Here are recent UNC Press publications in Appalachian Studies and Folklore, including books of interest to anthropologists. If you would like to order any of these books, you can print out an order form to fax or mail to us. Discount prices may be available if you order from the printed brochure, which you may request by sending us email. Be sure to include your mailing address in your message.
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A composite portrait of preindustrial Appalachia as it confronted capitalist transformation demonstrating that the processes and patterns thought to make the region exceptional were not necessarily unique to the mountain South.
"There is not an essay in it that does not significantly advance our thinking about, and understanding of, not only the particularities of Appalachian mountain life but also the Great Topics of historical study--modernization, westward expansion, the capi talization of new world enterprise, the relationship of culture and place. . . . All together, it feels like the real Appalachia at last--and welcome."--Henry D. Shapiro, author of Appalachia on Our Mind: The Southern Mountains and Mountaineers in the American Consciousness
Approx. 464 pp., 2229-9 $49.95 cl; 4534-5 $18.95 pa
The contributors are: Mary K. Anglin, Alan Banks, Dwight B. Billings, Kathleen M. Blee, Wilma A. Dunaway, John R. Finger, John C. Inscoe, Ronald L. Lewis, Ralph Mann, Gordon B. McKinney, Mary Beth Pudup, Paul Salstrom, Altina L. Waller, & John Alexander W illiams.
Using the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925 as a measure of successful opposition to change, Jeanette Keith reassesses the conflicts over the meaning of progress and the costs of development in the isolated hill country of Tennessee from 1890 to 1925.
"Keith's engaging story portrays the rural South during a critical period with both compassion and honesty. This is a rich and compelling book, one that gets at the central dilemmas of life in this time and place."--Edward L. Ayers, University of Virginia
308 pp., 2211-6 $45.00 cl; 4526-4 $18.95 pa
Studies in Rural Culture
"The First American Frontier is concerned with extremely interesting and controversial questions regarding the social and economic changes in Appalachia from the colonial era to the Civil War. Based upon extensive use of primary data, the debate on the transition to capitalism is analyzed in great detail, both theoretically and empirically, with a fine sense of the broader implications of the regional study."--Stanley L. Engerman, University of Rochester
Approx. 528 pp., 2236-1 $49.95 cl; 4540-X $21.95 pa
Fred W. Morrison Series in Southern Studies
Available January 96
"Williamson reminds us that the themes in the hillbilly movies are versions of universals; and because the movies mirror, create, and are culture, the symbols and myths they employ are not just the stuff of literature or literary criticism but the stuff of life."--Henry D. Shapiro, author of Appalachia on Our Mind: The Southern Mountains and Mountaineers in the American Consciousness
340 pp., 2195-0 $39.95 cl; 4503-5 $15.95 pa
"Shapiro has written an important book with an unusual goal. He does not deal with Appalachia as a land and people but, rather, with the manner in which they have been perceived by writers, missionaries, and bureaucrats who have described or worked in the region."--Journal of American History
397 pp., 4158-7 $14.95 pa
"Casts new light on one of the most colorful chapters of American history and the revenuers and moonshiners who made it so."--New York Times Book Review
"The foremost treatment of the subject, an engaging blend of historical analysis and vivid anecdotes."--West Virginia History
263 pp., 1959-X $37.50 cl; 4330-X $13.95 pa
Elsie Clews Parsons Prize, American Folklore Society, Cowinner
"A brief review cannot capture the depth, richness, and detail of this study. It is essential reading to all who would understand the role of folk and traditional culture in a regional setting."--Georgia Historical Quarterly
355 pp., 4143-9 $14.95 pa
"There's nothing as beautiful as the sound of the human voice. It is in these pages."--Studs Terkel
"These lives tell us about a region's fate and do so powerfully and dramatically."--Robert Coles
328 pp., 4191-9 $12.95 pa
Waller tells the real story of the Hatfields and McCoys instead of perpetuating the myths surrounding them.
"In her remarkably detailed analysis, Waller explains what legend does not. . . . This book bears reading as both factual record and metaphor, with a jaundiced eye toward the present."--Georgann Eubanks, Washington Monthly
332 pp., 1770-8 $39.95 cl; 4216-8 $14.95 pa
Fred W. Morrison Series in Southern Studies
Christopher Award
230 pp., 4377-6 $14.95 pa
352 pp., 4395-4 $17.95 pa
224 pp., 4425-X $16.95 pa
Seventh-generation ballad singer and storyteller Sheila Adams provides a rare portrait of a distinctive North Carolina mountain community.
