UNT Press - New Publications

War Studies Journal 3

Tue, 16 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The War Studies Journal is a scholarly venue for those who want to write about the big topics of warfare, strategy, campaigns, battles, theory, military revolutions, and technological change. It is a journal for scholars who wish to read the best of contemporary scholarship and debate military history in a peer-reviewed forum that will appear annually in print and online. The objective of the journal’s editorial board is to publish cutting-edge military history from antiquity to the contemporary period that informs the past, present, and future. The goal is to create a space for the serious discussion of military history, including its diplomatic, strategic, operational, tactical, and technological aspects, both chronologically and thematically.

The editorial board solicits submissions from leading scholars, experts, and early-career professionals on wide-ranging topics that will interest specialists in multiple disciplines and across multiple eras. Each volume contains original research articles, one essay that explores the historical antecedents of a contemporary issue, and a significant number of book reviews.

Theoria Volume 30

Tue, 16 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Theoria is an annual peer-reviewed journal on all aspects of the history of music theory distributed by the University of North Texas Press. It includes critical articles representing the current stage of research, and editions of newly discovered or mostly unknown theoretical texts with translation and commentary. Analytical articles on recent or unknown repertory and methods are also published, as well as review articles on recent secondary literature and textbooks. Back issues are avaialble from Texas A&M University Press.

Dreams and Ideas: The Artistry of Costume Designer Winn Morton

Wed, 03 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Dreams and Ideas celebrates the legacy of American theatrical designer John Winniford “Winn” Morton (1928–2022), a Texan who made his way to New York to begin a stellar career that lasted from when he was 20 until he finally retired at 90. More than 150 photographs and original color illustrations demonstrate how Morton paid careful attention to the look of every single performer, consciously conveying character through clothing.

Morton started in the early years of live television and then moved to the Roxy Theatre, where fanciful showgirl and skater costumes sprang wholly from his imagination. By 1960 he was appointed head designer for Jones Beach Theater, a key role at a unique, popular destination that he maintained for a remarkable seventeen seasons. Over the same period, he also designed costumes for select Broadway and off-Broadway productions, including Oklahoma!, industrial musicals, and Dick Button’s Ice-Travaganza skating show at the 1964–1965 New York World’s Fair.

His prolific career in New York continued into the late 1970s, until the life-changing event of his mother’s death prompted his return to Dallas County. He was quickly hired as artistic director of sets and costumes for Six Flags Over Texas Productions, dressing hundreds of actors in themed musicals performed in the brand’s multiple amusement parks nationwide. He also styled lavish galas and private parties in Dallas in the 1980s and 1990s and designed all of the costumes for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus’s 1985–1986 tour.

At age 54 Morton began the longest-running commission of his career: the Texas Rose Festival in Tyler. He first designed elaborate, bejeweled gowns, trains, crowns, hats, and children’s attire for the glittering festival beginning in 1982, adding set designs to his duties ten years later. At his final Rose Festival presentation in 2019, the organization paid tribute to his extraordinary contributions. Featuring guest essays by Jennifer Cronk and Holly Haber, Dreams and Ideas is the first full-length account of Winn Morton’s achievements in costume and set design.

Progress Denied: Quakertown, White Supremacy, and the Illusion of Democracy in Denton, Texas, 1850–1925

Wed, 03 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Sometimes, history isn’t what it appears to be. For instance, in the early 1920s, a thriving Southern Black community was literally voted out of existence by local white citizens. The North Texas city of Denton, which was sometimes described as a “Ku Klux Box,” was also home to the Quakertown neighborhood. There, Black Texans worked hard to overcome the legacy of slavery, build financial success and family stability, educate their children, and worship God as they saw fit. And they did it all right in the middle of town. A model of “racial uplift” for over forty years, the community was eventually targeted by their white neighbors.

Rather than using the torches and nooses often associated with the Jim Crow era, Denton’s white supremacists perpetrated a devastating act of civic violence. Cloaking themselves in the legitimacy associated with city government, institutions of higher learning, fraternal orders, and civic improvement groups, they were able to cover their tracks while they planned a large-scale racist dispossession. Then, in 1920, they got access to the most destructive weapon they’d deploy—the vote for women.

