New Books in the American South

Kathryn Benjamin Golden, "Armed in the Great Swamp': Fear, Maroon Insurrection, and the Insurgent Ecology of the Great Dismal Swamp" (2021)

19 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In 2021, we are inundated with daily images of racial terror, state violence, and technologies of punishment showing pictures of broken down, beleague...

Susan M. Reverby, "Examining Tuskegee: The Infamous Syphilis Study and Its Legacy" (UNC Press, 2013)

05 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Some books are new, others are newly relevant – and so worth looking at from a new, contemporary perspective. Such is the case with Susan Reverby’...

Karlos K. Hill, "The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre: A Photographic History" (U Oklahoma Press, 2021)

30 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

On the evening of May 31, 1921, thousands of white Oklahomans assaulted the Greenwood District of the city of Tulsa. In what would come to be known as...

E. Patrick Johnson, "Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South" (U of North Carolina Press, 2011)

30 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

E. Patrick Johnson's Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South (University of North Carolina Press, 2011) has been a monograph, a documentary film, a s...

Fatima Shaik, "Economy Hall: The Hidden History of a Free Black Brotherhood" (HNOC, 2021)

23 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Fatima Shaik's book Economy Hall: The Hidden History of a Free Black Brotherhood (Historic New Orleans Collections, 2021) tells the story of the Soc...

Tamika Y. Nunley, "At the Threshold of Liberty: Women, Slavery, and Shifting Identities in Washington, D.C." (UNC Press, 2021)

22 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The capital city of a nation founded on the premise of liberty, nineteenth-century Washington, D.C., was both an entrepot of urban slavery and the tar...

Regina N. Bradley, "Chronicling Stankonia: The Rise of the Hip-Hop South" (UNC Press, 2021)

19 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Chronicling Stankonia: The Rise of the Hip-Hop South (University of North Carolina Press, 2021) pulses with the beats of a new American South, prob...

B. K. Mitchell, et al., "Monumental: Oscar Dunn and His Radical Fight in Reconstruction Louisiana" (HNOC, 2021)

12 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Dr. Brian K. Mitchell describes Reconstruction as the most misunderstood period in American history. In the Jim Crow era, there was a concerted effort...

Julio Capó Jr., "Welcome to Fairyland: Queer Miami before 1940" (UNC Press, 2017)

12 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Welcome to Fairyland: Queer Miami before 1940 (University of North Carolina Press, 2017)highlights how transnational forces—including (im)migration...

Thomas C. Holt, "The Movement: The African American Struggle for Civil Rights" (Oxford UP, 2021)

01 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The civil rights movement was among the most important historical developments of the twentieth century and one of the most remarkable mass movements ...

Mary Ann Cherry, "Morris Kight: Humanist, Liberationist, Fantabulist: A Story of Gay Rights and Gay Wrongs" (Process, 2020)

31 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

How did the gay movement, which began as a sedate group of intellectuals, become what is arguably the most dynamic civil rights crusade in America? Ho...

Elizabeth L. Jemison, "Christian Citizens: Reading the Bible in Black and White in the Post-Emancipation South" (UNC Press, 2020)

30 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Elizabeth L. Jemison, who teaches American religious history at Clemson University, South Carolina, has written an outstanding new book, Christian C...

Zach Sell, "Trouble of the World: Slavery and Empire in the Age of Capital" (UNC Press, 2021)

29 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The middle decades of the 19th century witnessed the expansion of slavery and white settlement and dispossession of Indigenous lands west of the Missi...

David A. Less, "Memphis Mayhem: A Story of the Music That Shook Up the World" (ECW Press, 2020)

25 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to David A. Lees about his book Memphis Mayhem: A Story of the Music That Shook Up the World (ECW Press, 2020) David Less has studie...

Jonathan S. Holloway, "The Cause of Freedom: A Concise History of African Americans" (Oxford UP, 2021)

15 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

What does it mean to be an American? The story of the African American past demonstrates the difficulty of answering this seemingly simple question. I...

William C. Kashatus, "William Still: The Underground Railroad and the Angel at Philadelphia" (U Notre Dame Press, 2021)

12 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

William Still looms large in the history of the Underground Railroad, both for his role coordinating the Eastern Line and the records he maintained of...

B. Brian Foster, "I Don't Like the Blues: Race, Place, and the Backbeat of Black Life" (UNC Press, 2020)

11 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Brian Foster, self-identified Black boy from rural Mississippi, joins us today for a conversation about his book, I Don't Like the Blues: Race, Place...

