April 19, 2021

Congratulations to our 2021 OAH Award Winners!

The Organization of American Historians honored three of our authors with seven awards. Congratulations to all! Visit our OAH 2021 virtual exhibit to get these books (and more) at our 40% conference discount.  You can view the OAH’s 2021 Meeting Awards Ceremony here. Those Who Know Don’t Say: The Nation of Islam, the Black Freedom Movement, and the Carceral State by… Continue Reading Congratulations to our 2021 OAH Award Winners!

Categories UNC Press News
April 17, 2021

New Series Announcement: Latinx Histories

As a leading publisher of American and Latin American history, UNC Press is delighted to announce the launch of Latinx Histories, a book series premised on the view that understanding Latinx history is essential to a more complete and complex understanding of the history of the United States, the Americas, and the world. The series editors and advisory board welcome book proposals that examine… Continue Reading New Series Announcement: Latinx Histories

Categories Latin American/Caribbean Hist./Latino Studies
April 16, 2021

Celebrating the Life of North Carolina’s Barbecue Legend Wilber Shirley

Earlier this month, Wilber Shirley, a true legend in North Carolina’s barbecue world, passed. In honor of his legacy, we have chosen to post his interview from John Shelton Reed, Dale Volberg Reed and William McKinney’s co-authored Holy Smoke: The Big Book of North Carolina Barbecue. “That grease hitting those coals makes the smoked flavor. You can’t spray it on… Continue Reading Celebrating the Life of North Carolina’s Barbecue Legend Wilber Shirley

Categories Cooking / Food/History/North Carolina
April 15, 2021

Lawrence Reddick and Recent Antiracism Initiatives in the American Historical Profession

Guest post written in conjunction with the start of the Organization of American Historians’s annual conference #OAH21, by David A. Varel, author of The Scholar and the Struggle: Lawrence Reddick’s Crusade for Black History and Black Power Black historian and activist Lawrence Reddick (1910-1995), the subject of my new UNC book, died over a quarter century ago, but his legacy… Continue Reading Lawrence Reddick and Recent Antiracism Initiatives in the American Historical Profession

Categories African American History/African American Studies/Biography / Autobiography/Guest Bloggers/Politics
April 14, 2021

Looking Forward, Looking Back

Guest blog post by Pamela Grundy and Susan Shackelford, authors of Shattering the Glass: The Remarkable History of Women’s Basketball Aari McDonald stares out of her WNBA draft photo, arms folded, biceps sculpted, looking ahead. On April 15, when the draft kicks off the WNBA’s silver anniversary season, McDonald will go high. She has just come off a stellar NCAA… Continue Reading Looking Forward, Looking Back

Categories Guest Bloggers/Sports/Women's Studies
April 13, 2021

Policing and Ongoing Social Injustice Towards Black Lives in America: A Reading List

In response to recent events in Brooklyn Center MN, the following curated reading list provides information regarding ongoing injustices and discriminatory practices perpetuated by a lack of criminal justice reform that’s historically targeted Black Americans. In the aftermath of the police killing of Daunte Wright, here are resources for donating and healing. The Punitive Turn in American Life: How the… Continue Reading Policing and Ongoing Social Injustice Towards Black Lives in America: A Reading List

Categories African American History/African American Studies/American Studies/Civil Rights
April 9, 2021

Guggenheim Fellows for 2021

Hearty congratulations to the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation 2021 Guggenheim Fellows, which include the following UNC Press authors: Cindy Hahamovitch, author of The Fruits of Their Labor: Atlantic Coast Farmworkers and the Making of Migrant Poverty, 1870-1945 Kevin Mumford, author of Not Straight, Not White: Black Gay Men from the March on Washington to the AIDS Crisis Imani Perry,… Continue Reading Guggenheim Fellows for 2021

Categories Awards/UNC Press News
April 8, 2021

The Punitive Turn in American Life: How the United States Learned to Fight Crime Like a War

Guest blog post by Michael S. Sherry, author of The Punitive Turn in American Life: How the United States Learned to Fight Crime Like a War Advertisements urging civilians to buy guns captured how the punitive turn had played out by the 2010s. “As Close as You Can Get [to war] without Enlisting” ran one rifle ad, while another promoted… Continue Reading The Punitive Turn in American Life: How the United States Learned to Fight Crime Like a War

Categories Guest Bloggers/Political Science/Politics/Sociology/UNC Press News
April 7, 2021

Reconstructing the Landscapes of Slavery

Guest post by Dale W. Tomich, co-author of Reconstructing the Landscapes of Slavery: A Visual History of the Plantation in the Nineteenth-Century Atlantic World, on sale April 19, 2021 The terms “plantation” and “plantation landscape” commonly conjure up the image of the Big House of the great planters of the Americas. The Big House is how the plantation was meant… Continue Reading Reconstructing the Landscapes of Slavery

Categories African American History/African American Studies/American History/Guest Bloggers
April 2, 2021

Pelé as Avatar of Afro-Brazilian Soccer History

Guest blog post by Jack A. Draper III, translator of the new English language edition of The Black Man in Brazilian Soccer by Mario Filho Recently another film about Brazilian soccer legend Pelé was released. The word “another” is necessary because, not surprisingly considering the worldwide popularity of the subject, there have been a number of documentaries and at least one… Continue Reading Pelé as Avatar of Afro-Brazilian Soccer History

