Category: American History

2024 American Historical Association Annual Meeting

UNC Press is excited to be exhibiting in-person at the American Historical Association annual meeting! We hope you’ll stop by booth 602/604 to say hello to editor Debbie Gershenowitz and to browse our new titles on display. And be sure to stop by booth 606 to say hello to our publishing partners, the Omohundro Institute. If you can’t join us… Continue Reading 2024 American Historical Association Annual Meeting

Remembering the Arab Scare: America’s Response to the Munich Olympic Attacks 50 Years Later

Fifty years ago, on September 5, 1972, Palestinian nationalist militants from the Black September organization stunned the world with an attack on Israeli athletes at the Olympic Games in Munich, West Germany. Satellite television turned the hostage-taking siege into an international live-action news drama, which reached a bloody climax in the deaths of a police officer, five militants, and all… Continue Reading Remembering the Arab Scare: America’s Response to the Munich Olympic Attacks 50 Years Later

Counterterrorism and Watergate

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the presidency of Richard N. Nixon’s Watergate Scandal. Following is an excerpt taken from the introduction of Daniel S. Chard’s Nixon’s War at Home: The FBI, Leftist Guerrillas, and the Origins of Counterterrorism, which shows how America’s war with domestic guerrillas prompted a host of new policing measures as the FBI revived illegal… Continue Reading Counterterrorism and Watergate

Dismal Freedom—On Sale Now

Dismal Freedom: A History of the Maroons of the Great Dismal Swamp by J. Brent Morris is available now wherever books and ebooks are sold. The massive and foreboding Great Dismal Swamp sprawls over 2,000 square miles and spills over parts of Virginia and North Carolina. From the early seventeenth century, the nearly impassable Dismal frustrated settlement. However, what may… Continue Reading Dismal Freedom—On Sale Now

2022 Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations Conference

UNC Press is excited to be exhibiting both in-person & virtually at SHAFR 2022. If you are at the conference, we hope you’ll stop by our booth to say hello to editor, Debbie Gershenowitz! If you can’t make it in person, you can always browse our virtual booth. To browse these titles and more, be sure to stop by our virtual booth.… Continue Reading 2022 Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations Conference

2022 Society for Military History Annual Meeting

UNC Press is excited to be exhibiting in-person at SMH 2022—we hope you’ll stop by booth 207 and say hello to Debbie Gershenowitz! And if you can’t join us in-person, please visit our virtual booth! Forthcoming The Whartons’ War: The Civil War Correspondence of General Gabriel C. Wharton and Anne Radford Wharton, 1863–1865 Edited by William C. Davis and Sue… Continue Reading 2022 Society for Military History Annual Meeting

In Memoriam: Lindley S. Butler

We are saddened by the news that Lindley S. Butler died April 12, 2022, after a period of declining health. UNC Press was able to provide Butler with advance copies of his final book, A History of North Carolina in the Proprietary Era, 1629-1729 (on sale 5/17/22), in recent weeks, and he was able to celebrate its arrival with his… Continue Reading In Memoriam: Lindley S. Butler

How Civil War Financial Agents Sold the World on the Union

The following is an excerpt taken from Bonds of War: How Civil War Financial Agents Sold the World on the Union by David K. Thomson, which demonstrates how Europe, and ultimately all corners of the globe, grew deeply interdependent on American finance during, and in the immediate aftermath of, the American Civil War.  More than any other financial instrument, the… Continue Reading How Civil War Financial Agents Sold the World on the Union

UNC Libraries Off The Shelf: Author Talk with Anne Gray Fischer

Anne Gray Fischer recently discussed her new book, The Streets Belong to Us: Sex, Race, and Police Power from Segregation to Gentrification, as part of the UNC Libraries-UNC Press author speaker series, Off the Shelf. Watch the archived virtual conversation: Fischer is a historian of the twentieth-century United States. Her research and teaching explores histories of gender, sexuality, and race; law… Continue Reading UNC Libraries Off The Shelf: Author Talk with Anne Gray Fischer

Berkley Hudson discusses “O.N. Pruitt’s Possum Town: Photographing Trouble and Resilience in the American South” at Flyleaf Books

