Bøger udgivet af The University of North Carolina Press

One of the most controversial figures in nineteenth-century American history, Thaddeus Stevens is best remembered for his role as congressional leader of the radical Republicans and as a chief architect of Reconstruction. Long painted by historians as a vindictive 'dictator of Congress,' out to punish the South at the behest of big business and his own ego, Stevens receives a more balanced treatment in Hans L. Trefousse's biography, which portrays him as an impassioned orator and a leader in the struggle against slavery. Trefousse traces Stevens's career through its major phases: from his days in the Pennsylvania state legislature, when he antagonized Freemasons, slaveholders, and Jacksonian Democrats, to his political involvement during Reconstruction, when he helped author the Fourteenth Amendment and spurred on the passage of the Reconstruction Acts and the impeachment of Andrew Johnson. Throughout, Trefousse explores the motivations for Stevens's lifelong commitment to racial equality, thus furnishing a fuller portrait of the man whose fervent opposition to slavery helped move his more moderate congressional colleagues toward the implementation of egalitarian policies.

Abu Hamid al-Ghazl, a Muslim jurist-theologian and polymath who lived from the mid-eleventh to the early twelfth century in present-day Iran, is a figure equivalent in stature to Maimonides in Judaism and Thomas Aquinas in Christianity. He is best known for his work in philosophy, ethics, law, and mysticism. In an engaged re-reading of the ideas of this preeminent Muslim thinker, Ebrahim Moosa argues that Ghazl's work has lasting relevance today as a model for a critical encounter with the Muslim intellectual tradition in a modern and postmodern context. Moosa employs the theme of the threshold, or dihliz, the space from which Ghazl himself engaged the different currents of thought in his day, and proposes that contemporary Muslims who wish to place their own traditions in conversation with modern traditions consider the same vantage point. Moosa argues that by incorporating elements of Islamic theology, neoplatonic mysticism, and Aristotelian philosophy, Ghazl's work epitomizes the idea that the answers to life's complex realities do not reside in a single culture or intellectual tradition. Ghazl's emphasis on poiesis--creativity, imagination, and freedom of thought--provides a sorely needed model for a cosmopolitan intellectual renewal among Muslims, Moosa argues. Such a creative and critical inheritance, he concludes, ought to be heeded by those who seek to cultivate Muslim intellectual traditions in today's tumultuous world.

In The Work of Self-Representation Ivy Schweitzer examines early American poetry through the critical lens of gender. Her concern is not the inclusion of female writers into the canon; rather, she analyzes how the metaphors of "woman" and "feminine" function in Puritan religious and literary discourse to represent both the "otherness" of spiritual experience and the ways in which race and class function to keep the "other" in marginalized positions.Schwetizer argues that gender was for seventeenth-century new England -- and still is today -- a basic and most politically charged metaphor for the differences that shape identity and determine cultural position. To glimpse the struggle between gender ideology and experience, Schweitzer provides close readings of the poetry of four New Englanders writing between the Great Migration and the first wave of the Great Awakening: John Fiske, Edward Taylor, Anne Bradstreet, and Roger Williams.Schweitzer focuses exclusively on lyric poetry, she says, because a first-person speaker wrestling with the intricacies of individual consciousness provides fruitful ground for exploring the politics of voice and identity and especially problems of authority, intertextuality, and positionality. Fiske and Taylor define the orthodox tradition, and Bradstreet and Williams in different ways challenge it. Her treatment of the familiar poetry of Bradstreet and Taylor is solidly grounded in historical and literary scholarship yet suggestive of the new insights gained from a gender analysis, while discussions of Fiske and Williams bring their little-known lyric work to light.Taken together, these poets' texts illustrate the cultural construction of a troubled masculinity and an idealized, effaced femininity implicit in the Puritan notion of redeemed subjectivity, and constitute a profoundly disturbing and resilient part of our Puritan legacy.

