the Rise of Ecological Consciousness, on Steely Dan, Columbia House and the negative-option record club. The anthropologist Gregory Bateson has been called a lost giant of twentieth-century thought. In the years following World War II, Bateson was among the group of mathematicians,… Continue Reading Anthony Chaney: The Royal Scam
On August 4, 2017, workers at Nissan’s assembly plant in Canton, Mississippi, voted to reject representation by the United Auto Workers union. The loss stung, to be sure, but the once-powerful UAW has become accustomed to failure in its efforts to organize auto production facilities operated by foreign companies. Twice previously, in 1989 and 2001, workers rejected the union at Nissan’s plant in Smyrna, Tennessee,—the company’s first North American plant, and only the second Japanese-owned plant in the United States. Continue Reading Andrew C. McKevitt: UAW’s Defeat at Nissan and the Path Forward
In recent years, corporate support of LGBTQ rights is not unusual, but in the 1950s and 1960s, major retailers were often complicit in the systematic anti-homosexual campaigns known as the Lavender Scare, firing gay employees and alienating or even arresting cross-dressing patrons attempting to try on clothing. In most states, wearing clothing “intended for the opposite sex”—even briefly in dressing rooms—meant risking a rap sheet. Commercial support of queer communities came instead from alternative retail sites— such as thrift stores. Goodwill Industries, Salvation Army, and the hundreds of small, locally owned secondhand shops multiplying in the postwar years, became queer shopping havens. Such places did not issue public responses of solidarity with non-normative dressers, but most did extend a sort of benevolent neglect to all customers. With no clerks angling for a commission, and a staff untrained in suggestive retailing, thrift stores were much safer places than Weinstein’s for cross-dressing men and women to try and buy the clothing of their choice. Continue Reading Jennifer Le Zotte: Before Target, There Were Thrift Stores: How Postwar Secondhand Commerce Supported LGBTQ Rights
April 15: yet another occasion to provide your social security number. It’s just one of many numbers we use to identify ourselves, along with those found on our driver’s licenses, passports, and military ID’s. Being a number instead of a name has become a cliché, but the use of such numbers goes beyond reducing personal identity to a set of numerals. It’s part of a larger world of numbering systems that order people and things alike. Continue Reading Tamara Plakins Thornton: The Origins of Our “Numerical Neurosis”: Numbering Systems in American Life
James B. Duke did not wait for markets to emerge to justify massive capital investments in hydropower; he cultivated industrial consumers. Duke’s company, and other companies that followed, had never envisioned providing service to rural or residential customers. Continue Reading Excerpt: Southern Water, Southern Power, by Christopher J. Manganiello
The 5-volume set of ‘A History of the Book in America’ is now available in paperback at a special discounted price. Don’t miss out on this limited-time offer. Buy the set and save big! Continue Reading Save 40% on ‘A History of the Book in America’ 5-volume set
In addition to the book, which is available now in hardcover and ebook, there are online resources for learning more, staying up to date, and continuing the conversation. Visit SavingCommunityJournalism.com to find lessons for publishers and editors, helpful videos, links to social media communities, and blog posts about how to build sustainable community journalism for the 21st century. Continue Reading Introducing: Saving Community Journalism book and website
In the end, it was the federal government that made the difference between bankruptcy and [Detroit] emerging out of the crisis, as Murphy put it, with credit and honor. Throughout the crisis, Murphy practiced his belief that government’s primary responsibility was to serve the social and economic welfare of people, whose basic needs must not be subordinated to corporate America’s agenda. Continue Reading Beth Tompkins Bates: What Happened the Last Time Detroit Faced Bankruptcy
According to Goldstein, the most exciting part is the “opportunity is to reach a much broader audience.” Because his class with Thorp is on innovation, teaching it as a MOOC provides a unique opportunity to marry form and content. “We’re interested in the interactive aspect because innovation and entrepreneurship aren’t passive—they’re active,” he says. “Entrepreneurship is about impact and taking innovative ideas to fruition. The key notion of MOOCs is creating a global reach with an entrepreneurial mindset that allows opportunities in those spaces between innovation and execution that is key to social change.” Continue Reading Innovating with MOOCs
New Fall sale categories: business history and southern history. Throughout the fall, we’re offering 50% off selected titles in the disciplines listed below. Enter 01SALE12 at checkout. Spend $75.00 and the shipping is free. Continue Reading UNC Press Fall Sale: New categories
We have become so used to hearing of regulations–particularly consumer protections like banking rules or the proposed controls on mercury emissions—as threats to prosperity that it has become nearly impossible to imagine these debates in any other way. But in 1940s Los Angeles, controlling air pollution and creating a healthy environment was understood as essential to prosperity, and the business community led the regulatory effort. Continue Reading Sarah S. Elkind: Los Angeles and the History of Air Pollution
Gitterman and Coclanis argue that our leaders must find a way to forge a bipartisan, pro-growth economic agenda and, in order to implement it, embrace creative public-private partnerships of various kinds. Continue Reading New ebook offers blueprint for building a globally competitive South
This week, the Innovate@Carolina series brings some exciting events related to entrepreneurship to UNC. Chancellor Holden Thorp, author (with Buck Goldstein) of Engines of Innovation: The Entrepreneurial University in the Twenty-First Century, is a member of President Obama’s National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Other members of the NACIE will be on hand on Monday and Tuesday to share… Continue Reading Get Innovative at Carolina!
As we celebrate the University of North Carolina’s 217th anniversary on this University Day, chancellor Holden Thorp introduces a new project called “Innovate@Carolina: Important Ideas for a Better World” to lead the university forward. This three-year roadmap, described in detail at innovation.unc.edu, is designed to “build a culture of innovation that permeates every corner of campus, from the chemist in… Continue Reading The University Day Challenge: Innovate!
Rolling off the presses now is a brand new book by UNC Chancellor Holden Thorp and UNC entrepreneur-in-residence Buck Goldstein. In Engines of Innovation: The Entrepreneurial University in the Twenty-First Century, Thorp and Goldstein make the case for the pivotal role of research universities as agents of societal change. They argue that universities must use their vast intellectual and financial… Continue Reading The Chancellor and the Entrepreneur: Joining Forces for the Future
UNC Press recently partnered with the Kenan-Flagler Business School to combine bookselling and leadership training for a group of MBA students. We were delighted by the students’ approaches to the challenge, and of course were thrilled to have a hardcore two-day sales team. One of the participants, Anthony Lewis, describes his experiences in this fantastic guest post. Thanks to Kenan-Flagler… Continue Reading Before You Arrest Us, Would You Care to Buy a Book?!
One of the great things about Citizen Journalism is that all of us can take what we think is a Good Idea and put it out into the blogosphere and see if it takes wings. One such idea was forwarded to me by my wonderful wife with the subject line “now this would be a good blog entry for the… Continue Reading A Stimulus Proposal: Invest in Books
Well, on the news that European governments are jumping in to help their banks continue lending to each other, markets seem to be showing some signs of regaining confidence today. We’ll see how long it holds. For the past couple of weeks — and no doubt for some time still to come — we’ve seen what large scale economic crisis… Continue Reading Books for Understanding the Economic Crisis
As a publisher based in the Triangle area of North Carolina (Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill) we are proud to have a very good working relationship with our local book sellers. An area’s local book sellers are a treasure chest of not only books, but staff who know their titles, authors and subjects. Need a recommendation? Ask someone on the staff of a… Continue Reading “Meet Nancy Olson” on The State of Things
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