Categories Latino Studies/Sports
March 31, 2021

Our Sisters in China Are Free: Mabel Ping-Hua Lee

Bringing our celebration of Women’s History Month on the UNC Press Blog to a close, the following excerpt is taken from Recasting the Vote: How Women of Color Transformed the Suffrage Movement by Cathleen D. Cahill The shadows were just starting to slide across New York’s Washington Square Park on the evening of May 5, 1912, when a company of fifty… Continue Reading Our Sisters in China Are Free: Mabel Ping-Hua Lee

Categories American History/History/Women's Studies
March 31, 2021

The Vote Collectors, a Ferris & Ferris Book coming Fall 2021

The following guest post by Nick Ochsner, co-author with Michael Graff of the forthcoming Ferris & Ferris Book The Vote Collectors: The True Story of the Scamsters, Politicians, and Preachers behind the Nation’s Greatest Electoral Fraud, has been adapted and unthreadded from a post that originally appeared on Twitter. I’m excited to listen to the new Serial podcast from Zoe… Continue Reading The Vote Collectors, a Ferris & Ferris Book coming Fall 2021

Categories Politics/Southern Studies
March 29, 2021

The Struggle over Race and Voting Rights in North Carolina

Relative to the recent voting rights suppression and rulings that have taken place in Georgia, the following is an excerpt from the introduction to Fragile Democracy: The Struggle over Race and Voting Rights in North Carolina (published September 2020) by James L. Leloudis and Robert R. Korstad America is at war with itself over the right to vote, or, more… Continue Reading The Struggle over Race and Voting Rights in North Carolina

Categories UNC Press News
March 26, 2021

UNC Press stands in solidarity with workers fighting for dignity and workplace democracy

The University of North Carolina Press stands in solidarity with workers fighting for dignity and workplace democracy in the book industry—especially the more than 5,000 Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama, who are in the midst of the historic first attempt to unionize one of the e-commerce giant’s warehouses. This is of particular interest to us both as publishing workers and… Continue Reading UNC Press stands in solidarity with workers fighting for dignity and workplace democracy

Categories History/Labor Studies/UNC Press News
March 25, 2021

Historian Comes Clean, Stay Dirty

Follow the UNC Press Blog for a celebration of women’s histories and women historians throughout March. This year we are celebrating the significant contributions of notable women, renown and lesser known, throughout history, as well as women historians past and present that have been published by UNC Press. The following excerpt is taken from Writing Kit Carson: Fallen Heroes in a… Continue Reading Historian Comes Clean, Stay Dirty

Categories Gender Studies/History/Native Amer./Indigenous Studies
March 23, 2021

Revolutionary Latin American Women

Follow the UNC Press Blog for a celebration of women’s histories and women historians throughout March. This year we are celebrating the significant contributions of notable women, renown and lesser known, throughout history, as well as women historians past and present that have been published by UNC Press. Two recently published biographies, Celia Sánchez Manduley: The Life and Legacy of… Continue Reading Revolutionary Latin American Women

Categories Cuba/Gender Studies/History/Latin American/Caribbean Hist./UNC Press News/Women's Studies
March 19, 2021

Embracing Contradictions: Grace Lee Boggs’s Philosophic Journey and Political Emergence

UNC Press denounces racial terrorism and stands in solidarity with the Asian American and Pacific Islander community. #StopAsianHate The following excerpt is taken from In Love and Struggle: The Revolutionary Lives of James and Grace Lee Boggs by Stephen M. Ward Grace Lee Boggs was both product and producer of an improbable history. “I grew up in New York as… Continue Reading Embracing Contradictions: Grace Lee Boggs’s Philosophic Journey and Political Emergence

Categories American History/Asian Studies/Civil Rights/History
March 18, 2021

The Untold History of Anti-Asian Racism in the United States

UNC Press denounces racial terrorism and stands in solidarity with the Asian American community. #StopAsianHate The following excerpt is taken from Two Faces of Exclusion: The Untold History of Anti-Asian Racism in the United States by Lon Kurashige The 1882 act excluding Chinese laborers from the United States for ten years did more than displace the egalitarian spirit of the Burlingame… Continue Reading The Untold History of Anti-Asian Racism in the United States

Categories American History/Asian Studies/History
March 16, 2021

Black and White and the Blues: Who profits from a cultural tradition?

Excerpt from Princeton Alumni Weekly‘s March 2021 issue is reblogged below with permission. By Adam Gussow, author of Whose Blues? Facing Up to Race and the Future of the Music Speaking very broadly, people who have emotional investments in the blues — people who like, play, think about, talk about, and identify themselves with the blues — have two diametrically… Continue Reading Black and White and the Blues: Who profits from a cultural tradition?

Categories African American History/Music
March 15, 2021

Women’s History Month: a Class, Religion, Sex, and Family Reading List

Follow the UNC Press Blog for a celebration of women’s histories and women historians throughout March. This year we are celebrating the significant contributions of notable women, renown and lesser known, throughout history, as well as women historians past and present that have been published by UNC Press. During Women’s History Month, save 40% on all UNC Press books with discount code… Continue Reading Women’s History Month: a Class, Religion, Sex, and Family Reading List

Categories American History/Gender Studies/History/Jewish Studies/UNC Press News/Women's Studies