Between 1898 and 1918, many American states introduced the initiative, referendum, and recall--known collectively as direct democracy. Most interpreters have seen the motives for these reform measures as purely political, but Thomas Goebel demonstrates that the call for direct democracy was deeply rooted in antimonopoly sentiment. Frustrated with the governmental corruption and favoritism that facilitated the rise of monopolies, advocates of direct democracy aimed to check the influence of legislative bodies and directly empower the people to pass laws and abolish trusts. But direct democracy failed to achieve its promises: corporations and trusts continued to flourish, voter turnout rates did not increase, and interest groups grew stronger. By the 1930s, it was clear that direct democracy favored large organizations with the financial and organizational resources to fund increasingly expensive campaigns. Recent years have witnessed a resurgence of direct democracy, particularly in California, where ballot questions and propositions have addressed such volatile issues as gay rights and affirmative action. In this context, Goebel's analysis of direct democracy's history, evolution, and ultimate unsuitability as a grassroots tool is particularly timely.

The first intensive, close-up investigation of the practice and teaching of religion at American colleges and universities, Religion on Campus is an indispensable resource for all who want to understand what religion really means to today's undergraduates. To explore firsthand how college students understand, practice, and learn about religion, the authors visited four very different U.S. campuses: a Roman Catholic university in the East, a state university in the West, a historically black university in the South, and a Lutheran liberal arts college in the North. They interviewed students, faculty members, and administrators; attended classes; participated in worship services; observed prayer and Bible study groups; and surveyed the general ethos of each campus. The resulting study makes fascinating and important reading for anyone--including students, parents, teachers, administrators, clergy, and scholars--concerned with the future of young Americans. Challenging theories of the secularization of higher education and the decline of religion on campus, this book reveals that both the practice and the study of religion are thriving, nourished by a campus culture of diversity, tolerance, and choice.

In this groundbreaking work of cultural history, Alice Fahs explores a little-known and fascinating side of the Civil War--the outpouring of popular literature inspired by the conflict. From 1861 to 1865, authors and publishers in both the North and the South produced a remarkable variety of war-related compositions, including poems, songs, children's stories, romances, novels, histories, and even humorous pieces. Fahs mines these rich but long-neglected resources to recover the diversity of the war's political and social meanings.Instead of narrowly portraying the Civil War as a clash between two great, white armies, popular literature offered a wide range of representations of the conflict and helped shape new modes of imagining the relationships of diverse individuals to the nation. Works that explored the war's devastating impact on white women's lives, for example, proclaimed the importance of their experiences on the home front, while popular writings that celebrated black manhood and heroism in the wake of emancipation helped readers begin to envision new roles for blacks in American life. Recovering a lost world of popular literature, The Imagined Civil War adds immeasurably to our understanding of American life and letters at a pivotal point in our history.

Richard B. Russell, Jr., represented Georgia in the United States Senate from 1933 to 1971, a period of sweeping social change. Russell (1879-1971) was regarded by his fellow senators as the quintessential member of the Senate's establishment, and they dubbed him "a Senator's Senator" and "the Georgia Giant." So great was his popularity in Congress that Lyndon B. Johnson once said, "If the membership of the Senate were to cast a secret vote on the man they believed best qualifies to be president of the United States, they would choose Richard Russell."Gilbert Fite's masterful biography begins with Russell's upbringing in an elite Georgia family. The highly stratified and class-conscious society of his early years would later influence Russell's legislative agenda. In 1920, Russell was elected to the Georgia General Assembly, and in 1931 he became governor of Georgia. He held that office until 1933, when he began his thirty-eight years of service in the U.S. Senate.During Russell's long senatorial career, he was deeply involved in many of the most important episodes of our national life: the New Deal, World War II, the MacArthur investigation, the foreign aid debate, and the Warren Commission inquiry. His greatest contribution, according to Fite, was his fierce determination to maintain a strong national defense during the Cold War; in his sixteen years as chairman of the Armed Services Committee, he emerged as the acknowledged leader in Congress on defense matters. A career-long member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Russell also became one of the nation's strongest advocates of farm price supports. Under his sponsorship, the Senate enacted legislation establishing the school lunch program and distribution of food to the needy.But Russell never abandoned his dedication to the South's traditional values, and he became the leader of the Southern Bloc that staunchly fought to defeat civil rights legislation and maintain the structures of segregation. Russell's unwillingness to compromise on civil rights, says Fite, meant that his career was ultimately one of regional rather than national leadership.

