Award winning historian’s books readily available online

Distinguished scholar, State Historian, and recent recipient of the UK Libraries Medallion for Intellectual Achievement Dr. James C. Klotter is the author of numerous books on Kentucky history.  Ten of his books, which were published by the University Press of Kentucky (UPK), are readily available online to the UK community via UKnowledge. 

 

 

Dr. James C. Klotter

Members of the UK community can learn more about Dr. Klotter’s scholarly works with free online access to these books:

·      Bluegrass Renaissance: The History and Culture of Central Kentucky, 1792-1852

·      The Breckinridges of Kentucky

·      A Concise History of Kentucky

·      Faces of Kentucky

·      Kentucky: Decades of Discord, 1865-1900

·      Kentucky: Portrait in Paradox, 1900-1950

·      A New History of Kentucky

·      Our Kentucky: A Study of the Bluegrass State

·      The Public Papers of Governor Simeon Willis, 1943-1947

·      William Goebel: The Politics of Wrath

Other books on Kentucky and U.S. history published by UPK are also available online via UKnowledge, UK’s institutional repository. 

UPK author wins Eugene Feit Award for Civil War History

By Whitney Hale, Jacob Smith, and Mack McCormick

University Press of Kentucky (UPK) author Brian R. McEnany has been chosen to receive the Eugene Feit Award for Civil War History for For Brotherhood and Duty: The Civil War History of the West Point Class of 1862.

The Feit Award is given by the New York Military Affairs Symposium (NYMAS) to authors writing on Civil War history. The organization is devoted to increasing public knowledge, awareness, and understanding of the interrelationship of war, society and culture through the presentation and dissemination of diverse scholarly viewpoints. The NYMAS Civil War Book Award was instituted in 2002, and it became the Feit Award in 2010.

In For Brotherhood and Duty, McEnany follows the cadets of the West Point class of 1862 from their initiation, through coursework, and on the battlefield, focusing on 12 Union and four Confederate soldiers. Drawing heavily on primary sources, McEnany presents a fascinating chronicle of the young classmates, who became allies and enemies during the largest conflict ever undertaken on American soil. Their vivid accounts provide new perspectives not only on legendary battles such as Antietam, Gettysburg, Fredericksburg, and the Overland and Atlanta campaigns, but also on lesser-known battles such as Port Hudson, Olustee, High Bridge, and Pleasant Hills. Generously illustrated with more than 100 photographs and maps, this enthralling collective biography illuminates the war’s impact on a unique group of soldiers and the institution that shaped them.

McEnany graduated from the United States Military Academy with the class of 1962 and served in artillery assignments in Germany, Korea and the United States, and combat service in Vietnam. A retired lieutenant colonel and operations research analyst, he is the author of several historical articles about West Point during the Civil War.

UPK previously won the Arthur Goodzeit Book Award for Best Book on Military History from the NYMAS for The Schlieffen Plan: International Perspectives on the German Strategy for World War I, edited by Hans Ehlert, Michael Epkenhans, and Gerhard P. Gross; this is the first book from UPK to win the Feit Award.

Reprinted with permission from UKNow. 

UK Libraries, UPK bring noted historian to campus

Dr. Joseph A. Fry spoke at UK Libraries 

Dr. Joseph A. Fry spoke to a full house at the Margaret I. King Library this week as he gave an invited lecture on “Place Matters: Domestic Regionalism, the American South, and the Vietnam War.” Dr. Fry is the author of The American South and the Vietnam War: Belligerence, Protest, and Agony in Dixie, published by UPK in 2015. He is distinguished professor emeritus of history at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Deirdre Scaggs, associate dean for the Special Collections Research Center, welcomed a crowd of students and faculty gathered for the lecture. Dr. Jonathan Allison, interim director of UPK, gave remarks on behalf of the Press. Dr. George Herring, UK professor emeritus of history and a longtime friend and colleague of Dr. Fry, introduced the speaker.

Dr. Fry's visit to campus was sponsored by UK Libraries and the University Press of Kentucky, with cooperation from the UK College of Arts and Sciences Department of History. For more on Fry and his scholarship, see a previous entry.

Ashley Runyon leaves University Press of Kentucky

Ashley Runyon

Ashley Runyon, senior acquisitions editor at the University Press of Kentucky, has resigned from UK. Her last day at work will be April 8, 2016.

