Category: Guest Bloggers

Kate Dossett: Women Upstage

Today we welcome a guest post by Kate Dossett, author of Radical Black Theatre in the New Deal, out now from UNC Press. Between 1935 and 1939, the United States government paid out-of-work artists to write, act, and stage theatre as part of the Federal Theatre Project (FTP), a New Deal job relief program. In segregated “Negro Units” set up… Continue Reading Kate Dossett: Women Upstage

Jill D. Snider: A Macro-Micro Approach to Biography

Today we welcome a guest post from Jill D. Snider, author of Lucean Arthur Headen: The Making of a Black Inventor and Entrepreneur, out now from UNC Press. Born in Carthage, North Carolina, Lucean Arthur Headen (1879–1957) grew up amid former slave artisans. Inspired by his grandfather, a wheelwright, and great-uncle, a toolmaker, he dreamed as a child of becoming… Continue Reading Jill D. Snider: A Macro-Micro Approach to Biography

Jessica Ingram: When Justice Will Never Come

Today we welcome a guest post from Jessica Ingram, author of Road Through Midnight: A Civil Rights Memorial, available now from UNC Press. At first glance, Jessica Ingram’s landscape photographs could have been made nearly anywhere in the American South: a fenced-in backyard, a dirt road lined by overgrowth, a field grooved with muddy tire prints. These seemingly ordinary places, however,… Continue Reading Jessica Ingram: When Justice Will Never Come

Kate Dossett: Making Theatre Dangerous Again

Today we welcome a guest post by Kate Dossett, author of Radical Black Theatre in the New Deal, out now from UNC Press. Between 1935 and 1939, the United States government paid out-of-work artists to write, act, and stage theatre as part of the Federal Theatre Project (FTP), a New Deal job relief program. In segregated “Negro Units” set up… Continue Reading Kate Dossett: Making Theatre Dangerous Again

D. H. Dilbeck: Did Union Armies Really Wage a Just War? The Lieber Code and Sherman’s March to the Sea

There are several possible ways to explore how fully the Union army adhered to the Lieber code. But the spirit of the code was perhaps nowhere more fully realized—for good and ill—than in Sherman’s March across Georgia in late 1864. The March, like the code, embodied the spirit of a vigorous (and therefore hopefully short) war that proceeded within certain restraints. Continue Reading D. H. Dilbeck: Did Union Armies Really Wage a Just War? The Lieber Code and Sherman’s March to the Sea

Cynthia A. Kierner: Women and Children First?

Today we welcome a guest post from Cynthia A. Kierner, author of Inventing Disaster: The Culture of Calamity from the Jamestown Colony to the Johnstown Flood, published this month by UNC Press. When hurricanes, earthquakes, wildfires, and other disasters strike, we count our losses, search for causes, commiserate with victims, and initiate relief efforts. Amply illustrated and expansively researched, Inventing… Continue Reading Cynthia A. Kierner: Women and Children First?

Rachel F. Seidman: On the Autumn Equinox, Why Today’s Feminists Give Me Hope

Today we welcome a guest post from Rachel F. Seidman, author of Speaking of Feminism: Today’s Activists on the Past, Present and Future of the U.S. Women’s Movement, published today by UNC Press. From the Women’s Marches to the #MeToo movement, it is clear that feminist activism is still alive and well in the twenty-first century. But how does a new… Continue Reading Rachel F. Seidman: On the Autumn Equinox, Why Today’s Feminists Give Me Hope

Jessica M. Kim: Roads and Walls in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands

Today we welcome a guest post from Jessica M. Kim, author of Imperial Metropolis:  Los Angeles, Mexico, and the Borderlands of American Empire, 1865–1941, published this month by UNC Press. In this compelling narrative of capitalist development and revolutionary response, Jessica M. Kim reexamines the rise of Los Angeles from a small town to a global city against the backdrop… Continue Reading Jessica M. Kim: Roads and Walls in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands

Jessica M. Kim: Why Trump’s Wall Will Fail

Today we welcome a guest post from Jessica M. Kim, author of Imperial Metropolis: Los Angeles, Mexico, and the Borderlands of American Empire, 1865–1941, published this month by UNC Press. In this compelling narrative of capitalist development and revolutionary response, Jessica M. Kim reexamines the rise of Los Angeles from a small town to a global city against the backdrop… Continue Reading Jessica M. Kim: Why Trump’s Wall Will Fail

Author Interview: Eric Muller on “The Terror: Infamy”

Eric Muller, editor of Colors of Confinement: Rare Kodachrome Photographs of Japanese American Incarceration in World War II, offers a historical perspective on the opening episodes of the “The Terror: Infamy,” airing now on AMC. ### Q: What were your general impressions of the second episode of the AMC anthology series, “The Terror: Infamy,” which is set in part in a Japanese… Continue Reading Author Interview: Eric Muller on “The Terror: Infamy”

Made in the USA: The Crisis in Puerto Rico and the Resignation of Governor Ricardo Rosselló