More than half of the 116 research parks now operating in the United States were established during the 1980s, with the aim of boosting regional economic growth. But until now no one has systematically analyzed whether research parks do in fact generate new businesses and jobs. Using their own surveys of all existing parks and case studies of three of the most successful--Research Triangle Park in North Carolina, Stanford Research Park in California, and the University of Utah Research Park--Michael Luger and Harvey Goldstein examine the economic impact of such facilities.As the name suggests, a research park is typically meant to provide a spacious setting where basic and applied technological research can be quietly pursued. Because of the experience of a few older and prominent research parks, new parks are expected to generate economic growth for their regions. New or old, most parks have close ties to universities, which join in such ventures to enhance their capabilities as centers of research, provide outlets for entrepreneurial faculty members, and increase job opportunities for graduate students.Too often, the authors say, the vision of "e;incubating"e; economic growth in a gardenlike preserve of research and development has failed because of poor planning, lack of firm leadership, and bad luck. Although the longest-lasting parks have met their original goals, the newer ones have enjoyed at best only slight success. Luger and Goldstein conclude that the older facilities have captured much of the market for concentrations of research and development firms, and they discuss alternative strategies that could achieve some of the same goals as research parks, but in a less costly way. Many of these alternatives continue to include a role for universities, and Luger and Goldstein shed fresh light on the linkage between higher education and the use of knowledge for profit.

North Carolina possesses one of the longest, most treacherous coastlines in the United States, and the waters off its shores have been the scene of some of the most dramatic episodes of piracy and sea warfare in the nation's history. Now, Lindley Butler brings this fascinating aspect of the state's maritime heritage vividly to life. He offers engaging biographical portraits of some of the most famous pirates, privateers, and naval raiders to ply the Carolina waters. Covering 150 years, from the golden age of piracy in the 1700s to the extraordinary transformation of naval warfare ushered in by the Civil War, Butler sketches the lives of eight intriguing characters: the pirate Blackbeard and his contemporary Stede Bonnet; privateer Otway Burns and naval raider Johnston Blakeley; and Confederate raiders James Cooke, John Maffitt, John Taylor Wood, and James Waddell. Penetrating the myths that have surrounded these legendary figures, he uncovers the compelling true stories of their lives and adventures.

Jim Dean, longtime editor of Wildlife in North Carolina, offers his personal observations on the pleasures and frustrations of hunting, fishing, camping, and other outdoor pursuits. Dogs That Point, Fish That Bite draws together fifty of the best columns that Dean has written for the magazine over the last seventeen years. The witty, sometimes poignant pieces are arranged into a loose chronicle of the sporting year, with a generous allowance for digression: the first is set in April, on the opening day of trout season, and the last tells of a New Year's Day spent alone in a mountain cabin. At first glance, hunting and fishing are the focus of most of the columns. Often, however, Dean is after bigger game. A crab that escapes the pot leads him to reflect on the capricious nature of life. The restoration of a cabin at the old family farm evokes memories of family and simpler times. And a May panfishing trip takes on the quality of ritual, performed by two old friends. The consistent theme uniting all the essays is the celebration of wild places and rural traditions that have become endangered in our modern world.

