Prof. Hämäläinen’s The Comanche Empire indeed garners its **twelfth** award

Nov. ’09 update: This is unprecedented–now is the time to get your copy!

Update Nov. 10, 2009:
Did you think it would be impossible for The Comanche Empire to win another prize? Well, think again, we’re back to report award no. 12. News comes that it received the Award of Merit given by the Philosophical Society of Texas for best fiction or non-fiction book on Texas. The award comes with a cash prize of $2,500. Congratulations, Pekka–We’ll have to sign you up for the Award-A-Month Club! By the way, the paperback edition costs $15 at amazon.com.

Oct. 20, 2009:
11. Comanche Empire was runner-up for the 2009 Cundill International Prize in History at McGill University. This relatively new award comes with a large reward. The grand prize winner receives $75,000 (that’s U.S. dollars). The two runners-up “only” receive $10,000 each. For more information on the award, see https://www.cundillprize.com/2021shortlist.

Sept. 24, 2009:
Award number 10: The Caughey Western Historical Association Prize.
We are out of adjectives and superlatives to describe the significance and impact of Pekka’s work. The number of awards and prizes The Comanche Empire has won is simply stunning. The Caughey Book Prize given annually for the most distinguished book on the history of the American West, broadly defined.

9. August 20, 2009: The Comanche Empire has now also received the Clements Prize for the best non-fiction book on the American Southwest.

Update July 8, 2009:
The Comanche Empire has recently received the following awards:

8. The Norris and Carol Hundley Award from most distinguished book by a historian of the the western U.S./Canada, presented by the Pacific Coast Branch for the American Historical Association.

7. The gold medal of the 2008 Book of the Year Award in the category of History, presented by ForeWard Magazine.

6. Honorable mention in the PROSE Award in U.S. History and Biography, presented by the Association of American Publishers.

5. Silver medal in the Independent Publisher Book Awards in History.

The previous four awards are:

4. On May 6, 2009 the University of Nebraska Lincoln’s Center for Great Plains Studies announced that The Comanche Empire won the 2009 Great Plains Distinguished Book Award. For further
information on the award finalists, see this March 16, 2009 UNL Press release .

3. The Comanche Empire has also won the 2009 Bancroft Prize, which is awarded by Columbia University to recognize the authors of distinguished works in U.S. history and diplomacy. (prize info; previous winners)

1 & 2: The Comanche Empire has been awarded two notable book prizes: the 2009 Merle Curti Award is given annually by the OAH for the best book in social and/or intellectual history, and the 2008 Kate Broocks Bates Award given annually by the Texas State Historical Association for the book representing the most significant historical research dealing with any phase of Texas history before 1900.

Pekka Hämäläinen is associate professor of history at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He writes on North American borderlands and Native American history, and has also published When Disease Makes History: Epidemics and Great Historical Turning Points (Helsinki University Press, 2006).

Synopsis of The Comanche Empire: “In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, at the high tide of imperial struggles in North America, an indigenous empire rose to dominate the fiercely contested lands of the American Southwest, the southern Great Plains, and northern Mexico. This powerful empire, built by the Comanche Indians, eclipsed its various European rivals in military prowess, political prestige, economic power, commercial reach, and cultural influence. Yet, until now, the Comanche empire has gone unrecognized in historical accounts.

“This compelling and original book uncovers the lost story of the Comanches. It is a story that challenges the idea of indigenous peoples as victims of European expansion and offers a new model for the history of colonial expansion, colonial frontiers, and Native-European relations in North America and elsewhere. Pekka Hämäläinen shows in vivid detail how the Comanches built their unique empire and resisted European colonization, and why they fell to defeat in 1875. With extensive knowledge and deep insight, the author brings into clear relief the Comanches’ remarkable impact on the trajectory of history.”

External Links

hm 3/23/09, 3/31/09, 5/6/09, 7/8/09, 8/20/09, 9/24, 10/27