Professor Pekka Hämäläinen, PhD

Rhodes Professor of American History

Pekka Hämäläinen, Rhodes Professor of American History, specialises in early and nineteenth century American history and has particular interest in Native American, environmental, and borderlands history.  His 2008 book The Comanche Empire received several awards, including the Bancroft Prize, the Merle Curti Award, the Caughey Prize, the Norris and Carol Hundley Award, the John C. Ewers Award, the William P. Clements Prize, the Kate Broocks Bates Award, the Great Plains Distinguished Book Award, the Philosophical Society of Texas Award of Merit, and Recognition of Excellence Award in the Cundill International Prize in History.  He is currently working on a book that traces the history of power relations and social worlds in North America from the seventeenth through the nineteenth century, integrating indigenous and European perspectives, borderlands and imperial histories, and transatlantic and continental approaches.

Selected Publications:

“Of Lethal Places and Lethal Essays,” with John R. Wunder, American Historical Review 104 (Oct. 1999), 1229–1234.

“The Rise and Fall of Plains Indian Horse Cultures,” Journal of American History 90 (Dec. 2003), 833–862. 

When Disease Makes History: Epidemics and Great Historical Turnings Points, ed. (Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 2006).

The Comanche Empire (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008).  Spanish translation by Peninsula Press in 2011; French translation by Anacharsis Éditions in 2012.  Turkish translation by Alfa Publishers in progress. 

“The Politics of Grass: European Expansion, Ecological Change, and Indigenous Power in the Southwest Borderlands,” William and Mary Quarterly 67 (April 2010), 173–208. 

Major Problems in the History of North American Borderlands, ed. with Benjamin H. Johnson (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2011).

“Lost in Transitions: Suffering, Survival, and Belonging in the Early Modern Atlantic World,” William and Mary Quarterly 68 (April 2011), 219–223. 

“On Borderlands,” with Samuel Truett, Journal of American History 98 (Sep. 2011), 338–361.  Lead essay in JAH special issue, “Margins to Mainstream: The Brave New World of Borderlands History.”