Traditional accounts of John D. Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Company, as well as recent best-selling books on the subject, still accept without question charges of unethical and anti-competitive behavior by the American oil industry. In this pathbreaking synthesis of cultural, business, gender, and intellectual history, Roger and Diana Davids Olien explore how this negative image of the petroleum industry was created--and how this image in turn helped shape policy toward the industry in ways that were sometimes at odds with both the goals of reformers and the public interest.By turning a critical eye on sources that have often been accepted at face value and examining the self-interests of oil industry critics, the authors produce a more balanced, complex picture of the industry than has previously been offered. Their case study of the impact of ideology offers a striking example of how business must be understood through its cultural context and offers a new approach to understanding problems of regulation and reform.

This successor to the classic Lefler-Newsome North Carolina: The History of a Southern State, published in 1954, presents a fresh survey history that includes the contemporary scene. Drawing upon recent scholarship, the advice of specialists, and his own knowledge, Powell has created a splendid narrative that makes North Carolina history accessible to both students and general readers.

The last several years have seen a sharpening of debate in the United States regarding the problem of steadily increasing medical expenditures, as well as inflation in health care costs, a scarcity of health care resources, and a lack of access for a growing number of people in the national health care system. Some observers suggest that we in fact face two crises: the crisis of scarce resources and the crisis of inadequate language in the discourse of ethics for framing a response. Laurie Zoloth offers a bold claim: to renew our chances of achieving social justice, she argues, we must turn to the Jewish tradition. That tradition envisions an ethics of conversational encounter that is deeply social and profoundly public, as well as offering resources for recovering a language of community that addresses the issues raised by the health care allocation debate.Constructing her argument around a careful analysis of selected classic and postmodern Jewish texts and a thoughtful examination of the Oregon health care reform plan, Zoloth encourages a radical rethinking of what has become familiar ground in debates on social justice.

Smitten by a love of hot peppers, journalist Richard Schweid traveled to the capital of the U.S. hot sauce industry, New Iberia, Louisiana. This is Cajun country, and capsicum (as hot peppers are known botanically) thrive in the region's salty, oil-rich soil like nowhere else. At once an entertaining exploration of the history and folklore that surround hot peppers and a fascinating look at the industry built around the fiery crop, Schweid's book also offers a sympathetic portrait of a culture and a people in the midst of economic and social change.This edition of Hot Peppers has been thoroughly updated and includes some twenty-five recipes for such deliciously spicy dishes as crawfish etouffee, jambalaya, and okra shrimp gumbo.

In 1956, when La Leche League was founded, if a new mother chose to breastfeed rather than bottlefeed her child, she could by no means expect universal support for her decision. Though physicians of the era admitted that breastfeeding was the best method of infant feeding, they warned of the difficulties that nursing mothers faced, and many held that successful breastfeeding required a knowledge of science and medicine that most new mothers could not claim. Started by seven Catholic women who simply wished to help their friends learn to breastfeed, La Leche League grew into an organization with several million members worldwide, known here and abroad for its pathbreaking promotion of the breastfeeding of infants.Offering a fascinating look inside an organization whose full history has been essentially untold, Jule Ward explores the genesis, theological underpinnings, and development of La Leche League. She demonstrates that, despite distancing itself from any overt expression of its religious roots, the organization remains a quasi-religious articulation of Catholic social thought blended with scientific ideology and feminism. In short, says Ward, the story of La Leche League provides an excellent example of how religion in practice permeates everyday life.

Tracing the sectionalization of American politics in the 1840s and 1850s, Michael Morrison offers a comprehensive study of how slavery and territorial expansion intersected as causes of the Civil War. Specifically, he argues that the common heritage of the American Revolution bound Americans together until disputes over the extension of slavery into the territories led northerners and southerners to increasingly divergent understandings of the Revolution's legacy. Manifest Destiny promised the literal enlargement of freedom through the extension of American institutions all the way to the Pacific. At each step--from John Tyler's attempt to annex Texas in 1844, to the Kansas-Nebraska Act, to the opening shots of the Civil War--the issue of slavery had to be confronted. Morrison shows that the Revolution was the common prism through which northerners and southerners viewed these events and that the factor that ultimately made consensus impossible was slavery itself. By 1861, no nationally accepted solution to the dilemma of slavery in the territories had emerged, no political party existed as a national entity, and politicians from both North and South had come to believe that those on the other side had subverted the American political tradition.

