Short Takes: Perceptive interpretations, intelligent ruminations

Diane Mutti-Burke launched ON SLAVERY'S BORDER, the inaugural book in our Mellon-funded collaborative series Early American Places, to a crowd of 300 at an event at the Kansas City Public Library. She was interviewed about the book, which examines small slaveholding households in Missouri in the years prior to the Civil War, on KCUR's KC Currents.

JOHN OLIVER KILLENS by Keith Gilyard has been selected as an honor book in the category of nonficition by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. The selection committee noted: "Gilyard presents a well researched portrayal of Killens as novelist, teacher, essayist and founding chair of the Harlem Writers Guild. This is the first biography of John Oliver Killens and a significant contribution to the understanding of his influence as an African American writer activist."

For a foretaste of this spring's CIVIL RIGHTS HISTORY FROM THE GROUND UP, check out editor Emilye Crosby on WOSU's All Sides with Ann Fisher, interviewed alongside Hasan Kwame Jeffries and Lauren Araiza.

BLOOMBERG'S NEW YORK featured in The Architect's Newspaper: "A city built only for the 'elites' means that if they go down, we all go down."

Co-author Barry Brown interviewed about CROSSROADS OF CONFLICT: A GUIDE TO CIVIL WAR SITES IN GEORGIA by Rickey Bevington for Georgia Public Broadcasting.

Several UGAP titles reviewed in the newest Journal of American History, including Catherine Randall's FROM A FAR COUNTRY ("A welcome addition to the small but growing body of scholarly work that examines the French Protestant experience from an Atlantic world perspective") and Theda Purdue's RACE AND THE ATLANTA COTTON STATES EXPOSITION OF 1895 ("Perdue offers amazingly detailed descriptions of the exhibits presented at the fair, walking readers through the sights and sounds of the attractions as fairgoers would have seen them in 1895, except with the addition of perceptive interpretations of the cultural significance of the displays.")

CHOICE Reviews for Academic Libraries highly recommends THE HORRIBLE GIFT OF FREEDOM ("Wood's analysis of popular 19th-century iconography is thorough, sharp, and disillusioning"), JURY DISCRIMINATION ("a solid work of scholarly history as well as an intelligent rumination on deeply rooted racial prejudice") and AFRICAN AMERICAN LIFE IN THE GEORGIA LOWCOUNTRY ("This splendid collection illuminates an aspect of African American culture that has been neglected in the past.")

SOUTHERN FOODWAYS ALLIANCE COMMUNITY COOKBOOK featured on Epicurious.

The February issue of Vanity Fair includes Natasha Trethewey (BEYOND KATRINA) in a photo shoot of Atlanta writers ("Belles, Books and Candor").