22nd Annual Governor’s Lecture in the Humanities

Stiles won the Pulitzer for History (2016) for Custer’s Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America, and the Pulitzer for Biography (2010) as well as the National Book Award for Nonfiction (2009) for The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt. He is also the author of Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War.

In presenting this year’s Governor’s Lecture, Stiles will use the opportunity of Nebraska’s 150th anniversary of statehood to address the state’s centrality to American history. He will draw from his work on Custer and other historical figures to explore geographical and other factors that made Nebraska a battleground in a series of conflicts that shaped national – and continental – history.