November 3, 2016

Matthew Mason: Morality, Politics, and Compromise: The Plight and Prospects of the Moderate, Then and Now

There are a few potential parallels between modern and antebellum religious leaders. Many modern religious leaders seemingly hope to set aside thorny issues such as LGBT rights and immigration so they can refocus on their core religious missions. Continue Reading Matthew Mason: Morality, Politics, and Compromise: The Plight and Prospects of the Moderate, Then and Now

Categories American Studies/Author blog entry/Biography / Autobiography/Civil War/Guest Bloggers/History
November 2, 2016

John Mac Kilgore: Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story: An Early American Scholar’s Response to Hamilton

It’s such an incongruous moment to perpetuate Founders Chic, to applaud the man who is the ideological father of Wall Street, the debt economy, deportation, militarism, and the criminalization of protest. I can’t sing to that. Continue Reading John Mac Kilgore: Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story: An Early American Scholar’s Response to Hamilton

Categories American Studies/Author blog entry/Guest Bloggers/Literature
November 2, 2016

UNC Press Announces First Recipients of Thomas W. Ross Fund Publishing Grants

The grants will help UNC system departments, centers, and libraries publish scholarly material generated on their campuses. The five projects being funded represent a range of scholarly work being created at four different institutions. Continue Reading UNC Press Announces First Recipients of Thomas W. Ross Fund Publishing Grants

Categories The Book Biz/UNC Press News
October 31, 2016

Stephen D. Engle: IL Governor Richard Yates and the Union’s Cooperative Federalism

Governors asserting themselves in ways that strengthened the Union was the cornerstone of the cooperative federalism that emerged in the Civil War North and contributed to a Union victory. If it is true, as some scholars have asserted in the last 150 years, that the Confederacy died of Democracy, it might also be said that the Union lived because of it. Continue Reading Stephen D. Engle: IL Governor Richard Yates and the Union’s Cooperative Federalism

Categories American History/Author blog entry/Civil War/Guest Bloggers
October 26, 2016

David S. Brown: Jimmy Carter and the Origins of an Era of Democratic Party Dominance

Carter had no deep loyalties to the New Deal. He ran for his party’s nomination as an outsider to the Washington establishment but also eschewed the radical race politics practiced by southern Dixiecrats who, as recently as 1968, had championed the third-party presidential candidacy of George Wallace. He resisted ideological labels and told reporters that he was a liberal on some issues (civil rights, the environment) and conservative on others (fiscal policy). While in the presidency he sought to reduce government expenditures, balance budgets, and refused to push for a new New Deal. Anticipating a key theme of Ronald Reagan’s successful 1980 presidential bid, Carter, in his 1978 State of the Union Address, insisted, “government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem.” Continue Reading David S. Brown: Jimmy Carter and the Origins of an Era of Democratic Party Dominance

Categories American History/Author blog entry/Guest Bloggers/History/Politics
October 24, 2016

D. H. Dilbeck: What is a Just War? How the Union’s “Lieber Code” Answered a Perennial Question

Lieber was a Berlin-born jurist and scholar who taught in South Carolina from 1835-1856, but was professor of history and political economy at Columbia College in New York City at the outbreak of the Civil War. Almost as soon as the war began, Lieber (who wrote widely on the laws of war in the antebellum era) saw the need for something like the code he eventually drafted. The traditional just-war framework distinguishes between jus in bello, just conduct in war and jus ad bellum, legitimate reasons for engaging in war. Continue Reading D. H. Dilbeck: What is a Just War? How the Union’s “Lieber Code” Answered a Perennial Question

Categories American History/Author blog entry/Civil War/Guest Bloggers/History
October 20, 2016

Lon Kurashige: When Buddhism Was an Enemy Religion

A few months after the Pearl Harbor attack, the FBI took my grandfather away from his wife and seven children and confined him and hundreds of other Buddhist priests apart from their families and congregations. Their main “crime” was to be leaders of an enemy religion. There was no evidence produced to implicate my grandfather or any Buddhist priest of wrongdoing. Continue Reading Lon Kurashige: When Buddhism Was an Enemy Religion

Categories American History/Asian Studies/Author blog entry/Guest Bloggers/History/Political Science/Religion
October 19, 2016

Save 40% on our Religious Studies Books!

UNC Press is now having a special offer for 40% off of our latest Religious Studies books!

Simply enter the code 01RELI40 at check out to redeem the offer. Additionally, all orders of $75 and above will receive FREE shipping! Be sure to act on this offer before it’s gone!
Continue Reading Save 40% on our Religious Studies Books!