"By turns hilarious and deeply moving, always lively, Sheila's stories paint the portrait of a whole culture, from the past to the present day."--from the Foreword by Lee Smith
136 pp., 2243-4 $19.95 cl; 4536-1 $10.95 pa
"Intelligently conceived, gracefully written, judiciously documented, and unobtrusively yet surely instructive. Students will be encouraged by it to use oral history in their research, and teachers will reap the harvest of greatly enriched studies--and st udents. . . . A minor classic."--Teaching History: A Journal of Methods
164 pp., 1344-3 $9.95 pa
"All serious students of folklore, narrative and tale telling will find this volume an absolute MUST."--Come-All-Ye
336 pp., 2135-7 $45.00 cl; 4443-8 $16.95 pa Publications of the American Folklore Society
"A treasure of insight into selected aspects of mountain life in the early 20th century."--Choice
"This work is an important contribution on Appalachian culture."--Southern Folklore
302 pp., 1986-7 $29.95 cl; 4328-8 $17.95 pa
Chapel Hill Books
"A work of keen intelligence. . . . I know of no other book that brings within a single compass such a broad range of problems regarding museums, folklife festivals, and the postmodern condition. Its almost hallucinatory quality pulls the reader into its mythologizing web and recasts . . . the everyday cultural encounters in which we engage."--Richard Price, coauthor of Equatoria
346 pp., 2112-8 $49.95 cl; 4424-1 $18.95 pa
Originally published in 1944, this book is the late Bronislaw Malinowski's definitive statement of the theory of functionalism, in which he analyzes the premise that culture is an adjustment to human needs and desires.
"An invaluable critical examination."--Nature
238 pp., 4283-4 $14.95 pa
Recently featured in Life magazine, these photographs are by Paul Buchanan (ca. 1910-1987), an itinerant photographer who, on foot, on horseback, and by car, wandered four North Carolina mountain counties from 1920 until about 1951.
"Here is proof that photographs of humble origin have stories to tell well worth all the effort of their preservation."--Southern Exposure
152 pp., 2119-5 $24.95 cl; 4431-4 $12.95 pa
"Ownby's re-creation of male recreation is rich and fascinating. He paints the saloon and the street, the cockfighting and dogfighting rings as realms of distinctly male vices, enjoyed lustily by men seeking to escape the sweet virtue of the Southern Chri stian home."--Nation
298 pp., 1913-1 $32.50 cl; 4429-2 $12.95 pa
Fred W. Morrison Series in Southern Studies
ASCAP-Deems Taylor Prize for Outstanding Book in Music
"This thoughtful and provocative book is an important contribution to blues scholarship, folkloristics, and ethnomusicology."--Journal of American Folklore
Music CD with 19 tracks (playing time 59:00) sold separately, 4502-7 $12.95
340 pp., 2170-5 $45 cl includes music CD $36.00; 4482-9 $16.95 pa
Cultural Studies of the United States
"Tichi investigates popular music as a significant cultural indicator. . . . Country music reflects the complexities of home life and interpersonal relationships in such a way that it reverberates with the dilemmas of the metropolitan and suburban present ."--Christian Science Monitor
"An ambitious book that glitters like rhinestones."--New York Times Book Review
Music CD with 23 tracks included with book
350 pp., 2134-9 $39.95 cl
David Conroy unveils a popular culture at odds with Puritan social ideals, one that contributed to the transformation of Massachusetts into a republican society.
"A brilliant blending of social, political, institutional, intellectual, and cultural history. Among this generation's scholarly outpouring on colonial and revolutionary New England, Conroy's book is one of the most fascinating and important."--Gary B. Nash, University of California, Los Angeles
368 pp., 2207-8 $39.95 cl; 4521-3 $15.95 pa
Published for the Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia
"[An] excellent collection of essays in early American technological history."--Choice
"This innovative collection presents a fresh emphasis on social and cultural themes in the history of technology."--Richard D. Brown, University of Connecticut
494 pp., 2173-X $49.95 cl; 4484-5 $19.95 pa
Published for the Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia
"Vlach interweaves contemporary reports, oral histories of former slaves and archaeological evidence of surviving outbuildings in an unemotional but powerful manner."--New York Times Book Review
"One of the most user-friendly studies of African-American material culture ever written."--American Historical Review
273 pp., 2085-7 $37.50 cl; 4412-8 $18.95 pa
Fred W. Morrison Series in Southern Studies
"Most of these artists were brought up learning the craft, and their reminiscences and professional observations illuminate every page."--Booklist
284 pp., 4481-0 $24.95 pa
Chapel Hill Books
Third Prize, Chicago Folklore Prize
President's Award, North Carolina Society of Historians
Mayflower Cup for Nonfiction, Society of Mayflower Descendants in the State of North Carolina
"An excellent book to read if you are interested in North Carolina, American ceramics, folk life, or general craft practices, and it will undoubtedly remain a classic for many years to come."--Winterthur Portfolio
473 pp., 1704-X $49.95 cl; 4276-1 $29.95 pa
Fred W. Morrison Series in Southern Studies
"A comprehensive study including a general history of the pottery trade, a well-illustrated description of the pieces produced in the valley, and biographical sketches of individual potters. . . . [An] excellent regional pottery history."--Library Jour nal
538 pp., 2183-0 $95.00 cl
Frank L. Horton Series
Distributed for the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts, Winston-Salem, North Carolina
Kirby shows how Native American, African, and European peoples have adapted to and modified the Tidewater area over nearly 400 years.
