Today we welcome a guest post from Lee Bernstein, author of America Is the Prison: Arts and Politics in Prison in the 1970s (forthcoming June 2010). In his book, Bernstein explores the forces that sparked a dramatic “prison art renaissance” in the 1970s, when incarcerated people produced powerful works of writing, performance, and visual art. One of the important figures… Continue Reading Miguel Pinero: prisoner, playwright
We announced last January that UNC Press was one of four university presses awarded a Mellon grant for a collaborative project to publish books in indigenous studies. As part of the joint project, some of our colleagues have set up a blog for the First Peoples: New Directions in Indigenous Studies series. You can get to know more about the… Continue Reading Reaction to the Cobell Settlement
Hearty congratulations to multiple UNC Press authors who have recently been honored by the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources for their outstanding work in North Carolina history and culture. Anna Hayes was awarded the Ragan Old North State Award for Nonfiction for Without Precedent: The Life of Susie Marshall Sharp. The award is given yearly by the North Carolina… Continue Reading North Carolina Award Winners
In a follow-up to his article on Obama and Afghanistan, Michael Hunt responds to President Obama’s speech at West Point last night, in which the President laid out his plan for additional troops and a timeline for withdrawal.–ellen [author photo by Dan Sears] Barack Obama has an impressive intellect, and he has given the decision on Afghanistan policy the careful,… Continue Reading Obama Pronounces on Afghanistan: Deja Vu All Over Again!
Before we close up shop for the Thanksgiving holiday, I wanted to highlight some excellent commentary on President Obama’s impending decision about how to proceed with the war in Afghanistan. The President is scheduled to make an announcement next Tuesday, December 1, about his intentions for America’s next steps. Between now and then, we would do well to consider the… Continue Reading Obama and Afghanistan
In the mid-1950s, Septima Poinsette Clark (1898-1987), a former public school teacher, developed a citizenship training program that enabled thousands of African Americans to register to vote and then to link the power of the ballot to concrete strategies for individual and communal empowerment. In Freedom’s Teacher: The Life of Septima Clark, Katherine Mellen Charron demonstrates Clark’s crucial role–and the… Continue Reading Charron Discusses the Life of Septima Clark on the State of Things today
Last night as I was driving home I heard an NPR story about a new album by Loudon Wainwright III called High Wide & Handsome: A Tribute to Charlie Poole. Poole was among those early-twentieth-century musicians from Piedmont North Carolina mill villages whose hillbilly music and tunes from the textile mills helped shape what we now call country music. Wainwright… Continue Reading The Charlie Poole Backstory
First, let’s set the scene: A little closer… Last Sunday, UNC Press held a book party at the historic Grove Park Inn in Asheville, NC. The event celebrated three of our fall 2009 titles: Foy Allen Edelman, author of SWEET CAROLINA, spent six years traveling every inch of North Carolina to collect the best in local dessert recipes; the result… Continue Reading UNC Press Goes West (And Likes It)
Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court began their annual session with the newest justice, Sonia Sotomayor, joining in for the first time. And she jumped right in with both feet, asking lots of questions of the lawyers appearing before the court that day. A couple of weeks ago, as part of the New York Yankees’ Hispanic Heritage Month, Sotomayor threw out… Continue Reading Sotomayor, baseball, and Hispanic heritage
We welcome a guest post today from historian and Vietnam veteran Ron Milam, author of Not a Gentleman’s War: An Inside View of Junior Officers in the Vietnam War. In his book, Milam debunks the view of the junior officer typified by Lt. William Calley of My Lai infamy, demonstrating instead that most of the lieutenants who served in combat… Continue Reading The Calley Apology: What Does It Mean?
We welcome a guest post from Gregg Brazinsky, author of Nation Building in South Korea: Koreans, Americans, and the Making of a Democracy, which we have just released in paperback. August 15 marks a date of both historical and personal significance. It was on August 15, 1945, that Japan surrendered unconditionally to the Allies and relinquished its empire, thereby ending… Continue Reading Brazinsky on South Korea’s economic development and democratization
The following is a guide to Bald Head Island written in the form of a children’s book: One summer we took the ferry to an island. We stayed in a little house on the beach and watched the ocean move. We put on suntan lotion and laid towels out on the sand. We built castles that ceased to stand and… Continue Reading Tar Heel Trek: Brunswick County
A guest post today from Laura Browder, author of Her Best Shot: Women and Guns in America and the forthcoming (May 2010) When Janey Comes Marching Home: Portraits of Women Combat Veterans, which features photographs by Sascha Pflaeging. Let’s take a moment today to celebrate the 149th birthday of Annie Oakley. But let’s remember her not as just a great… Continue Reading Happy Birthday, Annie Oakley
Saturday, August 9, marked the 64th anniversary of America’s WWII bombing of Nagasaki, Japan. In the following guest post, J. Samuel Walker, author of Prompt and Utter Destruction: Truman and the Use of Atomic Bombs against Japan, discusses the controversy over whether the use of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki served any military purpose and considers what did and didn’t… Continue Reading The Atomic Bombing of Nagasaki
With a title alluding to the complicated past of gender and sex, Mary P. Ryan’s Mysteries of Sex: Tracing Women and Men through American History gives us a thoughtful and thorough examination of the long debated battle over the differences between men and women. The question of how the dividing line between male and female is drawn—and repeatedly redrawn—over the… Continue Reading Mary P. Ryan discusses her book,”Mysteries of Sex: Tracing Women and Men Through American History on ROROTOKO
Today, The New York Times ran Jones County, Miss. – Civil War Fires Up Literary Shootout, a report by Michael Cieply about two conflicting books and a yet-to-be greenlighted Hollywood movie. At the center of everything lies Newton Knight, a white, landowning, Confederate deserter living deep in Mississippi, who famously tried to secede and form the Free State of Jones.… Continue Reading Web 2.0, Text Wars, and Building the Better Book: How the Internet Changes Everything We Do
In the past month, an occurrence in the suburbs of Philadelphia has turned into a national story. After a group of minority children were disinvited by a private swimming pool’s administration, community members were outraged. Senator Arlen Spector said that if allegations were true, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was likely violated. Now, the United States Justice Department plans… Continue Reading Swimming Pool Historian Responds to Philadelphia Incident
UNC Press author Bland Simpson has made his name on a myriad of talents, one of which is his superb ability to write about North Carolina’s coastline. Since 1993, UNC Press has published five of Simpson’s books about the area, with the most recent work–The Inner Islands–scheduled for paperback publication in the spring of 2010. I mention Simpson because his… Continue Reading David Stick 1919-2009
For many, today means the last day at the office before a long weekend goes into effect for Independence Day. However, Civil War buffs and historians recognize July 2nd as day two of another important event in American history – the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863. In the three hours of fighting on this evening 146 years ago, roughly 10,000… Continue Reading Gettysburg Remembered
Reunited and it feels so good; okay, so maybe 1868 wasn’t as smooth as a pop song. There were a few kinks to work out. How would secessionist states regain self-governing status? How would newly freedmen be integrated into southern society? What would become of the leaders of the Confederacy? Reconstruction proved to be one of the most trying times… Continue Reading Today in history: Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina were readmitted to the Union
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