Category: History

Five Weekly Reads for Black History Month: New and Noteworthy

Save 40% on all UNC Press books with discount code 01DAH40. Visit the sale page to browse more recommended titles in African American History, or view our full list of books in African American Studies. Chronicling Stankonia: The Rise of the Hip-Hop Southby Regina N. Bradley This vibrant book pulses with the beats of a new American South, probing the ways music,… Continue Reading Five Weekly Reads for Black History Month: New and Noteworthy

The Nation of Islam, Caring for the Black Body, and Vaccine Hesitancy

Guest post (unrolled from a thread that appeared originally on Twitter) by Edward E. Curtis IV, author of Black Muslim Religion in the Nation of Islam, 1960-1975 The history of the Nation of Islam helps to explain why some U.S. African Americans do not want a foreign substance injected in their arms. As COVID Black and others have revealed, the horrible… Continue Reading The Nation of Islam, Caring for the Black Body, and Vaccine Hesitancy

Black Arts, Black Artists, and Black History

Guest post by James Smethurst, author of the forthcoming Behold the Land: The Black Arts Movement in the South. One fascinating and frightening aspect of our current moment in the United States is ways that history has been brought to the fore of contemporary political conversations and policy.  The heated, sweeping, and seemingly endless debates over the 1619 Project and… Continue Reading Black Arts, Black Artists, and Black History

“From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century,” Winner of the Inaugural ASALH Book Prize

The University of North Carolina Press heartily congratulates William A. Darity Jr. and A. Kristen Mullen for the inaugural Association for the Study of African American Life and History’s 2021 Book Prize recognition of From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century. Among its countless, notable accomplishments, the ASALA are the Founders of Black History Month.… Continue Reading “From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century,” Winner of the Inaugural ASALH Book Prize

Celebrating Mary Church Terrell on Douglass Day 2021

Happy Douglass Day! This year, DouglassDay.org has dedicated part of the annual recognition of Frederick Douglass’s adopted February 14th birthday date weekend celebration to recognizing the life and work of Mary Church Terrell. Part of this celebratory weekend has included a virtual group effort to transcribe, read, and teach the papers of Terrell, a pioneering Black activist and leader, in… Continue Reading Celebrating Mary Church Terrell on Douglass Day 2021

The First Reconstruction

The following excerpt is taken from The First Reconstruction: Black Politics in America from the Revolution to the Civil War by Van Gosse, now available from UNC Press. “We are Americans. We were born in no foreign clime.… We have not been brought up under the influence of other, strange, aristocratic, and uncongenial political relations. In this respect, we profess… Continue Reading The First Reconstruction

On the John Hope Franklin Series in African American History and Culture

Guest post by Waldo E. Martin, co-editor (with Patricia A. Sullivan) of the John Hope Franklin Series in African American History and Culture Over two decades ago, when Pat Sullivan and I began talking with editor Lew Bateman about starting a new series at UNC Press that would publish transformative and engaging work in African American History and Culture, we… Continue Reading On the John Hope Franklin Series in African American History and Culture

The Philanthropists Behind Early Black Institutions

Guest post by Tamika Y. Nunley, author of At the Threshold of Liberty: Women, Slavery, and Shifting Identities in Washington, D.C. I remember the day I went into the archives at Howard University where librarians generously gave me access to a lovely rendering of Alethia Browning Tanner, a formerly enslaved woman who earned enough income to purchase her own freedom.… Continue Reading The Philanthropists Behind Early Black Institutions

Five Weekly Reads for Black History Month: Recently Released Highlights

It’s the first day of Black History Month, and over the course of the next four weeks are celebrating books new and old that focus on Black life and culture. For more background on the founding and annual themes of Black History Month, check out the website of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. Today we’re… Continue Reading Five Weekly Reads for Black History Month: Recently Released Highlights

#VirtualAHA: Meet the Acquisitions Editors

Today we welcome a guest post from members of the UNC Press acquisitions editorial team to accompany our 2021 virtual exhibit for the American Historical Association (AHA). Keep reading to see how our editors approach their work with historian authors, and to learn about new and forthcoming history titles from UNC Press. ### Especially in these turbulent times, we are… Continue Reading #VirtualAHA: Meet the Acquisitions Editors

Jack A. Draper III: Pibes and Moleques on the Soccer Field: The Parallel Stories of Maradona and Pelé, Argentina and Brazil

Today we welcome a guest post from Jack A. Draper III, translator of The Black Man in Brazilian Soccer by Mario Filho, out April 2021 from UNC Press. At turns lyrical, ironic, and sympathetic, Mario Filho’s chronicle of “the beautiful game” is a classic of Brazilian sports writing. Filho (1908–1966)—a famous Brazilian journalist after whom Rio’s Maracanã stadium is officially… Continue Reading Jack A. Draper III: Pibes and Moleques on the Soccer Field: The Parallel Stories of Maradona and Pelé, Argentina and Brazil

