Category: History

Reacting to the Past Game Books: Now Available from UNC Press

As previously announced, starting this month UNC Press is proud to be the publisher of Reacting to the Past ™ game books, an award­–winning series of immersive role-playing games that actively engage students in their own learning. Originally developed under the auspices of Barnard College, today they are created and sustained by the Reacting Consortium of colleges and universities. New… Continue Reading Reacting to the Past Game Books: Now Available from UNC Press

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

Toward a Nightmare

The following is a guest blog post by Jeffry D. Wert, author of The Heart of Hell: The Soldiers’ Struggle for Spotsylvania’s Bloody Angle, available now wherever books and ebooks are sold. May 4, 1864, dawned across central Virginia with spring’s promise of life and war’s portent of death. A day in which “all nature seems smiling” had been anticipated for… Continue Reading Toward a Nightmare

2022 Latina/o Studies Association Conference

UNC Press is excited to be exhibiting in-person at the Latina/o Studies Association Conference for the first time! We hope you’ll stop by our booth to say hello to editor Andreina Fernandez and to browse our titles on display. If you can’t join us in-person, you can always stop by our virtual booth! As a leading publisher of American and… Continue Reading 2022 Latina/o Studies Association Conference

A Vision Place of Souls

The following is a guest blog post by Jeffry D. Wert, author of The Heart of Hell: The Soldiers’ Struggle for Spotsylvania’s Bloody Angle, on sale Tuesday, July 12th wherever books and ebooks are sold. It was a cold February afternoon five years ago when I stood inside the Mule Shoe on the battlefield of Spotsylvania Court House in Virginia. Man,… Continue Reading A Vision Place of Souls

All Health Politics is Local

All Health Politics is Local: Community Battles for Medical Care and Environmental Health is officially on sale now wherever books and ebooks are sold. Health is political. It entails fierce battles over the allocation of resources, arguments over the imposition of regulations, and the mediation of dueling public sentiments—all conflicts that are often narrated from a national, top-down view. In All… Continue Reading All Health Politics is Local

Grain and Fire

Rebecca Sharpless’s Grain and Fire: A History of Baking in the American South is on sale this week wherever ebooks and books are sold. Sharpless weaves a brilliant chronicle, vast in perspective and entertaining in detail, revealing how three global food traditions—Indigenous American, European, and African—collided with and merged in the economies, cultures, and foodways of the South to create… Continue Reading Grain and Fire

New in Paperback for Spring 2022

The following titles are all newly available in paperback from your favorite bookseller. And, if purchasing direct from UNC Press, take 40% off during our 100th Anniversary Sale using promo code 01DAH40 at checkout, and ground shipping is free on U.S. orders that are $75+ (also good on any print book, as well as preorders; a few restrictions apply). Stone… Continue Reading New in Paperback for Spring 2022

Celebrate Juneteenth by Reflecting on Enslavement in the American South

Happy Juneteenth(observation day)! As we take today to commemorate the end of slavery in the US, we are sharing an excerpt from Closer to Freedom: Enslaved Women and Everyday Resistance in the Plantation South by Stephanie M. H. Camp. 1 A GEOGRAPHY OF CONTAINMENT The Bondage of Space and Time THE PRINCIPLES OF RESTRAINT At the heart of the process of enslavement was… Continue Reading Celebrate Juneteenth by Reflecting on Enslavement in the American South

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 Southern Association for Women Historians Conference

UNC Press is excited to be exhibiting in-person at the 2022 Southern Association for Women Historians Conference! We hope you’ll stop by our booth to say hello to editor Andrew Winters and to browse our recent titles on display. If you can’t join us in-person, please visit our virtual booth! To browse these titles and more, be sure to stop… Continue Reading 2022 Southern Association for Women Historians Conference

What Ever Happened to Sheppard Mallory, Frank Baker, and James Townsend?

The following is a guest blog post by Elizabeth D. Leonard, author of Benjamin Franklin Butler: A Noisy, Fearless Life. Benjamin Franklin Butler was one of the most important and controversial military and political leaders of the Civil War and Reconstruction eras. Remembered most often for his uncompromising administration of the Federal occupation of New Orleans during the war, Butler reemerges… Continue Reading What Ever Happened to Sheppard Mallory, Frank Baker, and James Townsend?

Let’s Stop Calling Him ‘Beast’

The following is a guest blog post by Elizabeth D. Leonard, author of Benjamin Franklin Butler: A Noisy, Fearless Life. Benjamin Franklin Butler was one of the most important and controversial military and political leaders of the Civil War and Reconstruction eras. Remembered most often for his uncompromising administration of the Federal occupation of New Orleans during the war, Butler reemerges… Continue Reading Let’s Stop Calling Him ‘Beast’

Data Denial and America’s Epistemic Crisis

Guest blog post by Stephen Berry, author of Count the Dead: Coroners, Quants, and the Birth of Death as We Know It. In Count the Dead, Stephen Berry shows how a network of coroners, court officials, and state and federal authorities developed methods to track and reveal patterns of dying. These officials harnessed these records to turn the collective dead… Continue Reading Data Denial and America’s Epistemic Crisis

South Writ Large: Recognizing Lumbee History through Land

Distributed for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Center for the Study of the American South, South Writ Large: Stories from the Global South is an anthology of articles published over the past ten years in the online magazine South Writ Large, featuring personal essays, articles, poetry, and artwork that explores the culture of the U.S. South and its extensive… Continue Reading South Writ Large: Recognizing Lumbee History through Land

Russia’s War in Ukraine Undermines the Real Meaning behind the 9th of May Anniversary Celebrations

Guest blog post by Natalia Telepneva, author of Cold War Liberation: The Soviet Union and the Collapse of the Portuguese Empire in Africa, 1961–1975. We are proud to offer Cold War Liberation in our usual print and ebook formats, plus as an open-access edition available through the Sustainable History Monograph Project. ‘My greatest wish for my children and grandchildren is… Continue Reading Russia’s War in Ukraine Undermines the Real Meaning behind the 9th of May Anniversary Celebrations

Curator Conversations: Berkley Hudson on Mr. Pruitt’s Possum Town

Thanks to Curatorial for allowing us to reblog the following Q&A with Berkley Hudson that originally appeared on their website. Hudson describes how a recent exhibition of O.N. Pruitt’s photography, along with its companion book published by UNC Press in partnership with Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies, O.N. Pruitt’s Possum Town: Photographing Trouble and Resilience in the American South,… Continue Reading Curator Conversations: Berkley Hudson on Mr. Pruitt’s Possum Town

Romare Bearden in the Homeland of His Imagination

Happy publication day to Glenda Gilmore’s Romare Bearden in the Homeland of His Imagination, a Ferris and Ferris Book. Romare Bearden (1911–1988), one of the most prolific, original, and acclaimed American artists of the twentieth century, richly depicted scenes and figures rooted in the American South and the Black experience. Bearden hailed from North Carolina but was forced to relocate to the… Continue Reading Romare Bearden in the Homeland of His Imagination

Glenda Gilmore Discusses “Romare Bearden in the Homeland of His Imagination”

The last of Spring 2022’s UNC-Chapel Hill and UNC Press’s ongoing Off the Shelf speaker series featured Glenda Gilmore discussing her new book, Romare Bearden in the Homeland of His Imagination: An Artist’s Reckoning with the South (on sale May 10, 2022). Watch the archived virtual discussion between Gilmore and Aaron Smithers, UNC-Chapel Hill Special Collections R&IS Librarian: In Romare… Continue Reading Glenda Gilmore Discusses “Romare Bearden in the Homeland of His Imagination”

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