Today marks eight years since the beginning of the ongoing Flint water contamination crisis. The following is an excerpt from Toxic Debt: An Environmental Justice History of Detroit by Josiah Rector, officially on sale tomorrow wherever ebooks and books are sold. Between 2014 and 2019, the City of Detroit shut off water for over 141,000 residential accounts, denying more than… Continue Reading Detroit and Toxic Debt
January 6th marks National Technology Day. Technology has been a huge stepping stone in the advancement of so many cultures. From the technology we use in our everyday lives to NASA’s own technology used for space exploration, it’s always been closely connected to the overall progress of America. In celebration of National Technology Day, we’re sharing a recommended reading list… Continue Reading National Technology Day: Recommended Reading List
The following is a guest blog post by Gene R. Nichol, author of The Faces of Poverty in North Carolina: Stories from Our Invisible Citizens. More than 1.5 million North Carolinians today live in poverty. More than one in five are children. Behind these sobering statistics are the faces of our fellow citizens. This book tells their stories. Since 2012,… Continue Reading NC Seems Untroubled by its Shockingly High Child Poverty
Reblogged with permission from Arctic Relations, the following is a guest blog post from Finis Dunaway, author of Defending the Arctic Refuge: A Photographer, an Indigenous Nation, and a Fight for Environmental Justice. Tucked away in the northeastern corner of Alaska is one of the most contested landscapes in all of North America: the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Considered sacred by Indigenous… Continue Reading The Slide Show That Changed History: An Overview of Defending the Arctic Refuge
The following is an excerpt from the introduction of Jessica Ordaz’s The Shadow of El Centro: A History of Migrant Incarceration and Solidarity. Bounded by desert and mountains, El Centro, California, is isolated and difficult to reach. However, its location close to the border between San Diego and Yuma, Arizona, has made it an important place for Mexican migrants attracted… Continue Reading The Shadow of El Centro: Introduction
Today’s reading list is focused on mental health as we enter Mental Illness Awareness Week, recognized from October 3rd to October 9th. “Since 1990, when Congress officially established the first full week of October as MIAW, advocates have worked together to sponsor activities, large or small, to educate the public about mental illness.” Below you’ll find a list of various… Continue Reading Mental Illness Awareness Week Reading List
September 15th—October 15th marks National Hispanic/Latinx Heritage Month, celebrating the achievements and contributions of American citizens whose ancestors came from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central and South America. Last Friday we shared a virtual conversation hosted by the Center for Political Education featuring UNC Press author Johanna Fernández in acknowledgement of this month, and now also share a recommended reading list that… Continue Reading Happy National Hispanic/Latinx Heritage Month: A Reading List
In May, Finis Dunaway, author of Defending the Arctic Refuge: A Photographer, an Indigenous Nation, and a Fight for Environmental Justice, was featured on UNC Libraries’ Off the Shelf series. In the Author Talk below, Finis discusses how his book wasn’t exactly the book he planned to write, how one image sparked the concept for his book and other topics.… Continue Reading UNC Libraries’ Off The Shelf Author Talk with Finis Dunaway
Happy Earth Day and Earth Week from the UNC Press Staff! In celebration of the times, we’ve created a recommended reading list of some of our latest environmental justice books. DEFENDING THE ARCTIC REFUGE: A PHOTOGRAPHER, AN INDIGENOUS NATION, AND A FIGHT FOR ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE BY FINIS DUNAWAY Tucked away in the northeastern corner of Alaska is one of the… Continue Reading Earth Day 2021 Recommended Reading List
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
Today we welcome a guest post from Jessica M. Kim, author of Imperial Metropolis: Los Angeles, Mexico, and the Borderlands of American Empire, 1865–1941, published this month by UNC Press. In this compelling narrative of capitalist development and revolutionary response, Jessica M. Kim reexamines the rise of Los Angeles from a small town to a global city against the backdrop… Continue Reading Jessica M. Kim: Roads and Walls in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands
Today we welcome a guest post from Jessica M. Kim, author of Imperial Metropolis: Los Angeles, Mexico, and the Borderlands of American Empire, 1865–1941, published this month by UNC Press. In this compelling narrative of capitalist development and revolutionary response, Jessica M. Kim reexamines the rise of Los Angeles from a small town to a global city against the backdrop… Continue Reading Jessica M. Kim: Why Trump’s Wall Will Fail
Today we welcome a guest post from Michael E. Staub, author of The Mismeasure of Minds: Debating Race and Intelligence between Brown and The Bell Curve, just published by UNC Press. The 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision required desegregation of America’s schools, but it also set in motion an agonizing multi-decade debate over race, class, and IQ. In… Continue Reading Michael E. Staub: Ghosts of Bell Curves Past
Today we welcome a guest post from Nortin M. Hadler, M.D., and Stephen P. Carter, J.D., authors of a new open-access pamphlet published by UNC Press, Promoting Worker Health: A New Approach to Employee Benefits in the Twenty-First Century. In this extended essay, the authors introduce a new approach to reforming the American health-care system–a plan they call the Universal… Continue Reading Nortin M. Hadler, M.D., and Stephen P. Carter, J.D.: Redesigning the American Health Care System
Today, we welcome a guest post from Dr. Muriel R. Gillick, author of Old and Sick in America: The Journey through the Health Care System. Since the introduction of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965, the American health care system has steadily grown in size and complexity. Old and Sick in America takes readers on a narrative tour of American health… Continue Reading Muriel R. Gillick, M.D.: The Not-So-Secret Secret About American Health Care
Today, we welcome a guest post from Dr. Muriel R. Gillick, author of Old and Sick in America: The Journey through the Health Care System, on the founding of the national health insurance program we call Medicare. Since the introduction of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965, the American health care system has steadily grown in size and complexity. Old and… Continue Reading Muriel R. Gillick, M.D.: Happy Birthday, Medicare
Chocolate City: A History of Race and Democracy in the Nation’s Capital by Chris Myers Asch and George Derek Musgrove is the most up-to-date and comprehensive history of race and race-relations in the nation’s capital. Thoroughly researched yet very readable, Chocolate City focuses on African American history, but does not neglect Native American and white components of DC history. Continue Reading Chris Myers Asch & George Derek Musgrove: Chocolate City
At a time when race and inequality dominate national debates, the story of West Charlotte High School illuminates the possibilities and challenges of using racial and economic desegregation to foster educational equality. Continue Reading Pamela Grundy: Color and Character
Today, fossil fuel companies have engaged in a similar propaganda war—funding questionable research, donating questionable curriculum to hard-pressed schools, and touting their contributions to the public welfare in advertising campaigns—for similar self-interested reasons. Recent reports out of Oklahoma exposed the oil and gas industry’s science curriculum and the incentives like fully-funded field trips and free supplies and lab equipment. This echoes a similar story about coal-funded classroom materials published and later withdrawn by Scholastic, Inc., in 2009. Continue Reading Sarah S. Elkind: Energy Corporations in Schools: Then and Now
Thinking about those issues was like entering a funhouse with distorted mirrors: people used the same words—patient, consumer, choice, value—and meant very different things by them. In search of the origins of this strange concept of the “patient as consumer,” I kept going back further and further, looking for where it came from. The roots turned out to be a lot earlier than I expected: the 1920s and 1930s, not the 1970s. Continue Reading Nancy Tomes: Remarks from the Bancroft Awards Dinner
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