The following is from the University of Nebraska Press Fall 2021 Newsletter, i.e.
The University of Nebraska has long been a leading publisher in the history and culture of the American West and its borderlands. That’s why we are thrilled to announce Many Wests, a new book series that builds upon UNP’s tradition of excellence in this discipline. Many Wests will publish distinguished scholarship that advances western history’s methods and topics in new directions and will make a major impact on its scholarly field. Further, through strong narrative and engaging writing style, the books in Many Wests will capture for scholars and general readers alike evolving interpretations of the history of the American West.
In a creative move for a history book series, all authors accepted into the Many Wests series participate in a manuscript workshop with the series editors and other scholars. The workshops, generously funded by the McCabe Greer Book Manuscript Workshop, the George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center, and the Pennsylvania State University Department of History, provide a collaborative and constructive environment for authors to receive assistance with their manuscripts and foster an intellectual community around the series. We have seen excellent results from the workshops in the upcoming books.
The first book in the series, The Settler Sea: California’s Salton Sea and the Consequences of Colonialism by Traci Brynne Voyles, published this month. The Settler Sea is an original exploration of the Salton Sea, Southern California’s largest inland body of water that is “Drawing on deep research, Voyles analyzes her subject matter brilliantly. Moreover, her prose is evocative, giving the reader a deep sense of both place and change over time. Consistently absorbing, The Settler Sea offers a powerful and disturbing history of a place that illuminates the costs of centuries of colonialism and points to the future.”—Christina Snyder, author of Great Crossings: Indians, Settlers, and Slaves in the Age of Jackson both human-maintained and long considered a looming environmental disaster.
“We are delighted to have Traci Brynne Voyles’s innovative new book as the inaugural work for our Many Wests series,” said series editor Mary E. Mendoza. “Chapter by chapter, Voyles traces the history of the sea from its convoluted beginnings to its equally fraught development and change over time. Along the way, she skillfully disentangles the complicated web of relationships woven by settler colonialism that worked to reinforce white supremacy, telling stories of both dispossession and resilience. This work is the future of environmental history and essential for historians of the west.”
Forthcoming books in the series will explore diverse topics including nature and the American empire, American Indian and American art of twentieth-century New Mexico, Indigenous foodways, the coal industry, and Black Hills tourism.
We are delighted to present the Many Wests series and look forward to seeing it grow and expand in the coming years.
Many Wests is edited by five award-winning and renowned western history scholars: Thomas G. Andrews (University of Colorado–Boulder), Ari Kelman (University of California–Davis), Amy Lonetree (University of California–Santa Cruz), Mary E. Mendoza (Pennsylvania State University), and Christina Snyder (Pennsylvania State University).
