University Press of Kentucky

University Press of Kentucky has a dual mission—the publication of academic books of high scholarly merit in a variety of fields and the publication of significant books about the history and culture of Kentucky, the Ohio Valley region, the Upper South, and Appalachia. The Press is the statewide nonprofit scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth of Kentucky, serving all Kentucky state-sponsored institutions of higher learning as well as seven private colleges and Kentucky’s two major historical societies.

Which Side Are You On? Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 40
ISBN: 9781950564149
Pub Date: 31 Jan 2025
Description:
Which Side Are You On? tells the story of the classic union song that was written in 1931 by Florence Reece in a rain of bullets. It has been sung by people fighting for their rights all over the world.
John J. Pershing and the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I, 1917-1919 Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 816
ISBN: 9781985900769
Pub Date: 14 Jan 2025
Series: American Warriors Series
Illustrations: 7 maps, 22 b&w illustrations, 14 b&w tables
Description:
General of the Armies John J. Pershing (1860–1948) had a long and decorated military career but is most famous for leading the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I. He published a memoir, My Experiences in the World War, and has been the subject of several biographies, but the literature regarding this towering figure and his enormous role in the First World War deserves to be expanded to include a collection of his wartime correspondence.
The Magic Hours Cover The Magic Hours Cover
Format: 
Pages: 352
ISBN: 9781985901186
Pub Date: 03 Dec 2024
Series: Screen Classics
Illustrations: 19 b&w illustrations
Pages: 352
ISBN: 9781985901193
Pub Date: 03 Dec 2024
Series: Screen Classics
Illustrations: 19 b&w illustrations
Description:
Terrence Malick is the most enigmatic film director currently working. Since the early seventies, his work has won top prizes at film festivals worldwide and brought him wide recognition as the cinematic equivalent of a poet. His life is shrouded in mystery, leaving audiences with rumors, few established facts, and virtual silence from the filmmaker himself following his last published interview in 1979.
The Whiskey Sour Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 304
ISBN: 9781985900899
Pub Date: 28 Nov 2024
Illustrations: 8 b&w line drawings
Description:
Certain cocktails carry societal connotations and cultural meaning. Some drinks are regional symbols such as the mint julep, which is inextricably tied to the Kentucky Derby. Classic drinks like the old fashioned or the Manhattan tend to denote a more sophisticated or refined palate, whereas wine coolers and tropical cocktails are often associated with new or inexperienced drinkers.
The Reggie Warford Story Cover The Reggie Warford Story Cover
Format: 
Pages: 320
ISBN: 9781985901056
Pub Date: 05 Nov 2024
Series: Race and Sports
Illustrations: 61 b&w illustrations
Pages: 320
ISBN: 9781985901063
Pub Date: 05 Nov 2024
Series: Race and Sports
Illustrations: 61 b&w illustrations
Description:
In 1972, Reggie Warford was a sinewy, lightning-fast, sharp-shooting leftie who was in high demand by such renowned coaches as Bobby Knight at Indiana and Digger Phelps at Notre Drame. When the prolific player was signed by Joe B. Hall at the University Kentucky, he would ultimately become an inspirational scoring force on the team and the first Black basketball player to graduate from the university—instrumental in helping to break the color barriers for generations of students who followed.

