Category: UNC Press Authors

Jason W. Smith: Creating Matthew Fontaine Maury’s Wind and Current Charts

Today we welcome a guest post from Jason W. Smith, author of To Master the Boundless Sea:  The U.S. Navy, the Marine Environment, and the Cartography of Empire, just published by UNC Press in our Flows, Migrations, and Exchanges series. As the United States grew into an empire in the late nineteenth century, notions like “sea power” derived not only… Continue Reading Jason W. Smith: Creating Matthew Fontaine Maury’s Wind and Current Charts

Rebecca Tuuri: Black Women’s Political Power (and Pragmatism)

Today we welcome a guest post by Rebecca Tuuri, author of Strategic Sisterhood: The National Council of Negro Women in the Black Freedom Struggle, just published by UNC Press. When women were denied a major speaking role at the 1963 March on Washington, Dorothy Height, head of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW), organized her own women’s conference for… Continue Reading Rebecca Tuuri: Black Women’s Political Power (and Pragmatism)

Karin Alejandra Rosemblatt: Wakanda Mexicana

Today we welcome a guest post from Karin Alejandra Rosemblatt, author of The Science and Politics of Race in Mexico and the United States, 1910–1950, just published by UNC Press. In this history of the social and human sciences in Mexico and the United States, Karin Alejandra Rosemblatt reveals intricate connections among the development of science, the concept of race,… Continue Reading Karin Alejandra Rosemblatt: Wakanda Mexicana

Craig Bruce Smith: Claims of a “Very Honorable” Kim Jong Un are Trump-ed Up

Today, we welcome a guest post from Craig Bruce Smith, author of American Honor: The Creation of the Nation’s Ideals during the Revolutionary Era, just published by UNC Press. The American Revolution was not only a revolution for liberty and freedom, it was also a revolution of ethics, reshaping what colonial Americans understood as “honor” and “virtue.” As Craig Bruce… Continue Reading Craig Bruce Smith: Claims of a “Very Honorable” Kim Jong Un are Trump-ed Up

Author Interview: A conversation with Douglas Reichert Powell, author of Endless Caverns

UNC Press Publicity Director Gina Mahalek talks with Douglas Reichert Powell, author of Endless Caverns: An Underground Journey into the Show Caves of Appalachia. For generations, enterprising people in the southern Appalachians have turned the region’s extensive network of caves into a strange, fascinating genre of tourist attraction. Show caves, as Douglas Reichert Powell explains in Endless Caverns, are at… Continue Reading Author Interview: A conversation with Douglas Reichert Powell, author of Endless Caverns

Mushroom of the Month, May 2018: Hemlock Varnish Shelf, Ganoderma tsugae

Today we initiate a new monthly series, Mushroom of the Month, brought to you by Michael W. Hopping, co-author of A Field Guide to Mushrooms of the Carolinas:  A Southern Gateways Guide, just published by UNC Press.  Mushrooms in the wild present an enticing challenge: some are delicious, others are deadly, and still others take on almost unbelievable forms. A… Continue Reading Mushroom of the Month, May 2018: Hemlock Varnish Shelf, Ganoderma tsugae

Nora Doyle: How Motherhood in America became White and Middle Class

Today, we welcome a guest post from Nora Doyle, author of Maternal Bodies:  Redefining Motherhood in Early America, publishing this month from UNC Press. In Maternal Bodies, Nora Doyle shows that depictions of motherhood in American culture began to define the ideal mother by her emotional and spiritual roles rather than by her physical work as a mother. As a… Continue Reading Nora Doyle: How Motherhood in America became White and Middle Class

Michael Hopping: Mycophagy

Today we welcome a guest post from Michael Hopping, who along with Alan E. Bessette and Arleen R. Bessette, is co-author of A Field Guide to Mushrooms of the Carolinas:  A Southern Gateways Guide, just published by UNC Press. Mushrooms in the wild present an enticing challenge: some are delicious, others are deadly, and still others take on almost unbelievable… Continue Reading Michael Hopping: Mycophagy

Venus Bivar: Romanticising the French Countryside

Today we welcome a guest post from Venus Bivar, author of Organic Resistance:  The Struggle over Industrial Farming in Postwar France. France is often held up as a bastion of gastronomic refinement and as a model of artisanal agriculture and husbandry. But French farming is not at all what it seems. Countering the standard stories of gastronomy, tourism, and leisure… Continue Reading Venus Bivar: Romanticising the French Countryside

Nora Doyle: Breastfeeding and American Culture: Idealizing Maternal Virtue in the Eighteenth Century and Today

Today, we welcome a guest post from Nora Doyle, author of Maternal Bodies:  Redefining Motherhood in Early America, publishing this month from UNC Press. In Maternal Bodies, Nora Doyle shows that depictions of motherhood in American culture began to define the ideal mother by her emotional and spiritual roles rather than by her physical work as a mother. As a… Continue Reading Nora Doyle: Breastfeeding and American Culture: Idealizing Maternal Virtue in the Eighteenth Century and Today

Author Interview: A Conversation with John T. Hill about Edna Lewis

Acclaimed photographer and designer John T. Hill talks with UNC Press Publicity Director Gina Mahalek about one of his most celebrated subjects, Edna Lewis. Hill’s photographs of Lewis, who was often heralded as the “Grand Dame” of southern cooking, are included in Edna Lewis: At the Table with an American Original. Many more will be exhibited—some for the first time—at… Continue Reading Author Interview: A Conversation with John T. Hill about Edna Lewis

Pamela Grundy: Resegregation: Where Do We Go from Here?

