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January 25, 2011

Michael Hunt: Restrepo: An Oscar for Afghanistan?

Update 4/21/2011:The lamentable news of Tim Hetherington’s death covering the civil conflict in Libya reached us yesterday (20 April 2011). Restrepo is one of this fine and courageous documentarian’s major achievements. His record of what it meant for U.S. soldiers to fight in the Afghan War will stand the test of time.—MHH Ignore all the vacuous policy statements, the bland… Continue Reading Michael Hunt: Restrepo: An Oscar for Afghanistan?

Categories Author blog entry/Columnists/Current Events/Film/Guest Bloggers/Michael H. Hunt/Military History/Military Studies/Political Science/UNC Press Authors
January 13, 2011

Gregory Downs: Jared Lee Loughner, the Personal, and the Political

We welcome a guest post today from Gregory Downs, author of Declarations of Dependence: The Long Reconstruction of Popular Politics in the South, 1861-1908, which we will publish next month. In the book, Downs argues that the Civil War created a seemingly un-American popular politics rooted not in independence but in voluntary claims of dependence. Faced with anarchy during the… Continue Reading Gregory Downs: Jared Lee Loughner, the Personal, and the Political

Categories American History/American Studies/Civil War/Current Events/Guest Bloggers
January 7, 2011

Wikileaks is a gift – but what is it worth?

Think of the Wikileaks’ release of State Department cables as one of your holiday gifts that will keep on giving . . . and giving and giving. Julian Assange and Company got generous just before Thanksgiving. A steady dribble from the quarter-million purloined documents should keep us happily diverted well into the new year and perhaps beyond. But what kind… Continue Reading Wikileaks is a gift – but what is it worth?

Categories Current Events/Guest Bloggers/History/Michael H. Hunt/Political Science
December 13, 2010

Hannah Gill: Durham and the Matricula Consular

We welcome a guest post from Hannah Gill, author of The Latino Migration Experience in North Carolina: New Roots in the Old North State, who updates us on recent political activity regarding the Latino immigrant community in Durham, North Carolina.–ellen <br /> On November 15, 2010, Durham City adopted a resolution supporting recognition of the Matricula Consular card as a… Continue Reading Hannah Gill: Durham and the Matricula Consular

Categories Current Events/Guest Bloggers/Latino Studies/North Carolina/Public Policy
December 3, 2010

Remembering Allan Berube, historian of gays in the military

I currently have a live feed of the Senate Committee Hearing on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell open in another window on what would have been Allan Bérubé’s 64th birthday. Despite wide support of DADT’s repeal by President Obama and other high-ranking officials, Senator McCain and other Republican leaders are challenging any change in the policy before the year’s end, expressing… Continue Reading Remembering Allan Berube, historian of gays in the military

Categories American History/Current Events/Gay / Lesbian Studies/Labor Studies/Military Studies/Politics/UNC Press Authors
November 8, 2010

Marc Stein: Justice Kennedy and the Future of Same-Sex Marriage

We welcome a guest post from Marc Stein, author of Sexual Injustice: Supreme Court Decisions from Griswold to Roe.  Beyond examining liberal rulings that deal with birth control, abortion, interracial marriage, and obscenity, Sexual Injustice also offers an in-depth account of the profoundly conservative ruling on homosexuality in Boutilier. In a guest post last month, he traced gay rights legal… Continue Reading Marc Stein: Justice Kennedy and the Future of Same-Sex Marriage

Categories Author blog entry/Civil Rights/Current Events/Gay / Lesbian Studies/Gender Studies/Guest Bloggers/Law / Legal History/Politics
October 29, 2010

Election 2010: Making the Wars Go Away

Proponents of military force learned from Vietnam that their freedom of action depended on insulating the public from the effects of war. Contractors were an ingenuous solution to the problem of a public squeamish about fighting and killing. Continue Reading Election 2010: Making the Wars Go Away

Categories American History/Current Events/Guest Bloggers/Michael H. Hunt/Military History/Military Studies/Political Science/Public Policy
October 14, 2010

American Democracy and the Challenge of Globalization

The midterm election campaign now approaching the home stretch has brought with it striking but fairly empty calls to action–from the Tea Party frenzy over fiscal virtue to a president exhorting his base with the banal promise of “moving America forward.” But this and all the other lamentable features of our democracy, it is worth stressing, are nothing new. Many… Continue Reading American Democracy and the Challenge of Globalization

Categories American History/Current Events/Economics/Guest Bloggers/Michael H. Hunt/Politics/Public Policy
October 11, 2010

Hannah Gill: Immigrant Youth and the High Stakes of Higher Education

As we celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month, we welcome a guest post from Hannah Gill, author of The Latino Migrant Experience in North Carolina: New Roots in the Old North State. In the book, Gill offers North Carolinians from all walks of life a better understanding of their Latino neighbors, bringing light instead of heat to local and national debates… Continue Reading Hannah Gill: Immigrant Youth and the High Stakes of Higher Education

Categories Civil Rights/Current Events/Guest Bloggers/Latino Studies/North Carolina/Politics
October 7, 2010

Reverby recalls discovery, Hadler puts Guatemala case in context

Earlier this week we posted lots of links to headlines about Susan Reverby’s discovery of U.S. medical experiments on nonconsenting Guatemalans in the 1940s. Today, she wrote in more detail about the discovery of this horrific medical history over at the Hastings Center’s Bioethics Forum: What might have been buried in an historical journal, however, took another step. To make… Continue Reading Reverby recalls discovery, Hadler puts Guatemala case in context

