When the Civil War Went West: On Writing History from Unexpected Places

Megan Kate Nelson's Distinguished Lectures in History & Literature will take place on Tuesday, February 11th at 6:30 pm in Barker 110.

Megan Kate Nelson earned her BA in History & Literature at Harvard, and her PhD in American Studies at Iowa. A former tutor in History & Literature, she has also taught at Texas Tech, Cal State Fullerton, MIT, and Brown. Her new book, The Three-Cornered War: The Union, the Confederacy, and Native Peoples in the Fight for the West, will be published by Scribner in February 2020. This project was the recipient of a 2017 NEH Public Scholar Award and a Filson Historical Society Fellowship.

Dr. Nelson is the author of two previous books: Ruin Nation: Destruction and the American Civil War (2012) and Trembling Earth: A Cultural History of the Okefenokee Swamp (2005). She has also written about the Civil War, the U.S. West, and American culture for The New York Times, Washington Post, Smithsonian Magazine, Preservation Magazine, and Civil War Times. Her column on Civil War popular culture, "Stereoscope," appears regularly in the Civil War Monitor.