Michael J. Pfeifer, "The Making of American Catholicism: Regional Culture and the Catholic Experience" (NYU Press, 2021

09 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Michael J. Pfeifer's The Making of American Catholicism: Regional Culture and the Catholic Experience (NYU Press, 2021 traces the development of Cat...

Theodore D. Segal, "Point of Reckoning: The Fight for Racial Justice" (Duke UP, 2021)

08 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Duke University officially integrated its student body in the early 1960s, but the University itself did little to make students of color feel as thou...

Ty Seidule, "Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner's Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause" (St. Martin's Press, 2021)

02 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

We're very fortunate to be joined by the editor of The West Point History of the Civil War (Simon and Schuster, 2014), the Head of the History Depa...

Robert Elder, "Calhoun: American Heretic" (Basic Books, 2021)

02 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In Calhoun: American Heretic (Basic Books, 2021), historian Robert Elder documents the life and thought of one of America's most controversial state...

Kaitland M. Byrd, "Real Southern Barbecue: Constructing Authenticity in Southern Food Culture" (Lexington, 2019)

25 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Kaitland Byrd’s new book Real Southern Barbecue: Constructing Authenticity in Southern Food Culture (Lexington Press, 2019) examines an archive of...

Stephanie McCurry, "Women's War: Fighting and Surviving the Civil War" (Harvard UP, 2019)

23 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In Women's War: Fighting and Surviving the Civil War (Harvard UP, 2019), the award-winning author of Confederate Reckoning challenges the idea th...

Studying LBGT Organizing in China: A Conversation with Caterina Fugazzola

18 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In today’s episode of Ethnographic Marginalia, Sneha Annavarapu talks with Dr. Caterina Fugazzola, Earl S Johnson Instructor in Sociology at the Un...

Daniel B. Rood, "The Reinvention of Atlantic Slavery: Technology, Labor, Race, and Capitalism in the Greater Caribbean" (Oxford UP, 2020)

16 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The period of the "second slavery" was marked by geographic expansion of zones of slavery into the Upper US South, Cuba, and Brazil and chronological ...

Paul O. Jenkins, "Bluegrass Ambassadors: The McLain Family Band in Appalachia and the World" (West Virginia UP, 2020)

11 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Paul O. Jenkins about his book Bluegrass Ambassadors: The McLain Family Band in Appalachia and the World (West Virginia UP, 2020)...

Richard Kreitner, "Break It Up: Secession, Division, and the Secret History of America's Imperfect Union" (Little Brown, 2020)

08 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Journalists, scholars, politicians, and citizens often assume that calls for secession are political or historical aberrations. Our founding myth is t...

Earl Wright II, "Jim Crow Sociology: The Black and Southern Roots of American Sociology" (University of Cincinnati Press, 2020)

05 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Jim Crow Sociology: The Black and Southern Roots of American Sociology (U Cincinnati Press, 2020) is an extraordinary new volume that examines the o...

Gretchen Sorin, "Driving While Black: African American Travel and the Road to Civil Rights" (Liveright, 2020)

04 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Gretchen Sorin’s book, Driving While Black: African American Travel and the Road to Civil Rights (Liveright, 2020) is Sorin’s ode to a part of...

Michael Gorra, "The Saddest Words: William Faulkner's Civil War" (Liveright, 2020)

21 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Michael Gorra about his new book The Saddest Words: William Faulkner's Civil War (Liveright, 2020). This episode touches on two ...

Jason Berry, "City of a Million Dreams: A History of New Orleans at Year 300" (UNC Press, 2018)

19 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In City of a Million Dreams: A History of New Orleans at Year 300 (University of North Carolina Press, 2018), Jason Berry delivers a history of N...

Chris Hamby, "Soul Full of Coal Dust: The True Story of an Epic Battle for Justice" (Little Brown, 2020)

14 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Chris Hamby about his book Soul Full of Coal Dust: The True Story of an Epic Battle for Justice (Little Brown, 2020). Hamby looks...

Elizabeth Catte, "Pure America: Eugenics and the Making of Modern Virginia" (Belt, 2021)

29 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Between 1927 and 1979, more than 8,000 people were involuntarily sterilized in five hospitals across the state of Virginia. From this plain and terrib...

Queer Voices of the South: Year in Review

28 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In this final episode of 2020, New Books Network hosts and fellow authors take a look back at the evolution of their podcast Queer Voices of the Sout...

