August 27, 2012

Excerpt: With a Sword in One Hand and Jomini in the Other, by Carol Reardon

Military theory is an intellectually sophisticated and complex form of cultural expression. At the start of the Civil War, the U.S. Army and the people it defended barely had begun to demonstrate an interest in developing a capacity to think about war as an element of national life. They had done little to institutionalize such study. As a consequence, when the Civil War broke out, Northerners had few resources to turn to for insights on an American way of war, and they had no choice but to look to the military classics from across a cultural divide for the intellectual authority they sought. Continue Reading Excerpt: With a Sword in One Hand and Jomini in the Other, by Carol Reardon

Categories American History/Civil War/Excerpts/History/Military Studies
August 24, 2012

Jay Barnes: Hurricanes and Politics

Much of the news coverage for Issac has focused on Tampa, host city for the Republican National Convention set to get underway on Monday. There’s good reason to focus attention on Tampa too, because along with the entire Tampa Bay area, it is the U.S. city most vulnerable to a major hurricane. Continue Reading Jay Barnes: Hurricanes and Politics

Categories Author blog entry/Guest Bloggers/Hurricanes/Weather
August 23, 2012

Excerpt: The House on Diamond Hill, by Tiya Miles

It was lovely, this old plantation house, perched, as it was, atop a hillside. Striking in its grandeur. Alluring in its light. I could almost believe, staring up at the glowing, Palladian window panes, that the year was 1806, that Cherokees still possessed the lands of northern Georgia, that the wealthy Cherokee family who once dwelled in this home would appear at a doorway in waistcoats and bustles. Continue Reading Excerpt: The House on Diamond Hill, by Tiya Miles

Categories African American Studies/American History/American Studies/Excerpts/History/Native Amer./Indigenous Studies
August 21, 2012

North Carolina Icons: Longleaf Pine

This week in our North Carolina Icons series, we jump to #94 on Our State Magazine’s list of 100 North Carolina Icons: the Longleaf Pine. Our book recommendations are to be enjoyed with your favorite beverage, a glass of which you should raise high as you recite the North Carolina State Toast (yes, we have one!). Continue Reading North Carolina Icons: Longleaf Pine

Categories Environmental Studies/Nature/North Carolina
August 20, 2012

Kate Masur on Lincoln’s emigration proposal and the views of African American delegates

For all the attention to Lincoln’s ideas and motivations, however, there has been very little focus on the delegates’ side of the story. For decades no one even knew who they were, much less what they stood for. Drawing on the work of the historian Benjamin Quarles, many believed that four of the five delegates were uneducated former slaves, hand-picked by Lincoln and his colonization commissioner, James Mitchell, to be pliable and subservient.

In fact, all five of the men who listened to Lincoln’s case for colonization were members of Washington’s free black elite, chosen by a formal meeting of representatives from Washington’s independent black churches. Continue Reading Kate Masur on Lincoln’s emigration proposal and the views of African American delegates

Categories African American History/African American Studies/American History/Civil War/History
August 17, 2012

Excerpt: This Voilent Empire, by Carroll Smith-Rosenberg

The fear of alien attacks, the need to violently exclude Others seen as dangerous or polluting has formed a critical component of the United States’ national identity from the Alien and Sedition Acts of the 1790s through Joseph McCarthy’s war on domestic Communists to the present. To fear and dehumanize alien Others, to ruthlessly hunt them down, is truly American. Continue Reading Excerpt: This Voilent Empire, by Carroll Smith-Rosenberg

Categories American History/American Studies/Excerpts/History
August 16, 2012

Sandra Gutierrez: Pecan Rum Cake with Figs

I grew up in Latin America, eating cakes soaked in rum that we used to call borrachos or drunken cakes. Rum, after all, is made out of sugarcane and in my opinion, that is enough of a reason to feature it in baked goods. Here, instead of adding it in the form of rum syrup, I add it straight into the batter, which infuses it with a subtle essence and therefore makes it suitable for romantics of all ages. Continue Reading Sandra Gutierrez: Pecan Rum Cake with Figs

Categories Author blog entry/Cooking / Food/Guest Bloggers/Recipes/Sandra Gutierrez
August 14, 2012

North Carolina Icons: Cheerwine & Krispy Kreme

For this week’s North Carolina Icons, we’re combining two North Carolina companies: Cheerwine and Krispy Kreme, #3 and #34 on Our State Magazine’s 100 North Carolina Icons list. Both companies started in North Carolina in the early 20th century, Cheerwine in Salisbury and Krispy Kreme in Winston-Salem, and have remained there while spreadingto other states. Continue Reading North Carolina Icons: Cheerwine & Krispy Kreme

Categories Cooking / Food/North Carolina
August 13, 2012

Interview: Eric L. Muller on new images of Japanese American internment in World War II

