American history and politics, poetry and memoir, and the controversial cigarette – all among the topics of books published by University of Virginia faculty in 2019, with several appealing to a wider audience than specialists and academics.

As the holidays proceed and UVA wraps up the fall semester, here is a sample. (For an earlier list published in the summer that includes fiction as well as books by alumni, see this article.)

• Elizabeth Varon, Langbourne M. Williams Professor of American History and associate director of the John L. Nau III Center for Civil War History, “Armies of Deliverance: A New History of the Civil War.” 

Loyal Americans marched off to war in 1861 not to conquer the South, but to liberate it, according to Varon. The theme of deliverance was essential in mobilizing a Unionist coalition of Northerners and anti-Confederate Southerners. Although the Union’s politics of deliverance helped it to win the war, such appeals failed to convince Confederates to accept peace on the victor’s terms, ultimately sowing the seeds of postwar discord. 

• Philip Zelikow, White Burkett Miller Professor of History and Wilson Newman Professor of Governance at Miller Center of Public Affairs, “To Build a Better World: Choices to End the Cold War and Create a Global Commonwealth.”

Zelikow, executive director of the 9/11 Commission and former director of UVA’s Miller Center of Public Affairs, co-wrote this book with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, producing a definitive account of how the Cold War was brought to an end, and how that resolution created our geopolitical present. (Read more here.)

Philip Zelikow, left, appeared with former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice at a Miller Center event. (Photo by Sanjay Suchak, University Communications)

• Sarah Milov, assistant professor of history, “The Cigarette: A Political History”

Milov looks at the politics, both national and local, that swirled around cigarettes in the mid- and late 20^th century, and the non-smoker’s movement that helped rob cigarette smoking of its cachet. The book has earned positive reviews and notes in The New Republic, Nature and The New York Times. (Read more here.)

• Alan Taylor, Thomas Jefferson Foundation Professor of History, “Thomas Jefferson’s Education.”

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian comes an absorbing study of Thomas Jefferson’s campaign to save Virginia through education. By turns entertaining and tragic, this beautifully written history reveals the origins of his new university in the dilemmas of Virginia slavery. It offers an incisive portrait of Jefferson set against a social fabric of planters in decline, enslaved black families torn apart by sales and a hair-trigger code of male honor. 

• Charlotte Matthews, associate professor in the School of Continuing and Professional Studies’ Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies program, “Comes With Furniture and People.”

Matthews’ memoir, “Comes With Furniture and People,” tells her story to understand significant events in her life, from her mother’s depression and illness (especially after her father leaves the family) to Matthews’ survival of stage 3 breast cancer, mastectomy and single motherhood. Set in Washington, D.C., the book describes Matthews’ sleepovers with Amy Carter, waiting for Mikhail Gorbachev to drive by in a motorcade and hearing the glorious peal of the National Cathedral bells floating over her neighborhood. (Find more about Matthews’ writing here.)

An event to celebrate the release of Matthews’ memoir will be held on Jan. 26 at 2 p.m. at the New Dominion Bookshop.

• Njelle W. Hamilton, assistant professor of English and of African American and African studies, “Phonographic Memories: Popular Music and the Contemporary Caribbean Novel.”

“Phonographic Memories” is the first book to explore the influence of Caribbean popular music on novels from the area. Tracing a region-wide attention to the deep connections between music and memory in the work of authors Lawrence Scott, Oscar Hijuelos, Colin Channer, Daniel Maximin and Ramabai Espinet, Hamilton tunes into each novel’s soundtrack, featuring reggae, calypso, bolero or gwoka, and the significance of music in people’s lives.

Hamilton also includes this playlist to accompany her book.

• Brian Teare, associate professor of English, Creative Writing Program, “Doomstead Days.”

Teare’s sixth volume of poetry was long-listed for the National Book Award in Poetry, and other books of his have won awards. “Doomstead Days” specifically confronts environmental issues. One reviewer wrote, “How Teare manages to tell the complicated history of our complicity with such generosity, compassion and love is a mystery. ‘Doomstead Days,’ as expansive as it is damning, is both a triumph and a cry. It may just be the field guide to our future.”

• Charles Wright, retired Souder Family Professor of English, “Oblivion Banjo.”

“Oblivion Banjo” compiles 17 books of Wright’s poetry, written over five decades. Wright, the National Book Award-winning, former U.S. poet laureate and Pulitzer Prize-winner, retired in 2010 after teaching in UVA’s Creative Writing Program for 27 years.

Last month, New York Times reviewer Troy Jollimore wrote of the collection, “One is struck by the care and the craftsmanship, but even more by the intense gravity of the spiritual striving.”