Categories American History/Current Events/Ethics/Health / Medicine/Latin American/Caribbean Hist./Public Policy/Science/UNC Press Authors
September 30, 2010

Katie Bowler on the Need to Respect Books That Other Cultures Value

Continuing our special focus on First Amendment Day today, we welcome the following guest post from someone situated at the intersection of law and literature. Poet Katie Bowler places her own experience with book burning in the context of the history of books as weapons used in attempts to devalue the beliefs of others.–ellen The recent threat by a fringe-element… Continue Reading Katie Bowler on the Need to Respect Books That Other Cultures Value

Categories Current Events/Guest Bloggers/Literature/Politics/Religion
September 27, 2010

Erica Eisdorfer: Reader, Writer, Bookseller, Defender of Your Freedom to Read

As we kick off Banned Books Week, we welcome a guest post today from someone committed to the freedom to read. Erica Eisdorfer is more than just a booklover, she’s a novelist and a bookseller, too, and she’s had first-hand experience on the censorship front.–ellen Banned Books Week 2010 is the 29th annual celebration of our freedom to read. The… Continue Reading Erica Eisdorfer: Reader, Writer, Bookseller, Defender of Your Freedom to Read

Categories Current Events/Guest Bloggers/Literature/Local Indy Booksellers/Politics/Public Policy/The Book Biz
September 24, 2010

Celebrating Banned Books Week 2010

We’re revving our engines in anticipation of Banned Books Week 2010, which starts tomorrow and runs through October 2. Banned Books Week is a weeklong celebration of the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. The project is sponsored by the American Library Association, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, the Association of American Publishers, the… Continue Reading Celebrating Banned Books Week 2010

Categories Current Events/Education/Law / Legal History/Public Policy/The Book Biz/UNC Press News
September 10, 2010

A Middle East Policy in Deep Denial

Denial is a well known defense mechanism that keeps unpleasant realities at bay. U.S. policymakers seem well practiced in this common coping device. Heaven knows they have good reason, no matter which direction of the Middle East they turn. Afghanistan seems right now to occasion the deepest denials because the realities are the grimmest. Two reports by the London-based International… Continue Reading A Middle East Policy in Deep Denial

Categories Current Events/Guest Bloggers/Michael H. Hunt/Middle Eastern Studies/Politics
September 2, 2010

Islamophobia and Our Love of Shopping

We welcome a guest post today from Susan Nance, author of How the Arabian Nights Inspired the American Dream, 1790-1835. Americans have always shown a fascination with the people, customs, and legends of the “East,” such as the stories of the Arabian Nights, the performances of Arab belly dancers and acrobats, the feats of turban-wearing vaudeville magicians, etc. In her… Continue Reading Islamophobia and Our Love of Shopping

Categories American Studies/Current Events/Film/Gender Studies/Guest Bloggers
August 19, 2010

General McChrystal, General Petraeus, and General Confusion

Barack Obama’s Afghanistan commanders are something else. First, they promoted a highly debatable counter-insurgency strategy. Then, despite the numerous and cogent contemporary critiques, they got the president to buy into their particular brand of wishful thinking, and they got from him the additional troops supposedly needed for success. They have since failed to deliver. There are no convincing signs of… Continue Reading General McChrystal, General Petraeus, and General Confusion

Categories American History/Current Events/Guest Bloggers/Michael H. Hunt/Military History/Military Studies/Politics
August 5, 2010

Vietnam War Lessons: Never Too Late to Learn

Developments over the last month or so have put the U.S. commitment in Afghanistan under a dark cloud. The McChrystal affair and the WikiLeaks revelations are symptomatic of deeper troubles: the rapid bankruptcy of counterinsurgency, a surge in U.S. casualties, the persistently problematic role of Pakistan, the continued immobility of the Karzai regime, the sluggish progress in training Afghan forces,… Continue Reading Vietnam War Lessons: Never Too Late to Learn

Categories American History/Current Events/Guest Bloggers/Michael H. Hunt/Military History/Military Studies/Politics
July 28, 2010

Obama’s HIV/AIDS Strategy: Real Change or Pocket Change?

We welcome a guest post today from Jennifer Brier, author of Infectious Ideas: U.S. Political Responses to the AIDS Crisis. When the Obama administration announced a new HIV/AIDS strategy, we asked Brier to unpack the news and help give historical perspective to the new plan.–ellen Reading President Obama’s new HIV/AIDS strategy, released on July 13, 2010, was alternately exciting and… Continue Reading Obama’s HIV/AIDS Strategy: Real Change or Pocket Change?

Categories Current Events/Gay / Lesbian Studies/Guest Bloggers/Health / Medicine/Politics/Public Policy
July 13, 2010

Slavery and the NBA?

I have been frustrated by this week’s back-and-forth between the Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert and civil rights veteran Jesse Jackson. Don’t get me wrong; Dan Gilbert’s letter smacked of grating paternalism; he spoke of James like a petulant child, rather than a man who had more than fulfilled his seven-year contract. His tone was inappropriate and disrespectful. Such a… Continue Reading Slavery and the NBA?

Categories African American Studies/Current Events/Sports
July 2, 2010

The McChrystal Affair: Pity the Poor Historian

There is good reason to pity the poor historian, who has been tested especially severely during the recent McChrystal-Obama imbroglio as the eruption of historical parallels and lessons have ranged from the wrong-headed to the off-kilter. Continue Reading The McChrystal Affair: Pity the Poor Historian

Categories American History/Current Events/Guest Bloggers/Michael H. Hunt/Military History/Politics