Meet the Editors: A Conversation with Andrew R. Graybill and Benjamin H. Johnson on the David J. Weber Series in the New Borderlands History

We’re pleased to share a Q&A with Andrew R. Graybill and Benjamin H. Johnson, series editors of our David J. Weber Series in the New Borderlands History. This series explores contested boundaries and the intercultural dynamics surrounding them and includes projects in a wide range of time and space within North America and beyond, including Atlantic and Pacific worlds. Series… Continue Reading Meet the Editors: A Conversation with Andrew R. Graybill and Benjamin H. Johnson on the David J. Weber Series in the New Borderlands History

Author Interview: John D. French on Lula and His Politics of Cunning

In this Q&A, John D. French discusses his new book Lula and His Politics of Cunning: From Metalworker to President of Brazil. Known around the world simply as Lula, Luis Inácio Lula da Silva was born in 1945 to illiterate parents who migrated to industrializing São Paulo. He learned to read at ten years of age, left school at fourteen,… Continue Reading Author Interview: John D. French on Lula and His Politics of Cunning

UNC System BOG Appoints A&T Professor to UNC Press BOG

The UNC System Board of Governors appointed a North Carolina A&T professor as a new member of the UNC Press Board of Governors at its September 17 meeting. In that role, Dr. Kim Smith, an associate professor in the Department of Journalism, will participate in the process of reviewing and approving books and other scholarship for publication by the UNC… Continue Reading UNC System BOG Appoints A&T Professor to UNC Press BOG

Tony Tian-Ren Lin: The Faithful Shall Not be Deterred

Today we welcome a guest post from Tony Tian-Ren Lin, author of Prosperity Gospel Latinos and Their American Dream, out now from UNC Press. In this immersive ethnography, Tony Tian-Ren Lin explores the reasons that Latin American immigrants across the United States are increasingly drawn to Prosperity Gospel Pentecostalism, a strand of Protestantism gaining popularity around the world. Lin contends… Continue Reading Tony Tian-Ren Lin: The Faithful Shall Not be Deterred

Zachery A. Fry: A Political Scandal in the Union Army

Today we welcome a guest post from Zachery A. Fry, author of A Republic in the Ranks: Loyalty and Dissent in the Army of the Potomac, out now from UNC Press. The Army of the Potomac was a hotbed of political activity during the Civil War. As a source of dissent widely understood as a frustration for Abraham Lincoln, its onetime commander,… Continue Reading Zachery A. Fry: A Political Scandal in the Union Army

Ryan Hall: Blackfoot Country and the Case for a Vast Early America

Today we welcome a guest post from Ryan Hall, author of Beneath the Backbone of the World: Blackfoot People and the North American Borderlands, 1720-1877, out now from UNC Press. For the better part of two centuries, between 1720 and 1877, the Blackfoot (Niitsitapi) people controlled a vast region of what is now the U.S. and Canadian Great Plains. As… Continue Reading Ryan Hall: Blackfoot Country and the Case for a Vast Early America

Michael E. Woods: Lincoln and Douglas–and Breese? Another Look at the 1858 Illinois Senate Race

Today we welcome a guest post from Michael E. Woods, author of Arguing Until Doomsday: Stephen Douglas, Jefferson Davis, and the Struggle for American Democracy, out now from UNC Press. As the sectional crisis gripped the United States, the rancor increasingly spread to the halls of Congress. Preston Brooks’s frenzied assault on Charles Sumner was perhaps the most notorious evidence… Continue Reading Michael E. Woods: Lincoln and Douglas–and Breese? Another Look at the 1858 Illinois Senate Race

Kate Douglas Torrey: Alan Trachtenberg (d. 8/18/2020)

UNC Press joins the many scholars and students of American Studies and American history in noting with sadness the loss of Alan Trachtenberg, Yale’s Neil Gray Jr. Professor of English and professor of American Studies emeritus. He was one of the pre-eminent scholars to establish the field of American Studies, a leading voice in demonstrating new ways of understanding the… Continue Reading Kate Douglas Torrey: Alan Trachtenberg (d. 8/18/2020)

John Sherer: Navigating a Strange Year

UNC Press began a new fiscal year last month and like most businesses, we honestly don’t know how to forecast what the next twelve months will bring. The last half year has been unlike anything in our history, which is saying a lot for this organization. In the past 100 years we have survived a depression, a world war, and… Continue Reading John Sherer: Navigating a Strange Year

Troy R. Saxby: What’s in a Name? Pauli Murray’s Many Identities

Today we welcome a guest post from Troy R. Saxby, author of Pauli Murray: A Personal and Political Life, out now from UNC Press. The Rev. Dr. Anna Pauline “Pauli” Murray (1910–1985) was a trailblazing social activist, writer, lawyer, civil rights organizer, and campaigner for gender rights. In the 1930s and 1940s, she was active in radical left-wing political groups… Continue Reading Troy R. Saxby: What’s in a Name? Pauli Murray’s Many Identities

