Dr. Kathleen DuVal spent nine years working on her award-winning book “Native Nations: A Millennium in North America.” Now, she’s translating that research for a wider audience.
“I’ve moved over time to wanting my books to be able to speak to a wider audience,” DuVal said. “So I’ve worked on ways to write that are not just for academics, but are for history readers.”
“Native Nations” won the Cundill History Prize in October of last year. Awarded annually by McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, the Cundill Prize is one of the most prestigious awards in the field of history. It honors recent history publications embodying “historical scholarship, originality, literary quality, and broad appeal.” The book covers over 1000 years of Native American history, demonstrating the political and cultural institutions built by Natives that persist into the twenty-first century.
Since the book’s release in April 2024, DuVal has written multiple guest essays connecting her research to modern issues.
From The New York Times to The Atlantic, she takes the research and writing skills that won her the Cundill and applies them to a new audience. Her recent writings include:
- Enough With the Land Acknowledgments
- Indigenous people’s concerns and demands must lead the way as we move beyond apologies
- How Native Americans guarded their societies against tyranny
- A 600-Year-Old Blueprint for Weathering Climate Change
DuVal began writing editorial pieces after the release of her second book, “Independence Lost: Lives on the Edge of the American Revolution (2015).”
Reading the news often sparks a connection between current events and her research, something she explores in her essays. History, as DuVal sees it, holds lessons that can be applied to our current world – and different mediums can help spread those ideas.
“The trick is not oversimplifying,” she said. “To still do the kinds of things we want to do as historians and to show that history is complicated and meant different things to different people, but do that in a much smaller number of words.”
When relying on oral histories and 500 years of written documentation to tie together over 1000 years of history, it can be difficult to condense everything into an essay-length piece. DuVal chooses anecdotes and examples that are easier to explain and relies on the help of experienced editors to cut down her writing.
By adapting work like “Native Nations” for new audiences, historians can contribute new (and old) ideas to pressing conversations.
“I really think historians have something to say to people. I think we can give some perspective,” DuVal said. “We don’t have answers. But there are some things just shy of answers… I think that can help us understand what things are going on today.”