Today we highlight a post written by Pamela Grundy, author of Color and Character:  West Charlotte High and the American Struggle over Educational Equality, published last fall by UNC Press.  Her post is in response to a recent Newsweek feature story on the state of school segregation in America today. Drawing on nearly two decades of interviews with students, educators,… Continue Reading Pamela Grundy: Resegregation: Where Do We Go from Here?

Millington W. Bergeson-Lockwood: How a Monument to the Boston Massacre Was and Can Be So Much More

Today, as we prepare for St. Patrick’s Day, we welcome a guest post from Millington W. Bergeson-Lockwood, author of Race Over Party:  Black Politics and Partisanship in Late Nineteenth-Century Boston, publishing in May from UNC Press.  Bergeson-Lockwood discusses the creation of the monument to Crispus Attucks and the Boston Massacre, a unique moment of Black and Irish alliance in 1880s… Continue Reading Millington W. Bergeson-Lockwood: How a Monument to the Boston Massacre Was and Can Be So Much More

Jerry Gershenhorn: Louis Austin–A Courageous Voice for Black Freedom in North Carolina

Today we welcome a guest post from Jerry Gershenhorn, author of Louis Austin and the Carolina Times:  A Life in the Long Black Freedom Struggle, just published by UNC Press. Louis Austin (1898–1971) came of age at the nadir of the Jim Crow era and became a transformative leader of the long black freedom struggle in North Carolina. From 1927… Continue Reading Jerry Gershenhorn: Louis Austin–A Courageous Voice for Black Freedom in North Carolina

Rebecca de Schweinitz: Youth Activism, Yesterday and Today

Today we welcome a guest post from Rebecca de Schweinitz, author of If We Could Change the World: Young People and America’s Long Struggle for Racial Equality. Hers is the first book to connect young people and shifting ideas about children and youth with the black freedom struggle, and in it she explains how popular ideas about youth and young… Continue Reading Rebecca de Schweinitz: Youth Activism, Yesterday and Today

Rebecca Tuuri: The National Council of Negro Women’s Monumental Achievement

Continuing our celebration of African American History month, today we welcome a guest post by Rebecca Tuuri, author of Strategic Sisterhood: The National Council of Negro Women in the Black Freedom Struggle, which will be published by UNC Press in May. When women were denied a major speaking role at the 1963 March on Washington, Dorothy Height, head of the… Continue Reading Rebecca Tuuri: The National Council of Negro Women’s Monumental Achievement

Gregg A. Brazinsky: South Korea: The Unappreciated Ally

Today we welcome a guest post from Gregg A. Brazinsky, author of Nation Building in South Korea:  Koreans, Americans, and the Making of a Democracy, and more recently,  Winning the Third World: Sino-American Rivalry during the Cold War. Here, Professor Brazinsky discusses the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, and that nation’s fraught relationship with the United States. ### South… Continue Reading Gregg A. Brazinsky: South Korea: The Unappreciated Ally

Daniel Livesay: Belle’s Atlantic Community

Today we welcome a guest post from Daniel Livesay, author of Children of Uncertain Fortune:  Mixed-Race Jamaicans in Britain and the Atlantic Family, 1733-1833, published by our friends at the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture. By tracing the largely forgotten eighteenth-century migration of elite mixed-race individuals from Jamaica to Great Britain, Children of Uncertain Fortune reinterprets the… Continue Reading Daniel Livesay: Belle’s Atlantic Community

Kenneth Joel Zogry: The First Battle to Remove Confederate Symbolism from UNC

February marks the anniversary of the founding of the Daily Tar Heel, the daily student newspaper of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  Today we welcome a guest post from Kenneth Joel Zogry, author of Print News and Raise Hell:  The Daily Tar Heel and the Evolution of a Modern University. For over 125 years, the Daily Tar Heel… Continue Reading Kenneth Joel Zogry: The First Battle to Remove Confederate Symbolism from UNC

Daniel Livesay: Meghan Markle and the Long History of American Brides of Color in Britain

Today we welcome a guest post from Daniel Livesay, author of Children of Uncertain Fortune:  Mixed-Race Jamaicans in Britain and the Atlantic Family, 1733-1833, published by our friends at the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture. By tracing the largely forgotten eighteenth-century migration of elite mixed-race individuals from Jamaica to Great Britain, Children of Uncertain Fortune reinterprets the… Continue Reading Daniel Livesay: Meghan Markle and the Long History of American Brides of Color in Britain