Do we have a new annual tradition on our hands? Last year over on our CivilWar150 blog, Glenn David Brasher gave us a great roundup of Civil War-related highlights from throughout the year. He’s back at it again with 2014’s big news in Civil War history. You’ll find elections, debates, satire, sincerity, and more. Continue Reading Glenn David Brasher’s Civil War Top 10 from 2014
One of the earliest printed books on aqua vitae, in this case brandy, was published in Germany in 1476 and recommended a half-spoonful every morning to prevent conditions as varied as arthritis and bad breath. Other physicians wrote of the beneficial effects of brandy for physical ailments (it cured headaches, heart disease, gout, and deafness); as an aid to appearance (it improved the bust and stopped hair graying); and as therapy for emotional and other problems (it banished melancholy and forgetfulness). The inclusion of conditions commonly associated with aging (such as deafness, forgetfulness, and graying) reflects the claims that drinking brandy prolonged youth and thus life itself. Continue Reading Excerpt: Alcohol: A History, by Rod Phillips
In light of the sea change in U.S.-Cuban relations, I am delighted to recommend two books to anyone who wants to get up to speed: On Becoming Cuban: Identity, Nationality, and Culture, by Louis A. Pérez Jr., and Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations between Washington and Havana, by William LeoGrande and Peter Kornbluh. Continue Reading Essential Background Reading on Cuba from UNC Press
Fatima was an adventurous designer of third space identities, a non-hijabi who was at the same time religiously devout, socially liberal, sexually conservative, and politically aware. When Fatima entered the gates of Georgetown, having newly graduated from a strictly Islamic school, she was horrified to find that some of her Muslim friends drank alcohol. Continue Reading Excerpt: Muslim American Women on Campus, by Shabana Mir
Controversy rages over fire policy in Linville Gorge, which was the first designated Federal Wilderness in the East with the passage of the Wilderness Act in 1964. Currently, the policy is to suppress any fires that threaten manmade structures, but to allow lower-intensity lightning-strike fires to burn. The latest management plan proposes prescribed burns in the Gorge to promote pines and rare plants and to reduce fuel loads. Homeowners in the Gingercake Acres development, perched on the eastern rim of the Gorge, understandably worry about risk to their homes. Advocacy organizations like Save the Linville Gorge Wilderness argue that fire destroys the wild character of the landscape. Skeptics scoff that the Forest Service maintains only an illusion of control over something as unpredictable and powerful as fire. Continue Reading Stephanie B. Jeffries: Free the Phoenix: Fire and Rebirth in Linville Gorge
Contemporary documentary projects such as StoryCorps and Humans of New York thrive today in a spirit similar to that which led the vision of the Federal Writers’ Project and These Are Our Lives. They remind us that every life has a story, and every story matters. Continue Reading Video: Celebrating 75 Years of ‘These Are Our Lives’
Looking at the history of the evil stepmother stereotype I think explains some of the staying power of these familiar tales. Although stepmother characterizations have been negative since as far back as ancient Greece, in Western culture the need for evil stepmothers became more urgent in the United States in response to a new idea of the proper family in Enlightenment Europe. Sentimental families, as they were called, became the ideal for the rising middle class in Western Europe. Continue Reading Lisa Wilson: Cinderella and Her Still Evil Stepmother
But the Act has another flaw, deeper and more consequential than its 100 percent proficiency mandate. Written into NCLB is an assumption: that imparting basic math and reading skills should be the purpose of our schools. In mandating a tested-and-sanctioned proficiency in these basics, the Act quickly reduced the purpose of public education to a very narrowly defined type of academic achievement.
I won’t argue the importance of reading and math—these are necessary skills. But I will argue that schooling should be about more than reading and math, especially the sort of reading and math that can be measured on a state test. Continue Reading Mara Casey Tieken: The Children “Left Behind”
Congratulations to Fiona Ritchie and Doug Orr for their New York Times Bestseller, Wayfaring Strangers: The Musical Voyage from Scotland and Ulster to Appalachia! We’re giving away 5 signed copies to our subscribers!