"Poquosin has created a genre for itself, weaving social, economic, and political history into a chronicle of the way human beings and landscape changed, to be in turn changed by, each other. Kirby's prose is masterful, moving with ease between poe try, scientific directness, dry humor, and the unpretentious telling of good stories."--Barbara J. Fields, Columbia University
320 pp., 2214-0 $39.95 cl; 4527-2 $18.95 ps
"Prairie Patrimony consolidates, refines, advances and grounds recent scholarship that challenges familiar platitudes about family farming and rural life in the United States. . . . No one should doubt the great contribution that Salamon has made t o our understanding of American rural life."--American Studies
318 pp., 2045-8 $45.00 cl; 4553-1 $16.95 pa
Award of Superior Achievement, Illinois State Historical Society
"Solidly researched, well argued, and beautifully written. Jane Adams helps us see the big picture while keeping the focus of our attention on the families and farms of southern Illinois. Her book makes a timely and important contribution to the history o f American agriculture in the twentieth century."--John Mack Faragher, Yale University
352 pp., 2168-3 $49.95 cl; 4479-9 $19.95 pa
"This book is of value not only to students of agriculture and rural sociology but also to city dwellers attempting to understand the lure and frustration of family farming."--Choice
330 pp., 2067-9 $45.00 cl; 4399-7 $18.95 pa
"An important work not just for those concerned about rural women, but for all scholars concerned with community and change."--Rural Sociology
266 pp., 2019-9 $37.50 cl; 4364-4 $13.95 pa
Philip Taft Labor History Award
"A rich and provocative study. . . . Its major contribution to our knowledge of the South is its careful account of the evolution and collapse of mill culture."--Journal of Southern History
"Ambitious, and at times provocative, Creating the Modern South is a well-researched, highly readable, and engaging book."--Journal of American History
468 pp., 2056-3 $42.50 cl; 4545-0 $18.95 pa
Fred W. Morrison Series in Southern Studies
An illustrated record of archaeological research conducted at one of the few surviving earthen mounds built by prehistoric Native Americans in North Carolina.
"Joins a very select group of 'must-have' volumes for all Eastern archaeologists. It represents a very significant monument both to the prehistoric Indian builders of the site and to the master excavator who brought it to light."--Stephen Williams, Harvar d University
Approx. 400 pp., 2176-4 $45.00 cl; 4490-X $18.95 pa
Frederick Jackson Turner Award, Organization of American Historians
Ray Allen Billington Prize, Organization of American Historians
A Choice Outstanding Academic Book
"The careful research, the wealth of details on sources, and the many insights into Iroquois history in the early colonial period make it an important book for scholars of Native history and colonial American history."--American Indian Quarterly
454 pp., 2060-1 $45.00 cl; 4394-6 $17.95 pa
Published for the Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia
John H. Dunning Prize, American Historical Association, Cowinner
A Choice Outstanding Academic Book
"Breaks new ground, not only in Louisiana or Mississippi Valley history, but in the evolution of interdisciplinary historical research and writing. Usner skillfully blends perspectives from social history, ethnohistory, environmental history, and the new military history, as well as economics, geography, and other traditional disciplines into a study that will influence the field for many years to come."--Louisiana History
314 pp., 2014-8 $34.95 cl; 4358-X $13.95 pa
Published for the Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia
"Culminating twenty years of Cherokee scholarship, the late William G. McLoughlin skillfully details as no other historian has the revitalization of a southern Indian nation after removal. In so doing, he illustrates the important point that Cherokee hist ory did not end with the Trail of Tears."--North Carolina Historical Review
456 pp., 2111-X $39.95 cl; 4433-0 $17.95 pa
A Choice Outstanding Academic Book
"How does the organization of spaces--exterior locales and interiors for living, work and worship--reflect and determine gender relations? . . . Spain details this fascinating topic with an impressive variety of examples, tables and interpretations of pop ular documents such as back issues of House Beautiful."--Publishers Weekly
314 pp., 4357-1 $15.95 pa
"Offers welcome attention to the complex situations of and interactions among different kinds of women within colonial discourses."--Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, author of Feminism Without Illusions: A Critique of Individualism
186 pp., 2044-X $29.95 cl; 4382-2 $10.95 pa
"An impressively researched, imaginative, and powerful exploration of racial and gender boundaries in frontier America."--Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Dia ry, 1785-1812
"[A] skillfully written analysis."--Journal of American History
400 pp., 2079-2 $39.95 cl; 4408-X $16.95 pa