Haint Country

Dark Folktales from the Hills and Hollers

Haint Country

Dark Folktales from the Hills and Hollers
Format: 
Pages: 224
ISBN: 9781985900967
Pub Date: 01 Oct 2024
Illustrations: 28 b&w illustrations
Pages: 224
ISBN: 9781985900974
Pub Date: 01 Oct 2024
Illustrations: 28 b&w illustrations
Description:
The hills of the Appalachia region hold secrets—dark, deep, varied, and mysterious. These secrets are often told in the form of eerie, thrilling, and creepy folk tales that reveal strange sightings, curious oddities, and commonly serve as cautionary tales for eager and curious ears. These spine-tingling stories have been told and retold by family members, neighbors, and "hillfolk" for generations.
Lessons from the Foothills Cover Lessons from the Foothills Cover
Format: 
Pages: 192
ISBN: 9781985900684
Pub Date: 24 Sep 2024
Illustrations: 13 b&w illustrations
Pages: 192
ISBN: 9781985900691
Pub Date: 24 Sep 2024
Illustrations: 13 b&w illustrations
Description:
On Christmas Eve in 1859, sixty-five prominent armed white men rode into the small Kentucky town of Berea and forced the townspeople to close its integrated one-room schoolhouse. The mob perceived the school as a threat to white supremacy and the racial order. Abolitionist John Gregg Fee established the school for the expressed purpose of providing education to anyone eager to learn, regardless of their race—a notion that horrified those convinced of the sanctity of white supremacy.

The Original Louisville Slugger

The Life and Times of Forgotten Baseball Legend Pete Browning

The Original Louisville Slugger

The Life and Times of Forgotten Baseball Legend Pete Browning
Format: 
Pages: 368
ISBN: 9781985900844
Pub Date: 17 Sep 2024
Illustrations: 31 b&w illustrations
Pages: 368
ISBN: 9781985900851
Pub Date: 17 Sep 2024
Illustrations: 31 b&w illustrations
Description:
Louis "Pete" Rogers Browning, the original "Louisville Slugger" for whom the famous baseball bat was named, was one of the greatest baseball players of the nineteenth century. Yet his prowess and talent were often overshadowed by his drunken exploits and endless eccentricities—on and off the field. Over his thirteen-year career he won three batting titles, finished in the top three nine times, and was one of the greatest hitters of the premodern era.
I Could Name God in Twelve Ways Cover I Could Name God in Twelve Ways Cover
Format: 
Pages: 208
ISBN: 9781985900646
Pub Date: 10 Sep 2024
Pages: 208
ISBN: 9781985900653
Pub Date: 10 Sep 2024
Description:
I could dream in poetry, could summon words for spiritual experience, could name God in twelve ways and in ten times and places in history. Award-winning writer Karen Salyer McElmurray details her life's journey across continents and decades in a poetic collection that is equal parts essay-as-memoir, memoir-as-Künstlerroman, and travelogue-as-meditation. It is about the deserts of India.
Kentucky, Y'all Cover Kentucky, Y'all Cover
Format: 
Pages: 208
ISBN: 9781985900721
Pub Date: 10 Sep 2024
Illustrations: 32 b&w illustrations
Pages: 208
ISBN: 9781985900738
Pub Date: 10 Sep 2024
Illustrations: 32 b&w illustrations
Description:
When people think of Kentucky, three things usually come to mind: bourbon, Colonel Sanders's secret chicken recipe, and the glamorous Kentucky Derby. Add college basketball to that list, and you have yourself a superfecta. Looking beyond these time-honored traditions, however, visitors will find in Kentucky a diverse patchwork of faces and places, each as unique as the state's geography.
Races, Games, and Olympic Dreams Cover Races, Games, and Olympic Dreams Cover
Format: 
Pages: 256
ISBN: 9781985901001
Pub Date: 20 Aug 2024
Illustrations: 60 b&w illustrations
Pages: 256
ISBN: 9781985901018
Pub Date: 20 Aug 2024
Illustrations: 60 b&w illustrations
Description:
In sports, not all the long shots who succeed are athletes. In 1984, Tom Hammond, a forty-year-old sportscaster who had primarily worked in Kentucky and the Southeast, got an unlikely opportunity to appear on the NBC Sports telecast of the inaugural Breeders' Cup. Assigned to report from the stall area on what was supposed to be a single broadcast, Hammond performed so well that an NBC executive offered him a chance to call NFL games on the spot.

