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May 19, 2011

Guest post: Karey Harwood on Posthumous Reproduction

Today we welcome a guest post from Karey Harwood, author of The Infertility Treadmill: Feminist Ethics, Personal Choice, and the Use of Reproductive Technologies.  Here she ponders the bioethical issues surrounding a couple who want to use frozen sperm from their deceased son and an egg donor to become grandparents.  While the idea of posthumous birth is nothing new, posthumous… Continue Reading Guest post: Karey Harwood on Posthumous Reproduction

Categories Author blog entry/Current Events/Ethics/Guest Bloggers/Health / Medicine/UNC Press Authors
May 12, 2011

Michael H. Hunt: The Bin Laden Killing and American Exceptionalism

To pretend that the U.S. is not caught in the grip of nationalism is to misunderstand ourselves and to open ourselves to the very excesses we condemn in others. Continue Reading Michael H. Hunt: The Bin Laden Killing and American Exceptionalism

Categories American History/Author blog entry/Current Events/Global Studies/Guest Bloggers/History/Political Science
May 5, 2011

Steven I. Levine: Dealing with Osama Bin Laden: A Better Way

Trying Bin Laden in a court of law would have confirmed that we are a nation that seeks to strengthen international law in order to advance peace & security. Continue Reading Steven I. Levine: Dealing with Osama Bin Laden: A Better Way

Categories American History/Author blog entry/Current Events/Guest Bloggers/Law / Legal History/Michael H. Hunt/Military Studies/Political Science
April 21, 2011

Michael Hunt: Questions that the Libya Intervention Begs

It’s ok to feel conflicted over the Libyan intervention. You’re not alone — and you have good reason. The U.S. response to the uprising against the Gaddafi regime raises a welter of issues. Is oil driving decisions? Why the inconsistency if not hypocrisy of acting in Libya but not Gaza? Is Libya just another case of U.S. muscle flexing or… Continue Reading Michael Hunt: Questions that the Libya Intervention Begs

Categories Author blog entry/Columnists/Current Events/Global Studies/Guest Bloggers/Michael H. Hunt/Middle Eastern Studies/Political Science/Politics/UNC Press Authors
April 19, 2011

Interview: Michael Barkun on the Gap between Real and Perceived Terror Threats

Michael Barkun discusses the gap between real and perceived terror threats and the nonrational decision making that has shaped U.S. homeland security policy. Continue Reading Interview: Michael Barkun on the Gap between Real and Perceived Terror Threats

Categories American History/Cultural Studies/Current Events/Global Studies/Interviews/Political Science/Public Policy/UNC Press Authors/UNC Press News
March 28, 2011

Vanessa May: When the Workplace Is Someone Else’s Home

Today we welcome a guest post from Vanessa May, author of Unprotected Labor: Household Workers, Politics, and Middle-Class Reform in New York, 1870-1940 (June 2011). Here she reflects on how some of the recent policies that now protect domestic workers in New York mirror the struggle for rights and reform during the era highlighted in her book.  The passing of… Continue Reading Vanessa May: When the Workplace Is Someone Else’s Home

Categories Author blog entry/Current Events/Gender Studies/Guest Bloggers/Labor Studies/Public Policy/Women's Studies
March 10, 2011

Michael H. Hunt: Caught in Contradictions: The United States and the Middle East

The popular uprisings of the sort now spreading across North Africa to the Persian Gulf were hard to anticipate—but the American response wasn’t. U.S. history is filled with moments like the present one when upheavals abroad generated great hopes for the advance of freedom. Those moments have also evoked deep anxieties rooted in a suspicion that most peoples reaching for… Continue Reading Michael H. Hunt: Caught in Contradictions: The United States and the Middle East

Categories American History/Author blog entry/Current Events/Global Studies/Guest Bloggers/Michael H. Hunt/Middle Eastern Studies/Political Science/Politics
March 3, 2011

Lisa Levenstein on Balancing Budgets and Public Employees

The recent events concerning public sector workers in Wisconsin have brought a great deal of reflecting and attention to the ways in which the government, at both the state and national levels, spends and saves money. UNC Press author Lisa Levenstein, with economics doctoral student Jason Brent, wrote an Op-ed in this past Sunday’s Greensboro News & Record on the… Continue Reading Lisa Levenstein on Balancing Budgets and Public Employees