To celebrate, the UNC Press is giving away six signed copies of Wayfaring Stranger when you sign up for our monthly e-newsletter in the Music, Travel, or Appalachian Studies categories. Just enter your name and email address and subscribe to the Music, Travel, and/or Appalachian Studies mailing list(s). Continue Reading Enter to Win a Signed Copy of New York Times Bestseller ‘Wayfaring Strangers’
For what you might spend on a cup of coffee or lunch with friends, you can become a UNC Press Club Sustainer and be a part of our publishing excellence, and win books! Continue Reading This #GivingTuesday, Become a UNC Press Club Sustainer
What is the relationship between residential segregation and racial inequality? Scholars have spent decades analyzing data and arguing that residential segregation is the “linchpin” of racial inequality in the United States. The conclusion that many draw, therefore, is that residential integration is the key to reducing racial inequality. Pretty straightforward, right? Well, not quite. Continue Reading Sarah Mayorga-Gallo: What We’re Missing When We Talk about Integrated Neighborhoods
My attachment to the Thanksgiving relish tray began with my grandmother, whose tray contained her homemade pickled peaches, homemade bread-and-butter pickles, homemade watermelon rind pickles—and store-bought, bright red, spiced apple rings. The rings sort of came out of left field and I don’t know the story behind them, but as a kid I loved their sweet, Technicolor addition. Continue Reading Debbie Moose: Thanksgiving Relish Tray
Thrown out in the third century, rediscovered in 1906, these book rolls are finally now, in the twenty-first century, revealing to us the interests and priorities of a book collector who lived, read, and strove to understand his texts some eighteen hundred years ago. Continue Reading George W. Houston: From a Trash Heap: The Mind of an Ancient Book Collector
Over the last decade around New York, a host of more localized concerns and groups have mobilized around a new bevvy of “green” causes: banding together to rebuild after Sandy, campaigning for locally grown and organic food, and fighting against fracking. At the People’s Climate March, they found welcome and common cause with those pushing for divestiture from fossil fuels, as well as those from more far flung locales, those rebuilding on the Gulf Coast after Katrina, those from island nations and from other communities on the “front line” of environmental change. In an earlier era, “the environment” had gained traction because of how it linked so many issues long considered separate, from pollution to wilderness preservation. Now “climate” may have proven itself sufficiently capacious to serve as an entire movement’s umbrella. Continue Reading Christopher C. Sellers: Beyond Environmentalism: Marching toward Climatism
It is generally known that the American banjo’s origins trace back to West Africa and a gourd-like instrument the gnomi, among other names. However, the plantations were something of an incubator for music of the African American slaves in a variety of forms: the fiddle, learned at the plantation house; the call-and-response work songs from the toil of the plantation fields; spirituals stemming from church worship—often clandestine services or camp meetings with hidden messages of freedom’s call; and the hush lullabies sung by mammies to their babies, and sung with irony to the children of the plantation overlords. Continue Reading Doug Orr: The Profound African American Influence on Appalachian Music
Some extra good news? Even though our Spring 2015 books haven’t been published yet, you can pre-order them at the sale price now, and we’ll ship the books as soon as they become available. What’s coming along this spring? We’ve got a handful featured below. Browse the interactive catalog above to see the full list. Continue Reading Sneak Peek: Great Reads for Spring 2015
Brewsters were female brewers. They were important because during the Middle Ages (and later in the American colonies) women brewed the beer their families needed. Brewing was seen as a woman’s task, like baking. Beer was liquid bread, and very nutritious. But as brewing became more commercialized, women were pushed out. The world of big business was seen as no place for women, and women didn’t have access to the financing needed for a commercial brewery. So brewing became a male occupation, and it’s really only with the rise of craft breweries in the last decade or two that women have started to re-enter the industry. Continue Reading Interview: Rod Phillips and the world history of alcohol
Unlike the covert electronic infringements by the NSA, some other infringements are open and obvious—for example, security check-points at airports and government buildings, or surveillance cameras covering public spaces. These are examples of what I term “reverse transparency.” Traditionally, transparency has been a standard applied to organizations, such as corporations or governments, by which we require that their decisions be clear and open in order to permit accountability. Increasingly, however, under the pressure of homeland security concerns, this traditional conception has been, as it were, stood on its head. Continue Reading Michael Barkun: Reverse Transparency in Post-9/11 America
Studies in United States Culture will publish provocative books that explore United States culture in its many forms and spheres of influence. Under the series umbrella, UNC Press seeks interdisciplinary work characterized by big ideas, brisk prose, bold storytelling, and methodological sophistication. Continue Reading Announcing a new book series: Studies in United States Culture
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