If the nation as a whole during the 1940s was halfway between the Great Depression of the 1930s and the postwar prosperity of the 1950s, the South found itself struggling through an additional transition, one bound up in an often violent reworking of its own sense of history and regional identity. Examining the changing nature of racial politics in the 1940s, McKay Jenkins measures its impact on white Southern literature, history, and culture. Jenkins focuses on four white Southern writers--W. J. Cash, William Alexander Percy, Lillian Smith, and Carson McCullers--to show how they constructed images of race and race relations within works that professed to have little, if anything, to do with race. Sexual isolation further complicated these authors' struggles with issues of identity and repression, he argues, allowing them to occupy a space between the privilege of whiteness and the alienation of blackness. Although their views on race varied tremendously, these Southern writers' uneasy relationship with their own dominant racial group belies the idea that "whiteness" was an unchallenged, monolithic racial identity in the region.

This volume is the first comprehensive history of the evolving relationship between American slavery and the law from colonial times to the Civil War. As Thomas Morris clearly shows, racial slavery came to the English colonies as an institution without strict legal definitions or guidelines. Specifically, he demonstrates that there was no coherent body of law that dealt solely with slaves. Instead, more general legal rules concerning inheritance, mortgages, and transfers of property coexisted with laws pertaining only to slaves. According to Morris, southern lawmakers and judges struggled to reconcile a social order based on slavery with existing English common law (or, in Louisiana, with continental civil law.) Because much was left to local interpretation, laws varied between and even within states. In addition, legal doctrine often differed from local practice. And, as Morris reveals, in the decades leading up to the Civil War, tensions mounted between the legal culture of racial slavery and the competing demands of capitalism and evangelical Christianity.

There are few moments in history when the division between the sexes seems as "e;natural"e; as during wartime: men go off to the "e;war front,"e; while women stay behind on the "e;home front."e; But the very notion of the home front was an invention of the First World War, when, for the first time, "e;home"e; and "e;domestic"e; became adjectives that modified the military term "e;front."e; Such an innovation acknowledged the significant and presumably new contributions of civilians, especially women, to the war effort. Yet, as Susan Grayzel argues, throughout the war, traditional notions of masculinity and femininity survived, primarily through the maintenance of--and indeed reemphasis on--soldiering and mothering as the core of gender and national identities. Drawing on sources that range from popular fiction and war memorials to newspapers and legislative debates, Grayzel analyzes the effects of World War I on ideas about civic participation, national service, morality, sexuality, and identity in wartime Britain and France. Despite the appearance of enormous challenges to gender roles due to the upheavals of war, the forces of stability prevailed, she says, demonstrating the Western European gender system's remarkable resilience.

Washington, D.C., President John F. Kennedy once remarked, is a city of "e;southern efficiency and northern charm."e; Kennedy's quip was close to the mark. Since its creation two centuries ago, Washington has been a community with multiple personalities. Located on the regional divide between North and South, it has been a tidewater town, a southern city, a coveted prize in fighting between the states, a symbol of a reunited nation, a hub for central government, an extension of the Boston-New York megalopolis, and an international metropolis.In an exploration of the many identities Washington has taken on over time, Carl Abbott examines the ways in which the city's regional orientation and national symbolism have been interpreted by novelists and business boosters, architects and blues artists, map makers and politicians. Each generation of residents and visitors has redefined Washington, he says, but in ways that have utilized or preserved its past. The nation's capital is a city whose history lives in its neighborhoods, people, and planning, as well as in its monuments and museums.