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August 26, 2021

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

Categories American History/American Studies/Gender Studies/Women's Studies
August 20, 2021

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

Categories Africa & African Diaspora/American History/Diplomatic History / International Affairs/European History/History/Latin American/Caribbean Hist./Military History
August 16, 2021

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

Categories American History/Environmental Studies/Guest Bloggers/History/Native Amer./Indigenous Studies/Native American History
August 11, 2021

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

Categories American History/Religion
August 2, 2021

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

Categories African American Studies/American History/History/Political Science
July 30, 2021

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

Categories American History/American Studies/Biography / Autobiography/History
July 27, 2021

The Last News Story of Colonial America

Guest blog post by Robert G. Parkinson, author of Thirteen Clocks: How Race United the Colonies and Made the Declaration of Independence What was the tipping point that pushed Americans into taking the step of declaring their independence? After all, the colonies had been at war with Britain for more than a year by the end of the spring of 1776.… Continue Reading The Last News Story of Colonial America

Categories African American Studies/American History/History/Political Science
July 20, 2021

OTD: Why we should remember July 20, 1775

Guest blog post by Katherine Carté, author of Religion and the American Revolution: An Imperial History John Adams described the American Revolution as a time when “thirteen clocks were made to strike together” when he reflected on the era in 1818. Though he did not say it, if that description could be applied to a single moment, the best candidate… Continue Reading OTD: Why we should remember July 20, 1775

Categories American History/History/Religion
July 6, 2021

Time to Reset Your Syllabi, Vast Early America

Guest blog post by Catherine E. Kelly of the Omohundro Institute I came to the project that would become Thirteen Clocks: How Race United the Colonies and Made the Declaration of Independence the hard way – through the college classroom. Before joining the Omohundro Institute, I taught American history first at Case Western Reserve University and then at the University of Oklahoma.… Continue Reading Time to Reset Your Syllabi, Vast Early America

Categories African American Studies/American History/History/Political Science/Politics
June 30, 2021

Capitalism and Slavery: The Development Of The Negro Slave Trade

For our last bit of JuneTeenth celebration this month, I decided to pull an excerpt from one of the books featured in our two part commemorative JuneTeenth recommended reading list (Part One, Part Two). This excerpt is from Eric Williams and Colin A. Palmer’s Capitalism and Slavery, Third Edition.  The negro slaves were “the strength and sinews of this western world.”… Continue Reading Capitalism and Slavery: The Development Of The Negro Slave Trade

Categories Africa & African Diaspora/African American History/African American Studies/American History/Business/Economics/Latin American/Caribbean Hist.
June 23, 2021

A Volcano in Asheville

Guest blog post by Jonathan Todd Hancock, author of Convulsed States: Earthquakes, Prophecy, and the Remaking of Early America In December 1811, a volcano erupted in Asheville.  An eyewitness named John Edwards reported the disturbing details to the Raleigh newspaper The Star.  After an unusual earthquake, a mountain burned “with great violence,” and cooling lava had dammed up the French Broad River.  The din… Continue Reading A Volcano in Asheville

Categories American History/Environmental Studies/Guest Bloggers/History/Native American History
June 17, 2021

“Religions, Nation States, and Politics in Vast Early America” The Omohundro Institute’s Conversation with Authors Katherine Carté and Julia Gaffield

Watch below as Katherine Carté, author of Religion and the American Revolution: An Imperial History, and Julia Gaffield, author of Haitian Connections in the Atlantic World: Recognition after Revolution, speak with the Omohundro Institute for their latest author conversation. The Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture is the oldest organization in the United States exclusively dedicated to the… Continue Reading “Religions, Nation States, and Politics in Vast Early America” The Omohundro Institute’s Conversation with Authors Katherine Carté and Julia Gaffield

Categories American History/History/Latin American/Caribbean Hist./Religion
May 13, 2021

Redefining The Immigrant South: Indian and Pakistani Immigration to Houston during the Cold War

The following is an excerpt from Uzma Quraishi’s Redefining The Immigrant South: Indian and Pakistani Immigration to Houston during the Cold War, winner of the 2021 Theodore Saloutos Book Prize. Remember to enter promo code 01DAH40 at checkout for 40% off any UNC Press book! In the 1950s, a small number of immigrants and college students from India and Pakistan began arriving… Continue Reading Redefining The Immigrant South: Indian and Pakistani Immigration to Houston during the Cold War