Watch the archived presentation given by Berkeley Hudson on his recently released book published in partnership between Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University and UNC Press, O.N. Pruitt’s Possum Town: Photographing Trouble and Resilience in the American South, held on March 31st, 2022 at Chapel Hill, North Carolina’s Flyleaf Books. The New York Times Book Review proclaimed that “O.N.… Continue Reading Berkley Hudson discusses “O.N. Pruitt’s Possum Town: Photographing Trouble and Resilience in the American South” at Flyleaf Books

2022 Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting

It was so good to be back in-person at OAH 2022! If you missed seeing us in Boston, please visit our virtual booth to browse our recent American history titles, learn more about our great book series, or connect with one of our acquisitions editors. Congratulations to all of our award winners from this weekend! Recasting the Vote: How Women… Continue Reading 2022 Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting

New Editorial Roles for Mark Simpson-Vos and Debbie Gershenowitz

As UNC Press launches its new acquisitions strategy in its centennial year, effective April 1, 2022, two senior members of the Press’s editorial team are taking on new roles to align oversight of key lists with the Press’s strategic priorities. Editorial Director Mark Simpson-Vos will substantially shift his focus, taking over responsibility for the Press’s prestigious list of general-interest and… Continue Reading New Editorial Roles for Mark Simpson-Vos and Debbie Gershenowitz

2022 African American Intellectual History Society Annual Meeting

We hope you’ll visit our virtual booth for the 2022 African American Intellectual History Society annual meeting! There you can browse our new & recent titles on display, learn more about our Justice, Power, and Politics series, and connect with editors Andrew Winters, Brandon Proia, and Debbie Gershenowitz. Our Justice, Power, and Politics series publishes new works that explore questions… Continue Reading 2022 African American Intellectual History Society Annual Meeting

New Orleans, A Resilient People: A Reading List

To help the victims of Hurricane Ida, visit these links to learn more about the local organizations who need your financial support in serving those affected: How to Help Hurricane Ida Victims Right Now Want to donate or volunteer to assist those affected by Hurricane Ida? Here’s how to help If you’ve been keeping up with the national news, you… Continue Reading New Orleans, A Resilient People: A Reading List

A Women’s Equality Day Reading List

Happy Women’s Equality Day 2021! From the 1973 Joint Resolution of the United States Congress: Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That August 26, 1973, is designated as ‘Women’s Equality Day’, and the President is authorized and requested to issue a proclamation in commemoration of thatday in 1920 on which the… Continue Reading A Women’s Equality Day Reading List

Understanding Haiti’s Past: A Reading List

First and foremost, I’d like to say that this post isn’t about painting Haiti as a picture of continued extreme turmoil, trouble and disaster. Haiti has such a beautifully rich and inspiring culture, but has been plagued with fits of corruption, natural disaster and political unrest through the country’s entire existence. Recently, Haiti has been featured in the news more… Continue Reading Understanding Haiti’s Past: A Reading List

An Unexpected Mechanism of Native Dispossession

The following is a guest blog post by Jonathan Todd Hancock, author of Convulsed States: Earthquakes, Prophecy, and the Remaking of Early America. Through varied peoples’ efforts to come to grips with the New Madrid earthquakes, Hancock reframes early nineteenth-century North America as a site where all of its inhabitants wrestled with fundamental human questions amid prophecies, political reinventions, and… Continue Reading An Unexpected Mechanism of Native Dispossession

Revisiting the Aitken Bible

The following is a guest blog post by Katherine Carté, author of Religion and the American Revolution: An Imperial History, published by the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and the University of North Carolina Press. Sweeping and explicitly transatlantic, Religion and the American Revolution demonstrates that if religion helped set the terms through which Anglo-Americans encountered the imperial crisis and… Continue Reading Revisiting the Aitken Bible

The Shot Heard Round The World

The following is a guest blog post by Robert G. Parkinson, author of Thirteen Clocks: How Race United the Colonies and Made the Declaration of Independence, published by the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and the University of North Carolina Press. In Thirteen Clocks, Parkinson argues that patriot leaders used racial prejudices to persuade Americans to declare independence. Sixty… Continue Reading The Shot Heard Round The World

Celebrity and Crazy

The following is a guest blog post by Carolyn Eastman, author of The Strange Genius of Mr. O: The World of the United States’ First Forgotten Celebrity, published by the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and the University of North Carolina Press. The Strange Genius of Mr. O. is the biography of a remarkable performer—a gaunt Scottish… Continue Reading Celebrity and Crazy