Daniel R. Mandell, Truman State University, has been selected by the Organization of American Historians (OAH) to receive the inaugural Lawrence W. Levine Award, which is given annually for the best book in American cultural history. On Saturday, March 29, OAH President Nell Irvin Painter and President-Elect Pete Daniel will present the award in New York City during the 101st Annual Meeting of the Organization.
Tribe, Race, History: Native Americans in Southern New England, 1780-1880 (The Johns Hopkins University Press) examines how cultures survive–how culture is contested, revised, transformed and passed on. It looks specifically at New England Indian tribes and their efforts to maintain cultural traditions and political identities and rights in the volatile, aggressive American marketplace from the early Republic through Reconstruction. Mandell uses a broad range of sources to establish how Native Americas used the resources American culture presented–commerce, religion, politics, fiction, folklore–to maintain a sense of distinctiveness and tradition. The book offers a synthetic account not just of Native American survival, but of the ways people negotiate power. The committee admired the depth and extent of research, and the humanist sensibility that marked the writing. In its emphasis on subaltern people’s struggling in myriad ways to create a culture that gave full range to their sense of who they were, Mandell’s book most clearly reflects the legacy of Lawrence W. Levine.
Founded in 1907, OAH is the largest learned society and professional organization dedicated to the teaching and study of the American past. OAH promotes excellence in the scholarship, teaching, and presentation of American history, and encourages wide discussion of historical questions and equitable treatment of all practitioners of history. Members in the U.S. and abroad include college and university professors; students; precollegiate teachers; archivists, museum curators, and other public historians employed in government and the private sector.
For information:
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Phone: 812-855-7311