By now we’ve all seen the clips of the Iraqi journalist throwing his shoes at President Bush during a presser over the weekend. And in the aftermath, of course, the media started asking if we should apply some deeper symbolic meaning to the act, as if it were committed with some non-Western kind of anger, a super-duper Arab kind of… Continue Reading Shoe Throwing: it means what you think it means
On December 17, 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright made the first two flights in their homemade aircraft on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Today the National Park Service hosts a celebration at the Wright Brothers National Memorial in Kill Devil Hills. At 10:35 a.m., there will be a military fly-over, with aircraft significantly more sophisticated than the Wright brothers’.… Continue Reading 105th Anniversary of Wright Brothers’ Flight
Ever had the urge to nail a strand of your hair into a mirror but thought, “Hey, if I nail anything into this mirror, it’s gonna shatter”? Well, think again—in the ’50s anything was possible: they nailed human hair into faux mirrors, splotched paint across the canvas, and even put everyday chairs on display, all in the name of art. … Continue Reading Circa 1958 now showing at the Ackland
John Shelton Reed recently introduced the Chronicle Review to Allen and Son Barbecue in Chapel Hill. Their write-up, complete with a wonderful 3-minute audio slideshow of Keith Allen’s typical day cooking and serving ‘cue, is now available. The article appears in the Dec. 19 print issue. Ed. note: Thanks, commenter durhamfood, for pointing out that the article is behind a… Continue Reading Chronicle offers audio slideshow of Allen & Son Barbecue
o hai, so ise lokin on teh interwebs teh oder dae n i finds pikshur of grate-grate-grate-grate… well, waybaxs granma kitteh. her sittin in haichair waren a dress n axin bout din-din. vry silly pikshur, rlly. but bes kat site on allada interwebs! dey sez it vry 1st pikshur for dems! pikshur remines me of oder pikshurs hooman shows to… Continue Reading LOLCats for “Pets in America”
YouTube: Billy Bragg – There Is Power in a Union Laid off with a mere 3 days’ notice (instead of the legally required 60 days) and denied severance, health insurance, and earned vacation pay, about 200 employees of Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago have been peacefully occupying the Republic factory for five days. Last night their union agreed to… Continue Reading There Is Power in a Union
We’ve got lots going on around here! Here’s a quick roundup of ways in which UNC Press books are making waves right now. . . . Patrick Huber’s Linthead Stomp: The Creation of Country Music in the Piedmont South has just earned a starred review from Publishers Weekly. The review states, “With respect and passion, Huber puts these pioneering artists… Continue Reading UNC Press books making headlines (and airwaves)
The Washington Post published its Holiday Guide yesterday, featuring the Best Books of 2008. Included in “The World” section is Vladislav Zubok’s A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev. At the beginning of the year, Richard Rhodes reviewed Zubok’s book along with Melvyn Leffler’s For the Soul of Mankind: The United States, the… Continue Reading Zubok among Washington Post’s Best Books of 2008
Louis A. Pérez Jr., a leading American scholar of Cuba and author of many prizewinning books on Cuban history — including his five most recent books published proudly by UNC Press — was celebrated by colleagues, friends, and family last month on his induction into the 2008 class of Fellows of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, one of… Continue Reading Louis Perez is named a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences
It’s an old idea that now has a very modern twist, like a newspaper serial for the 21st century. . . . Want to read a book but don’t have large blocks of time for settling in and curling up? We’ve found a solution for you with DailyLit — the first e-book vendor to send easy-to-read segments of books to… Continue Reading UNCP books now available in small doses through DailyLit
The following is a guest post from Michelle Lanier, curator of cultural history with the North Carolina Division of State Historic Sites and Properties. Along with Historic Edenton Site Manager Linda Jordan Eure, Lanier helped to organize the launching of The Harriet Jacobs Family Papers (edited by Jean Fagan Yellin) on November 22, 2008. Photos and podcast links follow her… Continue Reading Reflections on “A life so noble,” The Harriet Jacobs Family Papers launch event
Michael Oriard, author of three books on football published by UNC Press (Reading Football: How the Popular Press Created an American Spectacle [1998], King Football: Sport and Spectacle in the Golden Age of Radio and Newsreels, Movies and Magazines, the Weekly and the Daily Press [2001], and Brand NFL: Making and Selling America’s Favorite Sport [2006]), has a fourth book… Continue Reading Major college football: more competitive and cut-throat than the NFL?
Okay, Thanksgiving is tomorrow. Then comes Black Friday, traditionally the biggest shopping day of the year for retail sales, helping put retailers’ budgets “in the black” at year’s end. This year, however, with the economy in freefall, that post-Turkey Day orgy of consumer consumption is likely to be significantly more modest than in years past. We’re all nervous, we’re all… Continue Reading What you can do for your community economy, for cheap!: go local, get books
Matthew Dallek over at Politico has drawn up a suggested reading list for Barack Obama, our incoming President of Hope ™, who has not been seen carrying any books around, but apparently actually reads books about American history and absorbs them and references them in conversation(!). Says Dallek: Obama will be that rare modern president who thinks deeply about the… Continue Reading Politico suggests ‘Days of Hope’ for Obama’s winter reading list
When Francisco I. Madero called for an uprising against dictatorial Mexican president Porfirio Diaz on November 20, 1910, he triggered a revolution in Mexico that would last until 1920. To understand the situation that led up to this event, it’s helpful to take a look at Patrick McNamara’s book Sons of the Sierra: Juarez, Diaz, and the People of Ixtlan,… Continue Reading Today in history: the Mexican Revolution begins
Last Thursday the Press had a fabulous launch party for Holy Smoke: The Big Book of North Carolina Barbecue at The Pit in downtown Raleigh. We celebrated with authors John Shelton Reed, Dale Volberg Reed, and William McKinney as well as several pitmasters featured in the book, including Ed Mitchell (pitmaster at The Pit), Samuel Jones (3rd-generation pitmaster at the… Continue Reading Holy Smoke launch night at The Pit
On WUNC’s (91.5 FM Chapel Hill) The State of Things today at noon, Frank Stasio and a panel of guests will be discussing the legal and religious meanings of marriage in light of the passage of Prop 8 in California and similar amendments in other states. Guests will include UNC Press author E. Patrick Johnson, professor in the Department of… Continue Reading E. Patrick Johnson on today’s State of Things
Robert S. McElvaine, editor of Down and Out in the Great Depression: Letters from the Forgotten Man, blogs regularly for The Huffington Post. In his latest post, he discusses the demise of Nixon’s “southern strategy” and the new challenges for the GOP. from McElvaine: “New America” = Gone OLD Party Prior to the start of the war in Iraq in… Continue Reading McElvaine on election ’08
The following post is from Christopher A. Cooper and H. Gibbs Knotts, co-editors of The New Politics of North Carolina. Cooper is MPA director and assistant professor of political science and public affairs at Western Carolina University. Knotts is department head and associate professor of political science and public affairs at Western Carolina University. Every four years journalists, political commentators,… Continue Reading Reflections on the 2008 Election
Folks, Holy Smoke is hot! Thank you! The book popped up in the #15 spot in hardcover nonfiction on SIBA’s (Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance) Southern Indie Bestseller List for the week ending November 2. This morning’s News & Observer featured an interview with the Reeds. Today, John and Dale Reed talked to Frank Stasio on The State of Things. (Podcast… Continue Reading Ssssmmmokin’!
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