Douglas Flowe: The Conundrum of Writing About Race and Crime

Today we welcome a guest post from Douglas Flowe, author of Uncontrollable Blackness: African American Men and Criminality in Jim Crow New York, out now from UNC Press. In the wake of emancipation, black men in northern urban centers like New York faced economic isolation, marginalization, and racial violence. In response, some of those men opted to participate in underground… Continue Reading Douglas Flowe: The Conundrum of Writing About Race and Crime

Kelly A. Hammond: Islamophobia in Modern China

Today we welcome a guest post from Kelly A. Hammond, author of China’s Muslims and Japan’s Empire: Centering Islam in World War II, out now from UNC Press. In this transnational history of World War II, Kelly A. Hammond places Sino-Muslims at the center of imperial Japan’s challenges to Chinese nation-building efforts. Revealing the little-known story of Japan’s interest in… Continue Reading Kelly A. Hammond: Islamophobia in Modern China

James Hudnut-Beumler: Will the Pandemic Lead to Catastrophe for Churches?

Today we welcome a guest post from James Hudnut-Beumler, author of In Pursuit of the Almighty’s Dollar: A History of Money and American Protestantism, as well as Strangers and Friends at the Welcome Table: Contemporary Christianities in the American South. In this post, Hudnut-Beumler considers the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on church finances in the 2020 stewardship season and… Continue Reading James Hudnut-Beumler: Will the Pandemic Lead to Catastrophe for Churches?

Maddalena Marinari: Whose Family is Worthy of Reuniting in the United States?

Today we welcome a guest post from Maddalena Marinari, author of Unwanted: Italian and Jewish Mobilization against Restrictive Immigration Laws, 1882-1965, available now from UNC Press. In the late nineteenth century, Italians and Eastern European Jews joined millions of migrants around the globe who left their countries to take advantage of the demand for unskilled labor in rapidly industrializing nations, including… Continue Reading Maddalena Marinari: Whose Family is Worthy of Reuniting in the United States?

Author Interview: David Menconi on Step It Up and Go

In this Q&A, author David Menconi discusses his new book Step It Up and Go: The Story of North Carolina Popular Music, from Blind Boy Fuller and Doc Watson to Nina Simone and Superchunk, out today from UNC Press. This book is a love letter to the artists, scenes, and sounds defining North Carolina’s extraordinary contributions to American popular music.… Continue Reading Author Interview: David Menconi on Step It Up and Go

Ryan Hall: Why Should Americans Bother Learning About Canada?

Today we welcome a guest post from Ryan Hall, author of Beneath the Backbone of the World: Blackfoot People and the North American Borderlands, 1720-1877, out now from UNC Press. For the better part of two centuries, between 1720 and 1877, the Blackfoot (Niitsitapi) people controlled a vast region of what is now the U.S. and Canadian Great Plains. As one… Continue Reading Ryan Hall: Why Should Americans Bother Learning About Canada?

Meet the Editors: A Conversation with Andrew R. Graybill and Benjamin H. Johnson on the David J. Weber Series in the New Borderlands History

We’re pleased to share a Q&A with Andrew R. Graybill and Benjamin H. Johnson, series editors of our David J. Weber Series in the New Borderlands History. This series explores contested boundaries and the intercultural dynamics surrounding them and includes projects in a wide range of time and space within North America and beyond, including Atlantic and Pacific worlds. Series… Continue Reading Meet the Editors: A Conversation with Andrew R. Graybill and Benjamin H. Johnson on the David J. Weber Series in the New Borderlands History

Author Interview: John D. French on Lula and His Politics of Cunning

In this Q&A, John D. French discusses his new book Lula and His Politics of Cunning: From Metalworker to President of Brazil. Known around the world simply as Lula, Luis Inácio Lula da Silva was born in 1945 to illiterate parents who migrated to industrializing São Paulo. He learned to read at ten years of age, left school at fourteen,… Continue Reading Author Interview: John D. French on Lula and His Politics of Cunning

Zachery A. Fry: A Political Scandal in the Union Army

Today we welcome a guest post from Zachery A. Fry, author of A Republic in the Ranks: Loyalty and Dissent in the Army of the Potomac, out now from UNC Press. The Army of the Potomac was a hotbed of political activity during the Civil War. As a source of dissent widely understood as a frustration for Abraham Lincoln, its onetime commander,… Continue Reading Zachery A. Fry: A Political Scandal in the Union Army