Consortium Book Blog

Bound in Twine wins agricultural history award

Bound in Twine by Sterling Evans has received the 2007 Theodore Saloutos Memorial Award for the best book on agricultural history from the Agricultural History Society. The society will honor Evans at a luncheon at the Organization of American Historians Conference tentatively schedule for Saturday March 28, 2009, in Seattle, Washington.

Before the invention of the combine, the binder was an essential harvesting implement that cut grain and bound the stalks in bundles tied with twine that could then be hand-gathered into shocks for threshing. Hundreds of thousands of farmers across the United States and Canada relied on binders and the twine required for the machine's operation. Implement manufacturers discovered that the best binder twine was made from henequen and sisal—spiny, fibrous plants native to the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico.

Bound in Twine analyzes the international dependencies among Canada, the U.S., and Mexico created by the growth, manufacturing, and use of binder twine between 1880 and 1950, or what Evans terms the henequen-wheat complex.

To read more about this book, visit:
http://www.tamu.edu/upress/BOOKS/2007/evans.htm

Shadow and Stinger Wins Futrell Award for Excellence

Shadow and Stinger: Developing the AC-119G/K Gunships in the Vietnam War by William Head has received the 2008 Frank Futrell Award for Excellence in Historical Publications from the United States Air Force History and Museum Program.

The book focuses on the gunship's impact on the Vietnamese and later the American forces against enemy ground forces, among other parts of the gunship's history. 

"I think the greatest honor is in fact that it's named after Frank Futrell who was truly one of the pioneers of Air Force history and a real gentleman," Head said.

For more information on this book, visit http://www.tamu.edu/upress/BOOKS/2007/head.htm

Testing American Sea Power Receives Honorable Mention

Testing American Sea Power: U.S. Navy Strategic Exercises, 1923–1940, by Craig C. Felker, received an Honorable Mention for the 2007 Theodore and Franklin D. Roosevelt Naval History Prize. The Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute awards the prize annually in cooperation with the Theodore Roosevelt Association and the New York Council Navy League of the United States. The awards were presented at the annual Roosevelt Naval History Prize Luncheon on June 5, 2008 at the New York Athletic Club.

For more information on this book, visit http://www.tamu.edu/upress/BOOKS/2007/felker.htm

Viewing Exotic Animals in Your State

As spring arrives and wanderlust sets in, make taking advantage of beautiful days a little easier by keeping a list on hand of places to visit and things to see.

A fun item for your list could be spotting the exotic animals living in your state, and the award-winning book Exotic Animal Field Guide can help you plan your day trip.

From axis deer to zebra, an estimated 230,000 or more foreign hoofed mammals live in the United States. These "exotics"—animals native to other places—can be found in Texas, Florida, New Mexico, Maryland, California, New Hampshire, Hawaii, and other states on ranches, in wildlife preserves, at safari parks, and sometimes just behind high fences or on a mountainside along the byroads of America.

Author Elizabeth Cary Mungall explains how these species got here, tells where people can go to view them, and gives a few simple guidelines for responsible ownership.

Exotic Animal Field Guide was recently named a winner of the 2007 Publication Award for Outstanding Authored Book by the Texas Chapter of the Wildlife Society.

To read more about the book and start planning your trip, visit http://www.tamu.edu/upress/BOOKS/2007/mungall.htm

Poetry book wins award

Stephen Fromholz New & Selected Poems 07 won a Silver Addy for design from the Advertising Club of Fort Worth in its annual round of awards. The Addy went to Fusion 29, the group responsible for the design of the book. The Fromholz title is part of the TCU Press Texas Poets Laureate Series. Mr. Fromholz was the state's poet laureate in 2007.

Award Winning Author to Speak on UNT Campus

Author Aimee LaBrie, winner of the 2007 Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction will speak at the Denton campus of the University of North Texas on February 12. LaBrie will read from Wonderful Girl in the Golden Eagle Suite in the Union at 8:00 PM. Admission is free. Reception and booksigning to follow. Read about the book at:
http://web3.unt.edu/untpress/catalog/detail.cfm?ID=276

Purchase a copy of Wonderful Girl at:
http://www.tamu.edu/upress/BOOKS/2007/labrie.htm

William & Rosalie: A Holocaust Testimony is getting much attention

In case you missed it, two excerpts from this moving book recently ran in the Dallas Morning News:
see:
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/dmn/stories/081907dnentholocaust_part2.9ae0ce.html
AND
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/longterm/stories/081207dnentholocaust_part1.e509f5.html

For more information about the book, see the University of North Texas web site:

http://web3.unt.edu/news/story.cfm?story=9901

There is also a terrific multi-media web site:
http://www.dallasnews.com/s/dws/spe/2007/schiffs/

"William & Rosalie" (hardcover $19.95) is available at bookstores or by calling (800) 826-8911 or visiting http://www.tamu.edu/upress/.