Ashley acquired many titles in UPK's regional trade list, including the series on bourbon, books in Appalachian studies, and books on Kentucky subjects.  She established several new series including Place Matters: New Directions in Appalachian Studies, and a contemporary poetry and fiction series co-sponsored by Centre College. Ashley also worked as development coordinator for UPK and secured important partnerships with the Frazier Museum in Louisville and Kentucky State Parks.

We wish her well in her new post as senior acquisitions editor at Indiana University Press.

Editors of "Kentucky African American Encyclopedia" honored with 2016 Legacy Award

Drs. Smith, McDaniel, and Hardin received the 2016 Legacy Award
in Frankfort

Dr. Gerald Smith, Dr. Karen Cotton McDaniel and Dr. John A. Hardin, co-editors of the Kentucky African American Encyclopedia (University Press of Kentucky), were recipients of the 2016 Legacy Award at the 13^th annual Black History Month Celebration at the Kentucky State Capitol in Frankfort. This year’s event, hosted by the Kentucky Black Legislative Caucus, focused on the theme “The Unfinished Business of Kentucky: ‘Symbolism and Reality.’”

Dr. Smith, professor of history and Martin Luther King Center Scholar-in Residence at the University of Kentucky, delivered the keynote address, “What is Kentucky Saying About Us (African Americans)?” to a standing room only crowd in the Capitol rotunda. Dr. Smith spoke just a few feet from the Jefferson Davis statue that was the symbolic focus of his presentation.

 “This is not just a celebration of African American history,” Senator Gerald Neal explained. “This is a celebration of American history. Black History Month presents us an opportunity to remember the important legacy of African Americans in Kentucky and the nation – much of which would have been lost over the years if not for this special time of remembrance. It is important that we know and honor many of the notable citizens who have contributed to our history as well as pay respect to the many, many others whom history has forgotten. I encourage all Kentuckians to join me as we observe Black History Month.”

UK Libraries event: UPK author speaks on the American South and the Vietnam War

A reminder that historian and University Press of Kentucky (UPK) author Dr. Joseph A. Fry will visit campus to deliver a lecture on how the South's response impacted America's participation in the Vietnam War. Fry will speak 4 p.m. Monday, March 7, 2016, in the Great Hall of Margaret I. King Library on the University of Kentucky campus. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Fry's talk, “Place Matters: Domestic Regionalism, the American South, and the Vietnam War,” explores how place matters in how Americans have responded to and sought to influence U.S. foreign policy. The dynamic of domestic regional influence on U.S. foreign relations was especially apparent in the American South’s role in the Vietnam War.

From the general public to soldiers, college students and crucially placed political leaders, the South supported the war more strongly and longer than any other section of the country. As had been the southern practice since the 1780s, the South’s bellicose foreign policy stance was grounded in distinctly regional political and economic interests, racial views, ideological and historical assumptions, and religious values.

Although the South's support helped to sustain an increasingly unpopular war under both Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon, many of these same regional interests and values spawned an articulate minority opposition to the war. These antiwar protests, together with the war’s mounting agony, led even the South and its pro-war leaders to tire of the conflict by the early 1970s.

Fry is the author of "The American South and the Vietnam War: Belligerence, Protest, and Agony in Dixie," published by UPK in 2015. His visit to UK is made possible by sponsors UK Libraries and UPK.

UPK author Zhaohui Hong receives Academic Excellence Award

By Mack McCormick

University Press of Kentucky author and economic historian Zhaohui Hong has been honored with the 2015 Academic Excellence Award from the Chinese Historians in the United States (CHUS) for his new book, The Price of China’s Economic Development: Power, Capital and the Poverty of Rights. Hong, the director of the Center for Global Studies at Purdue University Calumet and the co-director of the Center on Religion and Chinese Society, published the book as part of the Asia in the New Millennium series which is edited by Shiping Hua, the Calvin and Helen Lang Distinguished Chair in Asian Studies at the University of Louisville.

Established in 1987, CHUS is an international academic organization of Chinese and Chinese-American history professors in the U.S. and American history professors who are teaching and studying Chinese history. The association seeks to promote scholarly exchange among its members as well as among colleagues in both China and the United States and to contribute to the advancement of Chinese historical studies and Asian studies. The Academic Excellence Award is awarded to the top book in the field each year.