Helen Morgan

The Original Torch Singer and Ziegfeld's Last Star

Helen Morgan

The Original Torch Singer and Ziegfeld's Last Star
Format: 
Pages: 416
ISBN: 9781985900585
Pub Date: 06 Aug 2024
Series: Screen Classics
Illustrations: 70 b&w illustrations
Pages: 416
ISBN: 9781985900592
Pub Date: 06 Aug 2024
Series: Screen Classics
Illustrations: 70 b&w illustrations
Description:
An emotive soprano, heartrending melodies about unrequited love, and a draped-over-the-piano persona made Helen Morgan (1902–1941) the original torch singer, but she was so much more. The versatile actress appeared on Broadway, in film, and on radio. In a number of stage revues, she danced, sang, and excelled in sketch comedy.
The Jim Crow North Cover The Jim Crow North Cover
Format: 
Pages: 346
ISBN: 9781985900233
Pub Date: 05 Jul 2024
Series: Civil Rights and the Struggle for Black Equality
Illustrations: 25 b&w illustrations
Pages: 346
ISBN: 9781985900240
Pub Date: 05 Jul 2024
Series: Civil Rights and the Struggle for Black Equality
Illustrations: 25 b&w illustrations
Description:
Located approximately forty miles northwest of Philadelphia, the working-class borough of Pottstown does not immediately come to mind as an influential site of the Black Freedom Struggle. Yet this small town in Pennsylvania served as a significant hub of interracial civil rights activism with regional as well as national impact. In The Jim Crow North: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, Matthew George Washington adds another interpretive perspective to historiography by using both the "freedom North" and the "long civil rights movement" theoretical models to frame the borough's unique history.
The Stone Catchers Cover The Stone Catchers Cover
Format: 
Pages: 256
ISBN: 9781985900547
Pub Date: 05 Jul 2024
Pages: 256
ISBN: 9781985900554
Pub Date: 05 Jul 2024
Description:
In a span of minutes, the lives of four members of Brickton Community College change forever when an active shooter enters the campus and opens fire. Running on adrenaline and fear, the group—a crew of students and their teacher—subdues the perpetrator in a violent frenzy that leads to the man's death. Reeling from the shock of their collective actions, the group is thrown into turmoil when they realize that the person they have killed is someone they all knew.
Black Officer, White Navy Cover Black Officer, White Navy Cover
Format: 
Pages: 242
ISBN: 9781985900288
Pub Date: 05 Jul 2024
Illustrations: 32 b&w illustrations
Pages: 242
ISBN: 9781985900295
Pub Date: 05 Jul 2024
Illustrations: 32 b&w illustrations
Description:
In Black Officer, White Navy, Lieutenant Commander Reuben Keith Green shares a compelling and enthralling account of how, as a Black man in the post–Vietnam War era, he navigated his unique career path from high school dropout to unrestricted line officer in the US Navy. Weaving history with personal narrative, Green's engaging, raw, and insightful storytelling style provides an insider's analysis of what was happening within the navy, ultimately exposing systemic racism throughout the US military. Using the "power of the pen," he offers uninhibited accounts of sometimes life-threatening confrontations that resulted from personal and institutional racial bias, describing what it was like to "sail second class" in the navy.
Staying in the Fight Cover Staying in the Fight Cover
Format: 
Pages: 236
ISBN: 9781985900394
Pub Date: 05 Jul 2024
Illustrations: 3 figures, 14 tables
Pages: 236
ISBN: 9781985900400
Pub Date: 05 Jul 2024
Illustrations: 3 figures, 14 tables
Description:
During the chaotic evacuation of the United States from Afghanistan in 2021, a group of Congress members who were also military veterans of the War on Terror leapt into action to assist vulnerable people in Afghanistan who had aided the American war effort. This cohort of legislators and their staffs on Capitol Hill created hotlines and worked 24-hour shifts in an intense effort to save lives, often coordinating between government agencies, informal networks of veterans' groups, and contacts on the ground in Kabul. In the process, many veteran lawmakers also became vocal critics of presidential management of the crisis and said they felt a moral obligation to act.