Categories American History/American Studies/Asian Studies/History
April 30, 2021

Jason Berry’s City Of A Million Dreams film premieres at the 2021 Sarasota Film Festival

Author of City of a Million Dreams: A History of New Orleans at Year 300 Jason Berry is premiering his film City Of A Million Dreams, for which he is co-screenwriter, producer, and director, today at the 2021 Sarasota Film Festival. The premiere of Jason Berry’s City of A Million Dreams is virtual, so grab your popcorn and visit this… Continue Reading Jason Berry’s City Of A Million Dreams film premieres at the 2021 Sarasota Film Festival

Categories African American History/African American Studies/American History/American Studies
April 26, 2021

West of Slavery: The Southern Dream of a Transcontinental Empire

Reblogged with permission by ANZASA Online; by Kevin Waite, author of West of Slavery: The Southern Dream of a Transcontinental Empire I was born and raised in California, but it wasn’t until I moved to Pennsylvania to begin my PhD that I learned about the history of slavery in my native state. The subject never came up when I was a student… Continue Reading West of Slavery: The Southern Dream of a Transcontinental Empire

Categories African American History/African American Studies/American History/Civil War/Guest Bloggers/History
April 21, 2021

Florida’s Environmental Issues and the Price of Unchecked Development

Happy Earth Week and #EHW2021! Guest blog post by Jason Vuic, author of The Swamp Peddlers: How Lot Sellers, Land Scammers, and Retirees Built Modern Florida and Transformed the American Dream (available now for preorder, and on sale June 2021) In early April 2021, to honor the U.S. Senate’s “Small Business of the Week,” Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) was in Tampa… Continue Reading Florida’s Environmental Issues and the Price of Unchecked Development

Categories American History/Environmental Studies/Guest Bloggers/Public Policy/Southern Studies
April 7, 2021

Reconstructing the Landscapes of Slavery

Guest post by Dale W. Tomich, co-author of Reconstructing the Landscapes of Slavery: A Visual History of the Plantation in the Nineteenth-Century Atlantic World, on sale April 19, 2021 The terms “plantation” and “plantation landscape” commonly conjure up the image of the Big House of the great planters of the Americas. The Big House is how the plantation was meant… Continue Reading Reconstructing the Landscapes of Slavery

Categories African American History/African American Studies/American History/Guest Bloggers
March 31, 2021

Our Sisters in China Are Free: Mabel Ping-Hua Lee

Bringing our celebration of Women’s History Month on the UNC Press Blog to a close, the following excerpt is taken from Recasting the Vote: How Women of Color Transformed the Suffrage Movement by Cathleen D. Cahill The shadows were just starting to slide across New York’s Washington Square Park on the evening of May 5, 1912, when a company of fifty… Continue Reading Our Sisters in China Are Free: Mabel Ping-Hua Lee

Categories American History/History/Women's Studies
March 19, 2021

Embracing Contradictions: Grace Lee Boggs’s Philosophic Journey and Political Emergence

UNC Press denounces racial terrorism and stands in solidarity with the Asian American and Pacific Islander community. #StopAsianHate The following excerpt is taken from In Love and Struggle: The Revolutionary Lives of James and Grace Lee Boggs by Stephen M. Ward Grace Lee Boggs was both product and producer of an improbable history. “I grew up in New York as… Continue Reading Embracing Contradictions: Grace Lee Boggs’s Philosophic Journey and Political Emergence

Categories American History/Asian Studies/Civil Rights/History
March 18, 2021

The Untold History of Anti-Asian Racism in the United States

UNC Press denounces racial terrorism and stands in solidarity with the Asian American community. #StopAsianHate The following excerpt is taken from Two Faces of Exclusion: The Untold History of Anti-Asian Racism in the United States by Lon Kurashige The 1882 act excluding Chinese laborers from the United States for ten years did more than displace the egalitarian spirit of the Burlingame… Continue Reading The Untold History of Anti-Asian Racism in the United States

Categories American History/Asian Studies/History