Quickly, the very existence of Quakertown was put on the (whites-only) ballot, disguised as a beautification measure. By a narrow margin, the Black community was slated for destruction in 1921. Once the community removal was complete, Denton’s white community used the language of democracy and majority rule to cover up the whole thing. This is the story of Black success amid the challenges of Jim Crow Texas, the way that white supremacists were able to manipulate democratic ideals to oppress their neighbors, and the legacy a deformed social memory left behind.

A Culinary Journey Through Texas History: A State Historic Sites Cookbook

Wed, 03 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

From its days as an independent republic, Texas boasts a rich past that unites people from all social classes and cultures. Through the myriads of flavors and enticing aromas of Texas cuisine, we forge connections to people, places, and traditions and enrich the stories that bind us across generations.

The Texas Historical Commission is excited to share a curated collection of recipes from our historic sites. These recipes come from our interpretive foodways programs, which highlight the rich culinary traditions of Texas’s past. In this cookbook, we invite you to explore recipes from different regions, cultures, and historic cookbooks that have been prepared and served throughout time. Discover the stories behind each recipe and learn new methods and historic measurements for preparing these delicious cuisines. As you peruse this collection of recipes, please keep in mind that the scope of this cookbook is but a glimpse of the culinary depth within each period. May this book serve as a starting point for your gastronomic exploration of history!

Whether you have participated in our programs or are just exploring these pages, we hope this cookbook inspires you to try these historic recipes. Share them with friends and family at your next gathering and bring a taste of Texas history to your table.

A Chickasaw Lady, a Governor’s Wife: Alice Hearrell Murray in the Era of the New Woman

Wed, 03 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Mary Alice Hearrell Murray was the wife of Oklahoma’s most colorful politician in the early twentieth century, William H. “Alfalfa Bill” Murray. Alice was the niece of Chickasaw governor Douglas Johnston, who was her guardian, and she was a graduate of the prominent Chickasaw girls’ school, Bloomfield Academy for Chickasaw Females. Alice graduated as the dawn of the twentieth century ushered in a more progressive society and the world of the new woman. Alice, however, was not a new woman of the progressive era; she adhered to the traditional order of the Chickasaw people.

Alice also witnessed the dissolution of her tribal government and the division of communal lands into individual allotments. She acknowledged that the old ways must go and that her people must accept the dominant culture of twentieth-century America. As the wife of Murray, and as the niece of the governor of the Chickasaw Nation, Alice understood the changing world of both Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory politics, and she witnessed the creation of the state of Oklahoma.

I’m Alive: A Young Fighter Pilot’s Diary of the US Navy Air War in Vietnam, 1964–1965

Wed, 03 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I’m Alive is the compelling diary of Lieutenant Junior Grade (LTJG) Errol F. Reilly, a 26-year-old Navy fighter pilot, written aboard the aircraft carrier USS Coral Sea during his first Vietnam combat cruise. In writing that is colorful, perceptive, and, at times, both humorous and heartbreaking, Reilly chronicles his daily experiences “living, playing, and fighting” within the context of the Navy’s fledgling air war. Covering the period from December 1964 to October 1965, I’m Alive details an untested F-8 Crusader pilot’s personal journey from “nugget” aviator to seasoned combat professional. Reilly’s feelings quickly change from patriotic enthusiasm to frustrated disillusionment as he begins to experience the realities of Vietnam’s deadly air warfare. His keen observations provide rare insights into the evolving strategies and tactics of the US Navy in Vietnam.

In candid diary entries and excerpts from personal letters written over the course of 118 combat missions, the author describes failed US attacks, such as the futile strikes against the unyielding North Vietnamese bridge at Thanh Hoa, and highlights joyful successes, like the harrowing, coordinated rescue of a downed naval aviator in the Gulf of Tonkin. Throughout I’m Alive, Reilly’s playful sense of humor shines, as in his comical descriptions of shipboard practical jokes and the antics of aviators while far away from the battle lines.

