BOOKS
As Big as the West: The Pioneer
Life of Granville Stuart
by Clyde A. Milner ’ 71
and Carol A. O’Connor
He was a cowboy, a vigilante and eventually a U.S. diplomat. Stuart (1834-1918)
lived a life full of adventure, herding cattle,
mining for gold and fighting bandits. He
taught himself French and Spanish, married
a Shoshone woman and became a leader in
the Montana territory. As Big as the West
traces Stuart’s life and delves into the para-doxes of the time, when a man could speak
of wiping out “half-breeds” having fathered
11 mixed-race children and go from self-appointed lawman to diplomat in a few
years. Milner and O’Connor are professors
of history at Arkansas State University and
coeditors of The Oxford History of the
American West.
Linthead Stomp: The Creation
of Country Music
in the Piedmont South
by Patrick Huber ’00 (PhD)
Contrary to popular belief, the origins of
American country music might be closer to
the city than to farm and mountain communities. Huber argues that no group contributed more to early country music than
Southern factory workers. Huber, an associate professor of history at Missouri University of Technology and Science, explores the
origins and development of this music in the
Piedmont’s mill towns by offering vivid portraits of textile worker musicians, including
Fiddlin’ John Carson, Charlie Poole, Dave
McCarn and the Dixon Brothers. The book
celebrates the mill-hand fiddlers, guitarists
and banjo pickers who shaped the evolution
of this Piedmont music tradition.
Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men
of the South
by E. Patrick Johnson ’ 89
Black gay men who were born, raised
and continue to live in the southern U.S.
are rarely acknowledged in Southern history. Through more than 70 interviews,
Johnson challenges stereotypes of the
South as “backward” or “repressive,” suggesting that these men draw upon politeness, coded speech and religiosity to legitimize themselves as members of Southern
and black culture. The interviews reveal
unique and shared experiences and tell
how these men negotiate their sexual and
racial identities with their Southern cultural and religious identities. Johnson is a
professor in the department of performance studies and professor of African American studies at Northwestern University.
Adventures in Pen Land
by Marianne Gingher
For Gingher, writing was a long, uphill
slog toward artistic success. In this humorous, lighthearted memoir, the associate
professor of English in UNC’s creative
writing program shares observations of her
literary education and takes readers on a
tour of soul-sucking jobs, marriage and a
teaching career with disquisitions on blasphemous reading preferences, ’60s pop
culture, writing workshops and other
amusing detours. She also shares her keen
insights into the role of a Southern writer
in American literary culture, the experience of writing as a mother, and the
process of novel-writing as compared to a
lengthy family car trip.
Street Gang: The Complete
History of Sesame Street
by Michael Davis ’ 74
Can you tell me how to get to Sesame
Street? For 40 years these lyrics have taken
millions of children to visit friends like Big
Bird, Oscar the Grouch and Cookie Monster. Michael Davis traces the show’s roots
to a 1966 dinner party at which a group of
friends asked why couldn’t television be
used to teach children. Street Gang tells the
story of how Sesame Street developed into
the most well-known children’s television
program and how it brought together talented individuals who created lovable characters and taught children not only their
letters and numbers, but also cooperation
and fair play, tolerance and self-respect, and
the importance of listening.
Territories of Difference: New
Ecologies for the 21st Century
by Arturo Escobar
In this study of place-based ethnic and
environmental movements, Escobar writes
about his engagement with a group of Afro-Colombian activists of Colombia’s Pacific
rainforest region, the Proceso de Comu-nidades Negras. Through a detailed account
of PCN’s visions, strategies and practices, he
analyzes the movement’s struggles for autonomy, territory, justice and cultural recognition. He proposes new ways for scholars and
activists to examine the momentous and
complex processes engulfing regions like the
Colombian Pacific, emphasizing the value of
local activist knowledge for both understanding and social action. Escobar is the
Kenan Distinguished Teaching Professor of
anthropology at UNC.