The book has generated much interest in the Schiffs. If you have the opportunity, catch them at one of their upcoming appearances in the Dallas area.

Craig Hanley and William and Rosalie Schiff are set to be interviewed from noon to 1 p.m. Tuesday, September 25 on KERA-90.1. They will be interviewed by host Kris Boyd on KERA's radio talk show "Think."

Borders Books & Music, 10720 Preston Rd., Dallas, Texas
Wednesday, September 26, 2007. 7 - 9 PM

Holocaust Survivors story told in new book

William and Rosalie Schiff survived six different German slave and concentration camps and managed to reunite after their individual odysseys. Now both in their eighties, they live in Dallas, Texas, and devote themselves full time to teaching children the dangers of prejudice and hate.

Their story is told in a new book, William & Rosalie: A Holocaust Testimony, published by the University of North Texas Press. Craig Hanley powerfully narrates the struggle of the couple to stay alive and find each other at war’s end.

Hanley’s manuscript was the winner at the annual Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Writers Conference of the Southwest. See this link for information about the Mayborn Institute:
http://www.mayborninstitute.unt.edu/conf06_winners.htm

For more information about the book, see the University of North Texas web site:
http://web3.unt.edu/news/story.cfm?story=9901

There is also a terrific multi-media web site:
http://www.dallasnews.com/s/dws/spe/2007/schiffs/

"William & Rosalie" (hardcover $19.95) is available at bookstores or by calling (800) 826-8911 or visiting http://www.tamu.edu/upress/.

Check back for more information about Dallas area appearances by William and Rosalie Schiff and Craig Hanley.

The Yankee Invasion of Texas

The Yankee Invasion of Texas    
Author: Stephen A. Townsend    

Cloth: $25.00

Texas A&M Press Author Wins Book Award
    COLLEGE STATION-Texas A&M University Press is pleased to announce that Stephen A. Townsend, author of The Yankee Invasion of Texas, has received the 2006 Summerfield G. Roberts Book Award from the Sons of Confederate Veterans for the best book on Texas during the Civil War.  The award was presented in July 2007.
In 1863 the Union capture of Texas was viewed as crucial to the strategy to deny the Confederacy the territory west of the Mississippi and thus to break the back of its military force. Union efforts to cut off the Texas trade were characterized by short, unsuccessful forays, primarily in East and South Texas. Townsend examines the Union army's Rio Grande Expedition, which left New Orleans in 1863 and captured Brownsville, Texas. He traces the actions of these forces from the city's capture until Ulysses S. Grant ordered the abandonment of all of Texas except Brownsville in March 1864, analyzing the campaign's effects on the local populace, the two armies' morale, the Texas cotton trade, and its benefits and losses to the Northern war effort.
    Stephen A. Townsend teaches history at New Mexico Junior College in Hobbs. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of North Texas.
    The Yankee Invasion of Texas is available at stores or direct from Texas A&M University Press (800-862-8911; or online at www.tamu.edu/upress).

Texas A&M Press Author Wins Theodore Saloutos Book Award

Texas A&M University Press is pleased to announce that Geoff Cunfer, author of On the Great Plains: Agriculture and Environment, has received the 2006 Theodore Saloutos Book Award from the Agricultural History Society for most outstanding major new scholarly reinterpretation of American agricultural history.  The award was presented at the society’s annual meeting at Cambridge, Massachusetts in June 2006.

On the Great Plains poses an intriguing new view of Euro-American farmers’ interaction with nature on the Great Plains. The book investigates how America’s interior prairies have remained remarkably stable throughout the twentieth century’s unpredictable weather and technological innovations. Cunfer surveys the entire Great Plans by using historical agricultural census data, coupled with GIS mapping, to evaluate land use over the past 130 years. This collected information allows Cunfer to expertly reassess the interaction between farmers and nature in this vast landscape.

For more information:
http://www.tamu.edu/upress/BOOKS/2005/cunfer.htm