Following the recent unrest in Puerto Rico, today we welcome a guest post from César J. Ayala and Rafael Bernabe, authors of Puerto Rico in the American Century:  A History since 1898. Offering a comprehensive overview of Puerto Rico’s history and evolution since the installation of U.S. rule, Ayala and Bernabe connect the island’s economic, political, cultural, and social past… Continue Reading Made in the USA: The Crisis in Puerto Rico and the Resignation of Governor Ricardo Rosselló

Interview: Candy Gunther Brown: How I Became an Expert Witness on Yoga and Meditation

Today we welcome a guest post from Candy Gunther Brown, author of Debating Yoga and Mindfulness in Public Schools:  Reforming Secular Education or Reestablishing Religion?, just published by UNC Press. Yoga and mindfulness activities, with roots in Asian traditions such as Hinduism or Buddhism, have been brought into growing numbers of public schools since the 1970s. While they are commonly… Continue Reading Interview: Candy Gunther Brown: How I Became an Expert Witness on Yoga and Meditation

Craig Bruce Smith: The Minds and Hearts of the People

Happy Fourth!  Today we welcome a guest post from Craig Bruce Smith, author of American Honor: The Creation of the Nation’s Ideals during the Revolutionary Era. The American Revolution was not only a revolution for liberty and freedom, it was also a revolution of ethics, reshaping what colonial Americans understood as “honor” and “virtue.” As Craig Bruce Smith demonstrates, these… Continue Reading Craig Bruce Smith: The Minds and Hearts of the People

Paul Musselwhite: 1619 – The Origins of America’s Paradox

Today we welcome a guest post from Paul Musselwhite, one of the editors of Virginia 1619:  Slavery and Freedom in the Making of English America, just published by the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, and UNC Press. Virginia 1619 provides an opportunity to reflect on the origins of English colonialism around the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic… Continue Reading Paul Musselwhite: 1619 – The Origins of America’s Paradox

Evan Faulkenbury: What Does Tax Policy Have to Do with the Civil Rights Movement?

Today we welcome a guest post from Evan Faulkenbury, author of Poll Power:  The Voter Education Project and the Movement for the Ballot in the American South, just published by UNC Press. The civil rights movement required money. In the early 1960s, after years of grassroots organizing, civil rights activists convinced nonprofit foundations to donate in support of voter education… Continue Reading Evan Faulkenbury: What Does Tax Policy Have to Do with the Civil Rights Movement?

Author Interview: A Conversation with Samia Serageldin and Lee Smith

Samia Serageldin and Lee Smith are the editors of a new collection of essays just published by UNC Press, Mothers and Strangers: Essays on Motherhood from the New South. In this anthology of creative nonfiction, twenty-eight writers set out to discover what they know, and don’t know, about the person they call Mother. Celebrated writers Lee Smith and Samia Serageldin… Continue Reading Author Interview: A Conversation with Samia Serageldin and Lee Smith

Evan Faulkenbury: Who Deserves Credit for the Voting Rights Act of 1965?

Today we welcome a guest post from Evan Faulkenbury, author of Poll Power:  The Voter Education Project and the Movement for the Ballot in the American South, just published by UNC Press. The civil rights movement required money. In the early 1960s, after years of grassroots organizing, civil rights activists convinced nonprofit foundations to donate in support of voter education… Continue Reading Evan Faulkenbury: Who Deserves Credit for the Voting Rights Act of 1965?

Cheryl Shelton-Roberts: The Geography of Hope: Restoring North Carolina’s Lighthouses

Today we welcome a guest post from Cheryl Shelton-Roberts, co-author with Bruce Roberts, of the revised and expanded edition of North Carolina Lighthouses:  The Stories Behind the Beacons from Cape Fear to Currituck Beach, just published by UNC Press. Of the over four dozen lighthouses that once marked the jagged shoreline of North Carolina, only nine still stand, watching over… Continue Reading Cheryl Shelton-Roberts: The Geography of Hope: Restoring North Carolina’s Lighthouses

Cheryl Shelton-Roberts: North Carolina Lighthouses

Today we welcome a guest post from Cheryl Shelton-Roberts, co-author with Bruce Roberts, of the revised and expanded edition of North Carolina Lighthouses:  The Stories Behind the Beacons from Cape Fear to Currituck Beach, just published by UNC Press. Of the over four dozen lighthouses that once marked the jagged shoreline of North Carolina, only nine still stand, watching over… Continue Reading Cheryl Shelton-Roberts: North Carolina Lighthouses

Author Interview: Lawrence N. Powell on the Power of Historical Memory

Lawrence N. Powell is professor emeritus of history at Tulane University and a founding member of the Louisiana Coalition against Racism and Nazism.  The new Second Edition of his book, Troubled Memory: Anne Levy, the Holocaust, and David Duke’s Louisiana, has just been published by UNC Press. Troubled Memory tells the story of Anne Skorecki Levy, a Holocaust survivor who… Continue Reading Author Interview: Lawrence N. Powell on the Power of Historical Memory