National magazine honors UW historian as an emerging scholar

Ned Blackhawk, a University of Wisconsin–Madison professor of history and American Indian Studies, has been recognized by “Diverse” magazine this month as one of ten emerging scholars nationally who are taking their disciplines in exciting new directions.

Blackhawk, author of the award-winning 2006 book “Violence Over the Land,” is an expert on the history of indigenous people of North America and the complex and often tragic conflicts between native people and Europeans in the early American West.

“This diverse group of young (under-40) crusaders is pushing the boundaries of research, technology and public policy in ways never imagined and reaching new heights of accomplishments,” the magazine says of its 2009 class of emerging scholars.

Blackhawk also teaches an innovative course at UW–Madison that encourages students to write tribal histories based on primary source research at the Wisconsin Historical Society, which holds the nation’s largest collection of materials on the American West.