Cameras remained contraband at the camps located within the military district called the Western Defense Command. But Wyoming was outside that zone, and by the spring of 1943, cameras were permitted. The WRA recognized that allowing internees to take pictures was a way of helping them reclaim some sense of a normal life and some of their dignity. Continue Reading Interview: Eric L. Muller on new images of Japanese American internment in World War II

Categories American Studies/Asian Studies/Documentary Studies/Interviews/Photography
August 9, 2012

Notes from the Field: Miguel La Serna Returns to Ayacucho

Miguel La Serna, author of The Corner of the Living, recently returned to his research communities in Peru to donate a copy of his published work to local archives. Here, he shares his field notes from that experience, including some sobering updates on his community collaborators. Continue Reading Notes from the Field: Miguel La Serna Returns to Ayacucho

Categories Anthropology/Author blog entry/Guest Bloggers/History/Native Amer./Indigenous Studies
August 8, 2012

Beth Tompkins Bates: The High Road to Economic Prosperity

To address the human element of production, Ford introduced his Five Dollar Day, Ford Profit-Sharing Plan. When the plan was unveiled in 1914, the world was stunned. Qualified Ford workers would receive five dollars a day, more than double the average wage in the auto industry at that time. When compared to lower prevailing wages in other industries such as steel, meatpacking, or coal mining, the Ford proposal was even more astounding. Simultaneously, FMC reduced the workday from nine hours to eight. Continue Reading Beth Tompkins Bates: The High Road to Economic Prosperity

Categories African American History/American History/American Studies/Author blog entry/Economics/Guest Bloggers/History
August 7, 2012

North Carolina Icons: Loggerhead Sea Turtles

This week we continue our NC Icons series with loggerhead sea turtles, number nine on Our State magazine’s 100 North Carolina Icons list. Loggerhead sea turtles are an endangered species that nest along North Carolina’s coast (and as far south as Florida and north to Virginia). Continue Reading North Carolina Icons: Loggerhead Sea Turtles

Categories Environmental Studies/Nature/North Carolina/Travel
August 6, 2012

Deirdre M. Moloney: State and local immigration policies affect U.S. foreign affairs

But there is another historically significant dimension to the decision that has received less media attention: ceding to states greater authority to regulate immigration would have represented a significant devolution in federal power. Continue Reading Deirdre M. Moloney: State and local immigration policies affect U.S. foreign affairs

Categories American History/American Studies/Author blog entry/Guest Bloggers/History/Latino Studies/Law / Legal History/Politics
August 3, 2012

Free Book Friday: Colors of Confinement

For this month’s Free Book Friday, we’re giving away a copy of Colors of Confinement: Rare Kodachrome Photographs of Japanese American Incarceration in World War II, which features very rare color photographs of the Heart Mountain Relocation Center, a Japanese American internment camp during World War II. Continue Reading Free Book Friday: Colors of Confinement

Categories American History/American Studies/Asian Studies/History/Photography
August 2, 2012

New Omnibus E-Book: The Louis A. Pérez Jr. Cuba Trilogy

Louis A. Pérez Jr. is one of the most influential historians of Cuba. Available for the first time as an Omnibus Ebook edition, this three-volume set brings together three of Pérez’s most acclaimed works on Cuba and its relations to the United States, all bundled into one convenient ebook. Continue Reading New Omnibus E-Book: The Louis A. Pérez Jr. Cuba Trilogy

Categories Cuba/History/Latin American/Caribbean Hist./UNC Press News
August 1, 2012

Barbara Sicherman: It Happened in the Archives

Well-Read Lives evolved from my interest in women’s history and biography that my father did not live to witness. He would surely have had his doubts about the gender angle. But I like to think that my admiration for his literary interests informed my choice of subject, if not my approach to it. Continue Reading Barbara Sicherman: It Happened in the Archives

Categories American Studies/Author blog entry/Gender Studies/Guest Bloggers/History/Women's Studies
July 31, 2012

Michael H. Hunt: Ryan Crocker and the Imperial Reckoning

One reason for the U.S. failure in the Middle East seems obvious. The Bush administration embraced empire long after empire’s expiration date had passed. The American project faced potent opposition in Iraq and Afghanistan that could be contained only by making deals with shrewd collaborators with their own interests to serve. The international hostility to the Iraq invasion was intense, and even in the United States the Iraq adventure fell into disfavor. Continue Reading Michael H. Hunt: Ryan Crocker and the Imperial Reckoning

Categories American History/American Studies/Author blog entry/Columnists/Current Events/Guest Bloggers/History/Michael H. Hunt/Politics
July 30, 2012

Miles Orvell: From Mayberry to Dogville: The Small Town as Microcosm

Mayberry, Lake Wobegon, Hadleyburg, Dogville—these are extreme representations of the small town and they are in direct conflict with one another. Taken together, they reveal the contradictions of the American twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Continue Reading Miles Orvell: From Mayberry to Dogville: The Small Town as Microcosm

Categories American Studies/Author blog entry/Fiction/Film/Guest Bloggers/Literature/Media Studies