In The Price of China’s Economic Development, Hong assesses the sociocultural consequences of the economic reforms begun under Deng Xiaoping in 1978. He charts the effects of these broad changes—from agrarianism to industrialism, from isolation to internationalism, and from centralized planning to market-based economics—on the lives of ordinary citizens. He argues that social progress should be measured qualitatively, with justice its ultimate goal and fair allocation of resources and opportunity as the main index of success. This sophisticated analysis introduces English speakers to the varied and significant work of contemporary Chinese scholars and substantially enriches the international dialogue.

Hong received the award last month at the American Historical Association Annual Meeting in Atlanta, Georgia. The award was presented by the president of Chinese Historians in the United States, Xiaobing Li, who is the author of Voices from the Vietnam War and A History of the Modern Chinese Army, and co-author of Voices from the Korean War, all published by University Press of Kentucky.

Historian Dr. Joseph A. Fry to speak on the American South and the Vietnam War

Historian and University Press of Kentucky Author Dr. Joseph A. Fry will visit campus to deliver a lecture sponsored by UK Libraries and UPK. Fry will speak on “Place Matters: Domestic Regionalism, the American South, and the Vietnam War.” The lecture, to be held at 4 p.m. on March 7, 2016, in the Great Hall of Margaret I. King Library, is free and open to the public.

Fry is the author of The American South and the Vietnam War: Belligerence, Protest, and Agony in Dixie, published by UPK in 2015. He is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Fry's other books include Henry S. Sanford: Diplomacy and Business in Nineteenth Century America (1982), John Tyler Morgan and the Search for Southern Autonomy (1992), Dixie Looks Abroad: The South and U.S. Foreign Relations, 1789-1973 (2002), and Debating Vietnam: Fulbright, Stennis, and Their Senate Hearings (2006). He has published articles in Diplomatic History, the Pacific Historical Review, and various other journals and collections. He is the series editor for Biographies in American Foreign Policy published by Rowman and Littlefield Publishers. To date, 18 volumes have appeared. Fry's current research focuses on Lincoln, Seward, and U.S. foreign relations in the 1860s.

UPK author wins 2016 John G. Cawelti Award

By Whitney Hale and Mack McCormick

University Press of Kentucky (UPK) author Brian Taves has been named one of the winners of the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association’s 2016 John G. Cawelti Award for the Best Textbook/Primer in Popular Culture for his book Hollywood Presents Jules Verne: The Father of Science Fiction on Screen. The award will be presented to the author at the 2016 PCA/ACA National Conference, which will be held March 23, 2016, in Seattle, Washington.

Taves' book shares this year’s award with Seeing Green: The Use and Abuse of American Environmental Images by Finis Dunaway. The PCA/ACA is a group of scholars and enthusiasts who study popular culture. The PCA/ACA offers a venue to come together and share ideas and interests about the field or about a particular subject within the field.

In Hollywood Presents Jules Verne, Brian Taves investigates the indelible mark that the author has left on English-language cinema. Adaptations of Verne’s tales have taken many forms, including early movie shorts, serials, feature films, miniseries and television shows. They have been produced as both animated and live-action films. Taves illuminates how, as these stories have been made and remade over the years, each new adaptation looks back not only to Verne’s words but also to previous screen incarnations.

Taves also examines how generations of actors have portrayed iconic characters such as Phileas Fogg and Captain Nemo, and how these figures are treated in pastiches such as Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (2012). Investigating the biggest box-office hits as well as lower-budget productions, this comprehensive study broadens our understanding of this seminal figure in science fiction film.

The John G. Cawelti Award was established to honor the work of the retired University of Kentucky English professor who has been a pioneer in the study of popular and American culture. His books such as The Six-Gun Mystique and The Spy Story helped establish popular culture as a subject worthy of academic study.

Taves is the second UPK author to win the Cawelti Award. Joseph J. Foy received the award in 2008 for his book "Homer Simpson Goes to Washington: American Politics through Popular Culture."

Brian Taves is a film archivist with the Library of Congress. He is the author of more than 100 articles and six books, including The Romance of Adventure: The Genre of Historical Adventure Movies and Thomas Ince: Hollywood’s Independent Pioneer.

Reprinted with permission from UKNow.