Categories Current Events/Economics/Labor Studies/Politics/UNC Press Authors
March 1, 2011

Leon Fink: Oceanic Piracy–A War without Nations

In today’s guest post, Leon Fink, author of Sweatshops at Sea: Merchant Seamen in the World’s First Globalized Industry, from 1812 to the Present, reflects on the recent Somali pirate attack on a group of Americans on a private yacht.  With piracy on the rise off the Somali coast, the relationship between commerce, globalization, power, and security becomes problematic.  Fink… Continue Reading Leon Fink: Oceanic Piracy–A War without Nations

Categories Author blog entry/Current Events/Global Studies/Guest Bloggers/Labor Studies/Military History/UNC Press Authors
February 23, 2011

Shawn Smallman on The Concept of Security: The U.S. Drug War, Mexico, and Portugal

We welcome a guest post today from Shawn Smallman, coauthor (with Kimberley Brown) of Introduction to International and Global Studies.  Their new book is a thematic introduction to the intellectual and structural underpinnings of globalization.  Here, Smallman shows how increased regulation and security can actually exacerbate the issues of the international drug war that those measures try to quell. -Alex… Continue Reading Shawn Smallman on The Concept of Security: The U.S. Drug War, Mexico, and Portugal

Categories Author blog entry/Current Events/Global Studies/Guest Bloggers/Health / Medicine/Military Studies/UNC Press Authors
February 21, 2011

Chris Myers Asch on one of George Washington’s greatest contributions

Happy Presidents’ Day everyone! Today’s federal holiday treat is an article at History News Network by author Chris Myers Asch.  He muses on how our first President has saved the United States from needing to overthrow any leaders.  In light of the recent events in Egypt, Asch discusses how stepping down peacefully after two terms (and the eventual passing of… Continue Reading Chris Myers Asch on one of George Washington’s greatest contributions

Categories American History/Current Events/Politics/UNC Press Authors
February 17, 2011

Everything You Need for an African American History Month Reading List

As you probably know, February is African American History Month, when we celebrate the countless contributions of African Americans to our country and recognize the struggles of generations past and present.  Titles that treat the many facets of African American culture and history have always been one of the strongest and most important components of UNC Press’s list.  Here are… Continue Reading Everything You Need for an African American History Month Reading List

Categories African American History/African American Studies/Civil Rights/Civil War/Current Events/Southern Studies
February 4, 2011

Shane Maddock on the Persistent Nuclear Myths of the Cold War

Shane Maddock, author of Nuclear Apartheid: The Quest for American Atomic Supremacy from World War II to the Present blogs for the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations at SHAFR.org. In his most recent post, after the ratification of the New START treaty between the U.S. and Russia, Maddock addresses some Cold War-era myths about American nuclear hegemony that… Continue Reading Shane Maddock on the Persistent Nuclear Myths of the Cold War

Categories American History/Current Events/History/Military History/Political Science
February 1, 2011

Michael Barkun: A New Era of Rational Thinking at DHS?

We present commentary today from Michael Barkun, author of the forthcoming Chasing Phantoms: Reality, Imagination, and Homeland Security Since 9/11 (April 2011). In the book, Barkun demonstrates that U.S. homeland security policy reflects significant nonrational thinking, and he offers new recommendations for effective–and rational–policymaking. In this post, he addresses changes at the Department of Homeland Security since the arrival of… Continue Reading Michael Barkun: A New Era of Rational Thinking at DHS?

Categories Current Events/Guest Bloggers/Political Science/Public Policy
January 26, 2011

Kimberley Brown: Failed States, Global Security, and the Case of Tunisia

We welcome a guest post today from Kimberley Brown, coauthor (with Shawn Smallman) of Introduction to International and Global Studies. Their new book is a thematic introduction to the intellectual and structural underpinnings of globalization. In this post, Brown considers recent events in Tunisia in the context of how Americans are used to thinking about threats to global security.–ellen Students… Continue Reading Kimberley Brown: Failed States, Global Security, and the Case of Tunisia

Categories Current Events/Global Studies/Guest Bloggers/Politics