Edited by his stepsons Kevin and Christopher Callahan, who provide historical introductions and explanatory notes to the diary entries, I’m Alive offers a bold, unfiltered narrative of the early stages of the Navy air war in Vietnam. It will appeal to enthusiasts and scholars of the Vietnam air war alike, and to anyone interested in fascinating personal accounts of friendship, war, and triumph over adversity.

Bastion by the Bay: The Presidio of San Francisco, from Outpost of Empire to Magnificent Park

Wed, 03 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The Presidio of San Francisco, founded in 1776, stood guard over a major port that evolved into the storied city by the Golden Gate. The Spanish first erected a less-than-imposing fort and a pair of tiny artillery emplacements armed with antiquated cannons. In the early 1820s, the Mexican government inherited the presidio but lost it to the manifest destiny of the United States. By the 1840s the US Army constructed major defense bulwarks on both sides of the “harbor of harbors.” Early earthen and brick bastions gave way to steel and concrete, and eventually missiles bearing nuclear warheads studded the landscape.

These previously formidable sentinels now stand silent and empty. Former military reservations no longer poise ready for war. Nearly two and a half centuries after the first band of King Carlos III’s lancers planted the Spanish banner on windswept dunes, this once remote military outpost now serves a new purpose as a magnificent national park. Swords have been beaten into proverbial plowshares, but at a cost of sweat and blood by generations of troops, their families, and others, beginning with the peninsula’s original inhabitants to later stalwart soldiers from three nations. Some of them achieved fame, but most led ordinary lives. Both this unique place and the many people who made their homes here form an integral part of our nation’s fascinating, complex past.

Other Edens

Wed, 03 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Other Edens captures the heartache that arises from hope’s repeated failures. While the book’s poems have occasional formal leanings, they serve as attempts to bring structure to the chaos of the world, but even those attempts prove to be ragged and imperfect, as if nothing—not even poetry—can escape the contemporary world’s ruinous touch. The poems explore how grief (re)shapes belief and how death (re)shapes memory. Readers of Frank Stanford’s poetry might find a kinship between his and Bowen’s depictions of menace in the world, particularly in the rural South, where violence patiently waits to be useful to someone. Bowen’s poems are stark and terse, eschewing any poetic impulses to repaint the world as anything but a demoralizing series of crushing disappointments.

“What is outside the garden of Eden? Genesis tells us it’s the sweat of our labor on a hard and hot land full of weeds and thorns. But what if, as Ash Bowen’s title wonders, there are Other Edens? This is poetry akin to Johnny Cash and Buddy Moss, Tom Waits and Jason Isbell—ruin songs of the hard-luck and every kind of hurt, the ones whom hope seems to have abandoned—out of which a keen and human voice calls into the dark. It found my heart. It will find yours too.”—Philip Metres, judge and author of Fugitive/Refuge

Under the Shadow of Napoleon: The US Army’s Doctrine, Education, and Theory of Victory from 1814 to 1941. Second Edition

Wed, 03 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The way an army understands warfare and how to achieve victory on the battlefield has a tremendous impact on its organization, equipment, training, and doctrine. The central ideas of that understanding form an army’s Theory of Victory, which informs how that army fights. From the disasters of the War of 1812, Winfield Scott ensured that America adopted a series of ideas formed in the crucible of the French Revolution and perfected by Napoleon Bonaparte as the United States Army’s Theory of Victory. These French ideas dominated American warfare on the battlefields of the Mexican-American War, the American Civil War, the Spanish-American War, and World War I.

The American Army remained committed to these ideas until the successes of German blitzkrieg led George C. Marshall to orchestrate the adoption of a different set of ideas that formed a different Theory of Victory in 1940. The French influence in this period is remarkably consistent throughout the Army regulations and doctrine and officer education at West Point, Fort Leavenworth, the Army War College, and on American battlefields across the globe. Understanding the French ideas that dominated American warfare provides a new context to the military actions, policies, and decisions from 1814 through 1941.

This second edition is updated from the first edition of 2012 with a significant expansion of primary sources from the curriculum of the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth. Michael A. Bonura offers new analysis of how the Theory of Victory was adopted, refined, and replaced, which will inform both the study of such transitions and the attempt to do so in the future.