Ashon T. Crawley, "The Lonely Letters" (Duke UP, 2020)

22 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In The Lonely Letters (Duke UP, 2020), A tells Moth: “Writing about and thinking with joy is what sustains me, daily. It nourishes me. I do not w...

Carl Rollyson, "The Life of William Faulkner: This Alarming Paradox, 1935-1962" (U Virginia Press, 2020)

01 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

By 1935 William Faulkner was well established as an author of critically praised novels, yet the low volume of his sales forced him to seek work in Ho...

Pip Gordon, "Gay Faulkner: Uncovering a Homosexual Presence in Yoknapatawpha and Beyond" (UP Mississippi, 2019)

17 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The life and works of William Faulkner have generated numerous biographical studies exploring how Faulkner understood southern history, race, his rela...

John Garrison Marks, "Black Freedom in the Age of Slavery: Race, Status, and Identity in the Urban Americas" (U of South Carolina Press, 2020)

05 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Prior to the abolition of slavery, thousands of African-descended people in the Americas lived in freedom. Their efforts to navigate daily life and ne...

Connor Towne O’Neill, "Down Along with That Devil’s Bones" (Algonquin Books, 2020)

04 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In Down Along with That Devil’s Bones: A Reckoning with Monuments, Memory, and the Legacy of White Supremacy (Algonquin Books, 2020), journalist Con...

Robert Fieseler, "Tinderbox: The Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberation" (Liveright, 2018)

30 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

An essential work of American civil rights history, Tinderbox: The Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberation (Liveright...

Karlos K. Hill, "The Murder of Emmett Till: A Graphic History" (Oxford UP, 2020)

27 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The image of Emmett Till’s open coffin, revealing the 14-year old’s horrifically disfigured face, is one of the most heart-wrenching images of the...

Morris Ardoin, "Stone Motel: Memoirs of a Cajun Boy" (UP of Mississippi, 2020)

19 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In the summers of the early 1970s, Morris Ardoin and his siblings helped run their family's roadside motel in a hot, buggy, bayou town in Cajun Louisi...

Denise E. Bates, "Basket Diplomacy: Leadership, Alliance-Building, and Resilience among the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana, 1884-1984" (U Nebraska Press, 2020)

02 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Before the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana became one of the state’s top private employers—with its vast landholdings and economic enterprises—they...

B. Heersink and J. A. Jenkins, "Republican Party Politics and the American South, 1865-1968" (Cambridge UP, 2020)

10 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Prior to the 1960s, Democrats were seen as having a lock on the South in national and local electoral politics, while Republicans had strengths in oth...

John F. Marszalek III, "Coming Out of the Magnolia Closet: Same-Sex Couples in Mississippi" (U Mississippi Press, 2020)

02 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In Coming Out of the Magnolia Closet: Same-Sex Couples in Mississippi (University of Mississippi Press, 2020), John F. Marszalek III shares conversat...

Colin Woodard, "Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood" (Viking, 2020)

18 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Colin Woodard's new book Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood (Viking, 2020) tells the story of the struggle to create a...

Aaron Carico, "Black Market: The Slave's Value in National Culture after 1865" (UNC Press, 2020)

17 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

On the eve of the Civil War, the estimated value of the U.S. enslaved population exceeded $3 billion--triple that of investments nationwide in factori...

Jennifer Atkins, "New Orleans Carnival Balls: The Secret Side of Mardi Gras, 1870-1920" (LSU Press, 2017)

10 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In New Orleans Carnival Balls: The Secret Side of Mardi Gras, 1870-1920 (LSU Press, 2017), Dr. Jennifer Atkins draws back the curtain on the origin of...

J. Browning and T. Silver, "An Environmental History of the Civil War" (UNC Press, 2020)

06 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

This sweeping new history recognizes that the Civil War was not just a military conflict but also a moment of profound transformation in Americans' re...

Alex Sayf Cummings, "Brain Magnet: Research Triangle Park and the Idea of the Idea Economy" (Columbia UP, 2020)

05 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Beginning in the 1950s, a group of academics, businesspeople, and politicians set out on an ambitious project to remake North Carolina’s low-wage ec...

Anne Lindsay, "Reconsidering Interpretation of Heritage Sites: America in the Eighteenth Century" (Routledge, 2020)

04 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

2020 had been an intense year for Americans reflecting on their nation’s history. From attacks on statues to public debates about the 1619 Project t...

