Great Plains Studies announces Distinguished Book Prize finalists

Released on 03/16/2009, at 2:00 AM
Office of University Communications
University of Nebraska–Lincoln
Lincoln, Neb., March 16th, 2009 —

The Center for Great Plains Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln has announced the finalists for this year's Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize.

The six books shortlisted by a panel of judges are "The Importance of Being Monogamous: Marriage and Nation Building in Western Canada to 1915" by Sarah Carter (University of Alberta Press); "The Comanche Empire" by Pekka Hamalainen (Yale University Press); "The Great Plains during World War II" by R. Douglas Hurt (University of Nebraska Press); "The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder: And Other True Stories from the Nebraska-Pine Ridge Border Towns" by Stew Magnuson (Texas Tech University Press); "Bright Epoch: Women & Coeducation in the American West" by Andrea G. Radke-Moss (University of Nebraska Press); and "Rights in the Balance: Free Press, Fair Trial, & Nebraska Press Association v. Stuart" by Mark R. Scherer (Texas Tech University Press).

Carter is H. M. Tory chair and professor in the Department of History and Classics and the Faculty of Native Studies at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. Her research interests include the history of Western Canada and women, particularly Aboriginal women.

Hamalainen is associate professor of history at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research interests include U.S. history, borderlands, and Native American history. Hamalainen came to UNL in 1995 on a Fulbright Scholarship and worked on his dissertation research under John Wunder while serving as an editorial assistant for the "Encyclopedia of the Great Plains." He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Helinksi in Finland.

Hurt is a professor and head of the Department of history at Purdue University, where he teaches American agricultural and Western history. He is editor of "Ohio History."

Magnuson is a Washington, D.C.,-based journalist and former foreign correspondent. He serves as senior editor at National Defense Magazine and resides in Arlington, Va. Magnuson earned his bachelor's degree at UNL.

Radke-Moss is assistant professor of history at Brigham Young University-Idaho whose research interests include women in higher education, school teaching, Morman women's experiences, and women's participation at the Chicago World's Fair of 1893. Radke-Moss earned her doctorate in history at UNL studying with Wunder.

Scherer is associate professor of history at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. A former practicing attorney, Scherer has argued cases in the supreme courts of Nebraska and Ohio as well as in many federal courts of Nebraska and Ohio. He earned a Ph.D. in history at UNL, also with Wunder.

The winner of the $3,000 cash prize will be announced May 6. The author will be invited to travel to UNL to present a lecture on the topic of the book. Only first-edition, full-length, nonfiction books published in 2008 were evaluated for the award. Nominations were made by publishers or authors, but no more than five titles by any one publisher could be submitted.

The Center for Great Plains Studies is an interdisciplinary, intercollegiate, regional research and teaching program chartered in 1976 by the University of Nebraska Board of Regents. Its mission is to promote a greater understanding of the people, culture, history, and environment of the Great Plains through a variety of research, teaching, and outreach programs. For more information, contact the Center for Great Plains Studies at (402) 472-3082 or visit its Web site, www.unl.edu/plains.

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