Today, we welcome a guest post from Thomas J. Brown, author of Civil War Canon: Sites of Confederate Memory in South Carolina, just published in paperback by UNC Press. In this expansive history of South Carolina’s commemoration of the Civil War era, Thomas J. Brown uses the lens of place to examine the ways that landmarks of Confederate memory have… Continue Reading Thomas J. Brown: Statue and Statute
Today, we welcome a guest post from M.J. Rymsza-Pawlowska, author of History Comes Alive: Public History and Popular Culture in the 1970s, on our changing ideas about museums. During the 1976 Bicentennial celebration, millions of Americans engaged with the past in brand-new ways. They became absorbed by historical miniseries like Roots, visited museums with new exhibits that immersed them in… Continue Reading M.J. Rymsza-Pawlowska : New Museums and New (Kinds of) Histories
Today, we welcome a guest post from M.J. Rymsza-Pawlowska, author of History Comes Alive: Public History and Popular Culture in the 1970s, on throwback jerseys and limited edition cereal boxes. During the 1976 Bicentennial celebration, millions of Americans engaged with the past in brand-new ways. They became absorbed by historical miniseries like Roots, visited museums with new exhibits that immersed… Continue Reading M.J. Rymsza-Pawlowska: Consuming History
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
Today, we welcome a guest post from Anthony Chaney, author of Runaway: Gregory Bateson, the Double Bind, and the Rise of Ecological Consciousness, who ruminates on nature, evolution, and the mind of movie sharks and dinosaurs. 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… Continue Reading Anthony Chaney: Movie Monsters That Disturb Our Sleep
Today we welcome a guest blog post from Karen R. Roybal, author of Archives of Dispossession: Recovering the Testimonios of Mexican American Herederas, 1848–1960, on the importance of archival research. One method of American territory expansion in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands was the denial of property rights to Mexican landowners, which led to dispossession. Many historical accounts overlook this colonial impact on… Continue Reading Karen R. Roybal: Do You Swear to Tell Nothing but the Truth?
Today we welcome a guest blog post from Andrew C. McKevitt, author of Consuming Japan: Popular Culture and the Globalizing of 1980s, on the popularity and impact of anime and manga in America today. Consuming Japan explores the intense and ultimately fleeting moment in 1980s America when the future looked Japanese. Would Japan’s remarkable post–World War II economic success enable the East Asian… Continue Reading Andrew C. McKevitt: Globalization’s Heroes in the Age of Trumpism
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
Judy Kutulas, author of After Aquarius Dawned: How the Revolutions of the Sixties Became the Popular Culture of the Seventies, talks to UNC Press Publicity Director Gina Mahalek about making sense of the “me decade” and whether man buns are here to stay. Continue Reading Interview: Judy Kutulas on the “Me Decade” and Man Buns
Happy Summer! In honor of the summer solstice, we’re posting our suggestions for your summer reading list. If you’re planning a fun tropical vacation or just heading to your neighborhood pool, UNC Press has your perfect summer read. Pick up a fun guidebook or new biography, and don’t forget about our 40% sale! Continue Reading UNC Press Summer Reading List
As I argue in The Dying City this was a fantasy universe with critical consequences for the real world. Normalizing the vigilante was one key contingency of Spillane’s bestselling writing. Hammer was by no means the first, he’s preceded in time and succeeded in fame by Batman among others, but he did demonstrate that the vigilante no longer had to hide behind a mask or escape into a cave. He could operate in public, carry a private detective’s shield and a licensed gun and kill suspected criminals because “I like to shoot those dirty bastards.” In my book I connect Hammer with his filmic counterparts in 1970s New York, in particular Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson) of Death Wish, and their unfortunate 1980s analogues like Bernard Goetz, the so-called subway vigilante, or the teenage terrorists of Howard Beach, Queens. Continue Reading Brian L. Tochterman: Birth of a Vigilante
Criticism and embrace of identity terms like “Hispanic” and “Latino/a” have been longstanding in the field of Latino/a Studies. Puerto Ricans, Flores argued, share more in common with African Americans than with other Latino/a groups. He contended that Puerto Ricans and African Americans experience similar forms of racial and ethnic subordination in the United States because of parallels in their location in urban areas, their socioeconomic status, and their position as colonized subjects of the same nation-state. Continue Reading Christina D. Abreu: In Honor of Professor Juan Flores
At the turn of the 20th century, roads dominated everyday life. They determined where people could and could not travel, as well as whether or not other people, goods, services and even ideas could reach them. Roads dominated conversations around the ballot box and the dinner table, but good roads eluded most Americans and virtually all Southerners Continue Reading Tammy Ingram on the Importance of Roads and the Foundation of the Dixie Highway
Poet, playwright, and political activist Amiri Baraka passed away last Thursday at the age of 79. As one of the most significant black literary voices of his time, Baraka helped shape the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. His book Blues People: Negro Music in White America, is highly remembered as a classic chronicle on the role of jazz and the blues in American culture. Komozi Woodard, author of A Nation within a Nation: Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones) and Black Power Politics, spoke on a panel about Amiri Baraka’s legacy on Democracy Now. Continue Reading Video: Komozi Woodard on the Legacy of Amiri Baraka
We are honored and delighted to share the news of some of our most recent award-winning books. Hope you’ll join us in congratulating these fine authors. And you may want to consider using some of these books in your classroom or kitchen. Click the cover images or book titles to go to the book page on the UNC Press website,… Continue Reading Award-winning books from UNC Press (updated)
Today marks the 70th anniversary of Casablanca’s world premier on November 26, 1942. In the following post, M. Todd Bennett, author of One World, Big Screen: Hollywood, the Allies, and World War II, reveals what fans may not know about the movie, widely considered among the best ever made. Continue Reading M. Todd Bennett: How and Why Humphrey Bogart, in Casablanca, Taught American Moviegoers to Risk Their Necks for Others’ Well-Being
Early-twentieth-century black radicals were witness to a world that they believed teetered between revolution and repression, self-determination and ever-expanding empires. In the wake of a destructive world war that itself proved the catalyst for the movement of black laborers into cities and countries around the world, the growing crisis over the European colonial presence around the globe, and the rise of socialist and communist alternatives to Western democracy, black radicals sought alternative forms of political activism and began to forge links to other African diasporic radicals. Continue Reading Excerpt: In the Cause of Freedom, by Minkah Makalani
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