Lesly-Marie Buer, "RX Appalachia: Stories of Treatment and Survival in Rural Kentucky" (Haymarket, 2020)

03 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Using the narratives of women who use(d) drugs, this account challenges popular understandings of Appalachia spread by such pundits as JD Vance by doc...

Ann Tucker, "Newest Born of Nations: European Nationalist Movements and the Making of the Confederacy" (UVA Press, 2020)

29 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

From the earliest stirrings of southern nationalism to the defeat of the Confederacy, analysis of European nationalist movements played a critical rol...

Emily Wallace, "Road Sides: An Illustrated Companion to Dining and Driving in the American South" (U Texas Press, 2019)

24 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In this this interview, Carrie Tippen talks with Emily Wallace, author and illustrator of the new book Road Sides: An Illustrated Companion to Dining ...

Jerry Gershenhorn, "Louis Austin and the Carolina Times: A Life in the Long Black Freedom Struggle" (UNC Press, 2018)

15 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

James West speaks with Jerry Gershenhorn, Julius L. Chambers Professor of History at North Carolina Central University, about Louis Austin and the C...

Nicole Myers Turner, "Soul Liberty: The Evolution of Black Religious Politics in Postemancipation Virginia" (UNC Press, 2020)

06 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In her nuanced case study of postemanciaption Virginia, Nicole Myers Turner, (Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Yale University) challenges ...

Nicole Maurantonio, "Confederate Exceptionalism: Civil War Myth and Memory in the Twenty-First Century" (UP of Kansas, 2019)

03 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In a time of contentious debate over Confederate monuments, Nicole Maurantonio (Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Communication studies and American...

Michael Goldfield, "The Southern Key: Class, Race, and Radicalism in the 1930s and 1940s" (Oxford UP, 2020)

24 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The golden key to understanding the last 75 years of American political development, the eminent labor relations scholar Michael Goldfield argues, lie...

Howard Philips Smith, "Southern Decadence in New Orleans" (LSU Press, 2018)

11 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Almost a year ago, on my second interview for this podcast, I talked to Howard Philips Smith about Unveiling the Muse: The Lost History of Gay Carniva...

Brian Greene, "Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe" (Random House, 2020)

02 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Brian Greene is a Professor of Mathematics and Physics at Columbia University in the City of New York, where he is the Director of the Institute for S...

E. Engelhardt and L. Smith, "The Food We Eat, the Stories We Tell: Contemporary Appalachian Table" (Ohio UP, 2019)

25 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In this this interview, Carrie Tippen talks with Elizabeth Engelhardt, co-editor of the new collection The Food We Eat, the Stories We Tell: Contempor...

Carl Rollyson, "The Life of William Faulkner: The Past Is Never Dead, 1897-1934" (UVA Press, 2020)

04 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

As a novelist, short story author, screenwriter, and Nobel laureate, William Faulkner looms large in modern American literature. Yet the very range of...

Leslie M. Harris, "Slavery and the University: Histories and Legacies" (U Georgia Press, 2019)

28 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Slavery and the University: Histories and Legacies (University of Georgia Press, 2019), edited by Leslie M. Harris, James T. Campbell, and Alfred L. B...

Peter La Chapelle, "I’d Fight the World: A Political History of Old-Time, Hillbilly, and Country Music" (U Chicago Press, 2019)

24 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Historians, musicologists, and sociologists have long studied the relationship between politics and music. Peter La Chapelle’s new book, I’d Fight...

Adam H. Domby, "The False Cause: Fraud, Fabrication, and White Supremacy in Confederate Memory" (U Virginia Press, 2020)

23 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Adam H. Domby, an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Charleston, has written a rigorous analysis of American political memory as it c...

Christopher Tomlins, "In the Matter of Nat Turner: A Speculative History" (Princeton UP, 2020)

20 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In 1831, Nat Turner led a band of Southampton County slaves in a rebellion that killed fifty-five whites, mostly women and children. After more than t...

Mary Stanton, "Red, Black, White: The Alabama Communist Party, 1930–1950" (U Georgia Press, 2019)

15 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Mary Stanton's Red, Black, White: The Alabama Communist Party, 1930–1950 (University of Georgia Press, 2019) is the first narrative history of the ...

Conor Picken and Matthew Dischinger, "Southern Comforts: Drinking and the US South" (LSU Press, 2020)

10 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In this this interview, Carrie Tippen talks with Conor Picken and Matthew Dischinger about their edited collection, Southern Comforts: Drinking and th...