Amanda Brickell Bellows–Slavery: Past and Present

Today we welcome a guest post from Amanda Brickell Bellows, author of American Slavery and Russian Serfdom in the Post-Emancipation Imagination, out now from UNC Press. The abolition of Russian serfdom in 1861 and American slavery in 1865 transformed both nations as Russian peasants and African Americans gained new rights as subjects and citizens. During the second half of the… Continue Reading Amanda Brickell Bellows–Slavery: Past and Present

Zachery A. Fry: Union Soldiers and the Press in the Civil War

Today we welcome a guest post from Zachery A. Fry, author of A Republic in the Ranks: Loyalty and Dissent in the Army of the Potomac, out now from UNC Press. The Army of the Potomac was a hotbed of political activity during the Civil War. As a source of dissent widely understood as a frustration for Abraham Lincoln, its onetime commander,… Continue Reading Zachery A. Fry: Union Soldiers and the Press in the Civil War

Siobhan Barco: New Talking Legal History Interview with Robert Chase

The final episode in the yearlong Talking Legal History podcast series featuring UNC Press is online. In this timely episode, I interview Robert Chase about his book We Are Not Slaves: State Violence, Coerced Labor, and Prisoners’ Rights in Postwar America (University of North Carolina Press, 2020). Our conversation underscores the important role academic presses play cultivating and disseminating the material… Continue Reading Siobhan Barco: New Talking Legal History Interview with Robert Chase

Brian P. Luskey: Mary Lincoln, Labor Broker

Today we welcome a guest post from Brian P. Luskey, author of Men is Cheap: Exposing the Frauds of Free Labor in Civil War America, out now from UNC Press. When a Civil War substitute broker told business associates that “Men is cheep here to Day,” he exposed an unsettling contradiction at the heart of the Union’s war effort. Despite… Continue Reading Brian P. Luskey: Mary Lincoln, Labor Broker

April C. Smith: Discovering Science and Nature Through Outdoor Exploration

Today we welcome a guest post by April C. Smith and Sarah J. Carrier, editor and assistant editor of Thirty Great North Carolina Science Adventures: From Underground Wonderlands to Islands in the Sky and Everything in Between, out now from UNC Press. North Carolina possesses an astonishingly rich array of natural wonders. Building on this abundance, April C. Smith passionately… Continue Reading April C. Smith: Discovering Science and Nature Through Outdoor Exploration

Claire Whitlinger–The Money in Memory: Commodifying Civil Rights Memory

Today we welcome a guest post from Claire Whitlinger, author of Between Remembrance and Repair: Commemorating Racial Violence in Philadelphia, Mississippi, out now from UNC Press. Few places are more notorious for civil rights–era violence than Philadelphia, Mississippi, the site of the 1964 “Mississippi Burning” murders. Yet in a striking turn of events, Philadelphia has become a beacon in Mississippi’s… Continue Reading Claire Whitlinger–The Money in Memory: Commodifying Civil Rights Memory

Douglas J. Flowe: “Uncontrollable Blackness” in Context

Today we welcome a guest post from Douglas J. Flowe, author of Uncontrollable Blackness: African American Men and Criminality in Jim Crow New York, out now from UNC Press. In the wake of emancipation, black men in northern urban centers like New York faced economic isolation, marginalization, and racial violence. In response, some of those men opted to participate in underground… Continue Reading Douglas J. Flowe: “Uncontrollable Blackness” in Context

Michael E. Woods: Remembering the Davis-Douglas Debates

Today we welcome a guest post from Michael E. Woods, author of Arguing Until Doomsday: Stephen Douglas, Jefferson Davis, and the Struggle for American Democracy, out now from UNC Press. As the sectional crisis gripped the United States, the rancor increasingly spread to the halls of Congress. Preston Brooks’s frenzied assault on Charles Sumner was perhaps the most notorious evidence… Continue Reading Michael E. Woods: Remembering the Davis-Douglas Debates

Jack Reid: Hitchhiking and Kinship Practices in the Navajo Nation

Today we welcome a guest post from Jack Reid, author of Roadside Americans: The Rise and Fall of Hitchhiking in a Changing Nation, out now from UNC Press. Between the Great Depression and the mid-1970s, hitchhikers were a common sight for motorists, as American service members, students, and adventurers sought out the romance of the road in droves. Beats, hippies,… Continue Reading Jack Reid: Hitchhiking and Kinship Practices in the Navajo Nation

Thomas J. Brown: Rumors of War in Richmond

Today we welcome a guest post from Thomas J. Brown, author of Civil War Monuments and the Militarization of America, out now from UNC Press. This sweeping new assessment of Civil War monuments unveiled in the United States between the 1860s and 1930s argues that they were pivotal to a national embrace of military values. Americans’ wariness of standing armies… Continue Reading Thomas J. Brown: Rumors of War in Richmond