University of Arkansas Historian Wins Two More Book Prizes

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Professor Elliott West, an Alumni Distinguished Professor, has won both the Westerners International "Best Book" Award for the best non-fiction book written by a Westerner concerning some aspect of the American west and the Caughey Western History Prize for the best book of the year in Western History for his The Last Indian War: The Nez Perce Story (Oxford University Press, 2009).

West is a professor of history in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences.

An international coterie bestows the Westerners International Prize each year. The Caughey Book Prize is the jewel in the crown of the Western History Association, the leading national organization for western history. West will be given his awards at the Western History Association's meeting in October.

West has already won the 2010 Western Heritage Award (cagetory: Non-fiction) for his portrait of the Nez Perce War of 1877, the last great Indian conflict in American history. It was, as West shows, a tale of courage and ingenuity, of desperate struggle and shattered hope, of short-sighted government action and a doomed flight to freedom. With his riveting account, West offers a searing portrait of a moment when the American identity — who was and who was not a citizen — was being forged.

The book is available locally at the University Bookstore in the Garland Center.