Categories Christian Studies/Islamic Studies/Jewish Studies/Religion/Sale/UNC Press News
October 17, 2016

Michael Jarrett: Early Record Men: How Talent Scouts, Managers, Recording Supervisors, Publishers, and A&R Men Shaped Music

Early record men, therefore, most resembled movie producers, not movie directors. Ultimately, their control derived from the power to grant or to deny access to capital. “I invented Louis Armstrong,” said Ralph Peer in a 1959 interview with Lillian Borgeson. Continue Reading Michael Jarrett: Early Record Men: How Talent Scouts, Managers, Recording Supervisors, Publishers, and A&R Men Shaped Music

Categories African American Studies/American Studies/Author blog entry/Guest Bloggers/Music
October 13, 2016

Anne M. Blankenship: E Pluribus Unum?

Headlines of racial violence and the unabashed racism within Donald Trump’s campaign for the U.S. presidency do not allow Americans to escape the fact that our nation’s value of pluralism lies on shaky ground. The U.S. Constitution, of course, did not originally allow for the full rights of women or people of African, Asian, or Native American descent, but the notion of America as a land of opportunity for all persists. Continue Reading Anne M. Blankenship: E Pluribus Unum?

Categories American History/Asian Studies/Author blog entry/Christian Studies/Guest Bloggers/Politics/Religion
October 10, 2016

Matthew Mason: Movement within Bounds on the Antislavery Political Spectrum: The Case of Edward Everett

If we can bring ourselves to take seriously their protestations both of love for the Union and distaste for slavery, we should not be surprised to see them move along a spectrum of antislavery belief and action. While that peregrination rarely proceeded in one direction or predictable ways, it did transpire within limits for every antebellum Northern politician. The relative strength of their antislavery principles dictated that there were bounds beyond which their conservatism could not go, but their nationalism and respect for law and order also set boundaries beyond which their antislavery could not go. Continue Reading Matthew Mason: Movement within Bounds on the Antislavery Political Spectrum: The Case of Edward Everett

Categories Author blog entry/Biography / Autobiography/Civil War/Guest Bloggers/History
October 6, 2016

Bruce B. Lawrence: Daily Mercy: Allah in the Cracks

We welcome a guest post from Bruce B. Lawrence, author of Who is Allah? This vivid introduction to the heart of Islam offers a unique approach to understanding Allah, the central focus of Muslim religious expression. Drawing on history, culture, theology, politics, and the media, Lawrence identifies key religious practices by which Allah is revered and remembered, illuminating how the very… Continue Reading Bruce B. Lawrence: Daily Mercy: Allah in the Cracks

Categories Author blog entry/Guest Bloggers/Islamic Studies/Religion
October 3, 2016

Greta de Jong: A Lesson from Black History for Angry White Men

Trump voters are not likely to look to African American history for help in making sense of their situation or forging solutions, but if they did they might find that they have more in common with black Americans than they thought. In the mid-twentieth century, rural communities in the South—and their predominantly black labor force—experienced processes of displacement and decline that foreshadowed those that afflicted white workers in later decades. Continue Reading Greta de Jong: A Lesson from Black History for Angry White Men

Categories African American History/African American Studies/American History/Author blog entry/Guest Bloggers/Labor Studies
September 26, 2016

Emily Suzanne Clark: I Don’t Believe in No Ghosts: America and Spirits

Whether or not you reading this post believe in them, ghosts fascinate Americans. A century and a half before the popularity of ghost-hunter shows on the SyFy Network and NBC’s award-winning show “Medium,” belief in spirit communication was serious and widespread in the United States. Spiritualism swept across the United States in the mid-nineteenth century and remained popular into the twentieth century. Put simply, a Spiritualist is one who believes that communication with the spirits of the dead is not only possible but also desirable. Popularized by the Fox Sisters and their “Rochester rappings,” Spiritualism interested Americans young and old, white and black, male and female, rich and poor. Much of this appeal came from Spiritualism’s ability to bridge the world of the living and the world of the dead. Continue Reading Emily Suzanne Clark: I Don’t Believe in No Ghosts: America and Spirits

Categories Author blog entry/Guest Bloggers/History/Religion
September 22, 2016

Lon Kurashige: What Would Teddy Roosevelt Do?

It is important to recall Roosevelt’s positions on immigration because of the similarities between his day and our own. Immigration fears are a regular feature in today’s headlines as the United States (not mention the U.K. and European countries) wrestles with how much and in what ways to close its borders to newcomers. The same was true when Roosevelt became president. Continue Reading Lon Kurashige: What Would Teddy Roosevelt Do?

Categories American History/Asian Studies/Author blog entry/Guest Bloggers/History/Public Policy
September 20, 2016

Lorien Foote: Adding Prisoners of War to ‘Free State of Jones’

Director Gary Ross had a fascinating and complicated story to tell, and if he had difficulty weaving the parts together for a two-hour movie, his problems would have been compounded had he tried to tell the story of the deserters in rebellion against the Confederacy in the Carolinas. Imagine Free State of Jones with nearly 3,000 escaped prisoners of war thrown into the mix. Continue Reading Lorien Foote: Adding Prisoners of War to ‘Free State of Jones’

Categories American History/Author blog entry/Civil War/Guest Bloggers/History