Lane Windham, "Knocking on Labor's Door: Union Organizing in the 1970s and the Roots of a New Economic Divide" (UNC Press, 2017)

03 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Lane Windham, Associate Director of the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor at Georgetown University, discusses her book, Knocking o...

Matt Cook, "Sleight of Mind: 75 Ingenious Paradoxes in Mathematics, Physics, and Philosophy" (MIT Press, 2020)

30 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Paradox is a sophisticated kind of magic trick. A magician's purpose is to create the appearance of impossibility, to pull a rabbit from an empty hat....

Jessica Wilkerson, "To Live Here, You Have to Fight: How Women Led Appalachian Movements for Social Justice" (U Illinois Press, 2018)

27 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Jessica Wilkerson, Assistant Professor of History and Southern Studies at the University of Mississippi, discusses her book, To Live Here, You Have to...

John Weber, "From South Texas to the Nation: The Exploitation of Mexican Labor in the Twentieth Century" (UNC Press, 2015)

20 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

John Weber, Assistant Professor of History at Old Dominion University, discusses his book, From South Texas to the Nation: The Exploitation of Mexican...

Marcus P. Nevius, "City of Refuge: Slavery and Petit Marronage in the Great Dismal Swamp, 1763-1856" (U Georgia Press, 2020)

20 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In his newly released book City of Refuge: Slavery and Petit Marronage in the Great Dismal Swamp, 1763-1856 (University of Georgia Press, 2020), Profe...

Alan Taylor, "Thomas Jefferson’s Education" (W. W. Norton, 2019)

16 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Alan Taylor is the author of Thomas Jefferson’s Education published by W. W. Norton & Company in 2019. Thomas Jefferson’s Education tells the stor...

Melissa Walker and Giselle Roberts, "Women’s Diaries and Letters of the South" (U South Carolina Press)

13 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Professors Melissa Walker of Converse College and Giselle Roberts of Australia’s La Trobe University, editors of the Women’s Diaries and Letters o...

Jamie L. H. Goodall, "Pirates of the Chesapeake Bay: From the Colonial Era to the Oyster Wars" (The History Press, 2020)

11 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The story of Chesapeake pirates and patriots begins with a land dispute and ends with the untimely death of an oyster dredger at the hands of the Mary...

Justin Nystrom, "Creole Italian: Sicilian Immigrants and the Shaping of New Orleans Food Culture" (U Georgia Press, 2018)

05 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In this this interview, Carrie Tippen talks with Justin Nystrom about his latest book, Creole Italian: Sicilian Immigrants and the Shaping of New Orle...

Ellen Griffith Spears, "Baptized in PCBs: Race, Pollution, and Justice in an All-American Town" (UNC Press, 2016)

28 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Professor Ellen Griffith Spears of the University of Alabama, author of Baptized in PCBs: Race, Pollution, and Justice in an All-American Town (Univer...

Emily E. LB. Twarog, "Politics of the Pantry: Housewives, Food, and Consumer Protest in Twentieth-Century America" (Oxford UP, 2017)

26 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The history of women's political involvement has focused heavily on electoral politics, but throughout the twentieth century women engaged in grassroo...

Phillipa Chong, “Inside the Critics’ Circle: Book Reviewing in Uncertain Times” (Princeton UP, 2020)

25 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

How does the world of book reviews work? In Inside the Critics’ Circle: Book Reviewing in Uncertain Times (Princeton University Press, 2020), Philli...

Bryant Simon, "The Hamlet Fire: A Story of Cheap Food, Cheap Government, and Cheap Lives" (The New Press, 2017)

21 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Bryant Simon, Professor of History at Temple University, discusses his new book, The Hamlet Fire: A Story of Cheap Food, Cheap Government, and Cheap L...

Donald L. Miller, "Vicksburg: Grant’s Campaign that Broke the Confederacy" (Simon and Schuster, 2019)

19 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In Vicksburg: Grant’s Campaign that Broke the Confederacy (Simon & Schuster, 2019), Donald L. Miller explains in great detail how Grant ultimately s...

Blain Roberts and Ethan J. Kytle, "Denmark Vesey’s Garden: Slavery and Memory in the Cradle of the Confederacy" (The New Press, 2018)

14 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Blain Roberts and Ethan J. Kytle, Professors of History at California State University—Fresno, discuss their co-authored book, Denmark Vesey’s Gar...

