Real NASCAR: White Lightning, Red Clay, and Big Bill France, by Daniel S. Pierce, is hot off the press and hitting bookstores now. If you’re a racing fan or southern history buff, this book is the can’t-miss backstory behind what has become a billion-dollar industry and one of the most popular spectator sports in America. Pierce writes as a historian… Continue Reading Real NASCAR in Real Time: Dan Pierce is blogging!
Today our author Wendy Rouse Jorae writes on the occasion of Chinese New Year. In her book, The Children of Chinatown: Growing Up Chinese American in San Francisco 1850-1920, Jorae challenges long-held notions of early Chinatown as a bachelor community by showing that families–and particularly children–played important roles in its daily life. Facing barriers of immigration exclusion, cultural dislocation, child… Continue Reading The Children of Chinatown and Chinese New Year
Today, February 12th, 2010, marks the 101st anniversary of one of the nation’s most important organizations, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Because of today’s important nature, we want to focus on someone central to the organization’s success, as well as many more victories in the civil rights movement. Born in 1903, Ella Baker was involved in… Continue Reading An NAACP Anniversary: Looking Back at Ella Baker
We welcome a guest post today from Michael J. Allen, author of Until the Last Man Comes Home: POWs, MIAs, and the Unending Vietnam War. In his book, Allen analyzes the effects that activism by POW and MIA families had on U.S. politics before and after the Vietnam War’s official end. In this post, marking the anniversary of the first… Continue Reading Bringing the War Home: Operation Homecoming and the Unending Vietnam War
It’s a big night for sports fans in Chapel Hill–the Tar Heel basketball team, rebuilding after winning their fifth NCAA championship last year, is hosting that other blue team in the state: Duke, owners of a paltry three national championships. Historically, the Heels have a 130-97 lead in the series and have won the previous three meetings, but the eighth-ranked… Continue Reading One Fantastic Ride: An Interview with Adam Lucas
The Haitian Coat of Arms As we all know, events in recent weeks have been difficult for the people of Haiti. Victories have been few, and all accounts suggest the nightmare is far from over. Today, though, is an important day in Haiti, a bright spot in their story for two reasons. Modern politics in Haiti are tied to February… Continue Reading Today in History: The Importance of February 7th in Haiti
AND NOW . . . the story of a regular man whose job is to find the Big Ideas peeking out from the small foibles and successes of our everyday lives . . . the story of a man who helps us not only to hear them, but also to feel them. Act I, Scene I Ira Glass at the… Continue Reading Ira Glass at the mic and on the page
When it comes to public figures who bring their ‘A’ game, few will argue that television host Stephen Colbert is not near the top of the list. For proof, just look to the Emmy, Grammy, and Peabody awards that adorn the mantle on the set of his nightly satirical news show, The Colbert Report, or the fact that his book… Continue Reading Sports Psychology Tips for Stephen Colbert
UNC Press is excited to now offer some of our best-selling and award-winning Civil War books in easy-to-read, Large-Print format. Set in 16-point type, these books have been designed to make some of our most requested titles accessible to a larger number of readers than ever before. A dozen books are ready now, and more are on the way in… Continue Reading Civil War books now available in Large-Print format
On February 1, 1960, four students from the historically black Agricultural and Technical College of North Carolina (now the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University) sat down in the “whites only” section of a segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, NC. They were refused service, but stayed. The next day, there were around 25 protesters. Soon, over 300 protesters… Continue Reading 50 Years: The International Civil Rights Center & Museum
Over at Religion and Ethics Newsweekly, Andrew Finstuen offers a response to the spiritual tones within President Obama’s State of the Union address last night, noting that the president summoned a unifying “civil faith” to lead the country through challenging times. Finstuen is author of Original Sin and Everyday Protestants: The Theology of Reinhold Niebuhr, Billy Graham, and Paul Tillich… Continue Reading Andrew Finstuen on Obama’s Civil Faith
iBook’s bookshelf view (not actual size) Earlier today, Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled his company’s latest creation: the iPad, a half-iPhone/half-laptop device. On the UNC Press Blog, we’ll leave it to the experts to explain most of the bells and whistles, but we’d be remiss if we didn’t take a look at one specific feature included in the completely-touchscreen answer… Continue Reading Digital Publishing: the Evolution and Future of E-Books
Happy Friday, readers! Here at UNC Press, we’re finishing up our book launch week–planning out our titles for Fall 2010. The books we plan to put on the shelves in 2010 have us very excited, and we know you’ll enjoy them. In the meantime though, we thought it would be good to highlight some of the interesting events happening across… Continue Reading Avatar, Southern Gateways, & Disney Princesses: Around the Internet
For the amateur athlete, there are countless resources that explain how to improve on the mechanics of any given sport. Yet, very little has been said about the mental preparation needed to perform at the highest level, an aspect that is of equal importance to the physical side. Filling that void, Jennifer L. Etnier’s Bring Your “A” Game is an… Continue Reading ‘Bring Your “A” Game’ Now in Blog Form
Harvey Neptune, author of Caliban and the Yankees: Trinidad and the United States Occupation, offered some background on Haiti for the arts blog at Temple University (where he is an assistant professor of history). I wanted to share some of his comments on the country’s history as well as his challenge for lovers of freedom to help Haiti rebuild–not just… Continue Reading Harvey Neptune on Haiti’s history
When it comes to medical advice, Dr. Nortin M. Hadler is an authority–his books Stabbed in the Back: Confronting Back Pain in an Overtreated Society and Worried Sick: A Prescription for Health in an Overtreated America are go-to guides for those interested in the way medical care works, as well as how it needs to change. Recently, Hadler’s name and… Continue Reading The Doctor Is In: Catching Up with Nortin M. Hadler, M.D.
All readers interested in American history should take the coming Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday weekend as an opportunity to head to the Wilmington area for a fantastic panel discussion titled “Black Men Bearing Freedom: U.S. Colored Troops and Their Impact in North Carolina” on January 15th at 6 p.m. Presented by the Fort Fisher State Historic Site and held… Continue Reading “Black Men Bearing Freedom” This Weekend in Wilmington
In this first post of the new year, new decade, as concerns over the nuclear programs of countries such as Iran and North Korea continue to make headlines, we welcome the following commentary from Shane J. Maddock, author of Nuclear Apartheid: The Quest for American Atomic Supremacy from World War II to the Present (forthcoming March 2010). In his book,… Continue Reading The Delicate Art of Nuclear Jujutsu
It’s December 29th. You’ve only got a corner or so in each casserole dish left to scrape at and that new gym membership doesn’t start until January 1st. Why waste away early? Sharpen those knives, pound that meat mallet, and get in one last real meal before the new year. After flipping through some of the best recipes from UNC… Continue Reading The Anti-New Year’s Resolution Menu
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
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