Megan Kate Nelson, "The Three-Cornered War: The Union, the Confederacy, and Native Peoples in the Fight for the West" (Scribner, 2019)

10 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

What did the American Civil War look like from Diné Bikéyah and Apacheria? This is just one of the many questions that drives historian Megan Kate N...

Blain Roberts, "Pageants, Parlors, and Pretty Women: Race and Beauty in the Twentieth-Century South" (UNC Press, 2016)

07 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Professor Blain Roberts of California State University, Fresno, talks about intersections of race, identity, and memory in the South in a wide-ranging...

R. Scott Huffard, Jr., "Redemption: Railroads and the Reconstruction of Capitalism in the New South" (UNC Press, 2019)

05 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

R. Scott Huffard Jr. is the author of Engines of Redemption: Railroads and the Reconstruction of Capitalism in the New South, published by the Univers...

Jacob Remes, "Disaster Citizenship: Survivors, Solidarity, and Power in the Progressive Era" (U Illinois Press, 2015)

31 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Professor Jacob Remes of SUNY Empire State College discusses his book, Disaster Citizenship: Survivors, Solidarity, and Power in the Progressive Era (...

K. Linder et al., "Going Alt-Ac: A Guide to Alternative Academic Careers" (Stylus Publishing, 2020)

30 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

If you’re a grad student facing the ugly reality of finding a tenure-track job, you could easily be forgiven for thinking about a career change. How...

Lowell Mick White, "Burnt House" (Buffalo Times Press, 2018)

28 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

After her parents' divorce, Jackie Stalnaker is sent to her grandmother’s dilapidated house in a tiny town in West Virginia. It’s a hot, mid 1970’...

Adrienne Petty, "Standing Their Ground: Small Farmers in North Carolina Since the Civil War" (Oxford UP, 2013)

24 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Professor Adrienne Petty discusses her book, Standing Their Ground: Small Farmers in North Carolina Since the Civil War (Oxford University Press, 2013...

Brian Cervantez, "Amon Carter: A Lone Star Life" (U Oklahoma Press, 2019)

21 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Raised in a one-room log cabin in a small North Texas town, Amon G. Carter (1879–1955) rose to become the founder and publisher of the Fort Worth St...

Blake Perkins, "Hillbilly Hellraisers: Federal Power and Populist Defiance in the Ozarks" (U Illinois Press, 2017)

17 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Blake Perkins, assistant professor of history at Williams Baptist College, discusses his new book, Hillbilly Hellraisers: Federal Power and Populist D...

Mark Barr, "Watershed" (Hub City Press, 2019)

15 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

It’s 1937 and rural Tennessee is still recovering from the Great Depression. The construction of a huge dam brings job seekers, fortune hunters, and...

Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, "Sisters and Rebels: A Struggle for the Soul of America" (W. W. Norton, 2019)

14 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Descendants of a prominent slaveholding family, Elizabeth, Grace, and Katharine Lumpkin grew up in a culture of white supremacy. But while Elizabeth r...

Chad Pearson, "Reform or Repression: Organizing America's Anti-Union Movement" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2015)

10 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Professor Chad Pearson of Collin College, author of Reform or Repression: Organizing America's Anti-Union Movement (University of Pennsylvania Press, ...

Keri Leigh Merritt, "Masterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum South" (Cambridge UP, 2017)

03 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Keri Leigh Merritt discusses her book, Masterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum South (Cambridge University Press, 2017), and interse...

Alex Lichtenstein, "Margaret Bourke-White and the Dawn of Apartheid" (Indiana UP, 2016)

27 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Alex Lichtenstein, Associate Professor of History at Indiana University, discusses his new book with co-author Rick Halpern, Margaret Bourke-White and...

Talitha LeFlouria, "Chained in Silence: Black Women and Convict Labor in the New South" (UNC Press, 2016)

20 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Professor Talitha LeFlouria, a fellow at the Carter G. Woodson Institute at the University of Virginia, discusses her book, Chained in Silence: Black ...

Katherine Rye Jewell, "Dollars for Dixie: Business and the Transformation of Conservatism in the Twentieth Century" (Cambridge UP, 2017)

13 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Katherine Rye Jewell, Assistant Professor of History at Fitchburg State University, discusses her book, Dollars for Dixie: Business and the Transforma...

Wilson Jeremiah Moses, "Thomas Jefferson: A Modern Prometheus" (Cambridge UP, 2019)

10 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In Greek mythology Prometheus is the trickster Titan who gives fire to humanity. As Wilson Jeremiah Moses explains in his book Thomas Jefferson: A Mod...