Stubbendieck Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize

Each year the Center for Great Plains Studies presents a prize for the previous year's best book on the Great Plains. The Stubbendieck Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize carries a cash award recently increased to $10,000. Publishers or authors may make nominations; each publisher may submit up to five titles. Only first edition, full-length, nonfiction books copyrighted in 2020 are evaluated for this year's award, which is chosen by committee.


2022 SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

2021 WINNER

Killsback

Leo Killsback

The winner of the 2021 Stubbendieck Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize is author Dr. Leo Killsback for the two-volume set “A Sacred People: Indigenous Governance, Traditional Leadership, and the Warriors of the Cheyenne Nation” and “A Sovereign People: Indigenous Nationhood, Traditional Law, and the Covenants of the Cheyenne Nation” (Texas Tech University Press, 2020).

Dr. Killsback is an Associate Professor in the Department of Native American Studies at Montana State University who specializes in indigenous governance, traditional law, sovereignty, and treaty rights. Dr. Killsback grew up on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation and is devoted to the preservation and resurgence of Cheyenne language and culture. He sustains relationships within his nation by means of collaborative methodologies that neither exploit nor marginalize.

“I am honored and humbled to be selected for this prestigious prize. It is important that Indigneous histories, experiences, and voices are recognized as new horizons in scholarship are reached in Great Plains and Native American studies,” Dr. Killsback said. “As an Indigenous scholar, I will continue to contribute research and scholarship that is meaningful and significant to both Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. Nea'ish (thank you).”

The Center for Great Plains Studies’ Stubbendieck book prize celebrates the most outstanding work about the Great Plains during the past year, chosen by an independent group of scholars.

Along with a $10,000 cash prize, book prize winners are invited to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to present a lecture on the book's topic. First-edition, full-length, nonfiction books copyrighted in 2019 were eligible for the award. Nominations were made by publishers or authors.

Watch Dr. Killback's talk

2021 FINALISTS

Ours by Every Law of Right and Justice

Ours by Every Law of Right and Justice: Women and the Vote in the Prairie Provinces

By Sarah Carter (University of British Columbia Press)

In Ours by Every Law of Right and Justice, Carter challenges the myth that grateful male legislators simply handed western settler women the vote in recognition that they were equal partners in the pioneering process. Suffragists worked long and hard to overcome obstacles, persuade doubters, and build allies.

Too Strong to Be Broken

Too Strong to Be Broken: The Life of Edward J. Driving Hawk

By Edward J. Driving Hawk and Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve (University of Nebraska Press)

Too Strong to Be Broken explores the dynamic life of Edward J. Driving Hawk, a Vietnam and Korean War veteran, chairman of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, former president of the National Congress of American Indians, husband, father, recovered alcoholic, and convicted felon.

Ours by Every Law of Right and Justice

A Sacred People: Indigenous Governance, Traditional Leadership, and the Warriors of the Cheyenne Nation

By Leo Killsback (two-volume set, Texas Tech University Press)

Killsback, a citizen of the Northern Cheyenne Nation, reconstructs and rekindles an ancient Cheyenne world--ways of living and thinking that became casualties of colonization and forced assimilation.

Ours by Every Law of Right and Justice

A Sovereign People: Indigenous Nationhood, Traditional Law, and the Covenants of the Cheyenne Nation

By Leo Killsback (two-volume set, Texas Tech University Press)

Spanning more than a millennium of antiquity and recovering stories and ideas interpreted from a Cheyenne worldview, A Sacred People and A Sovereign People's joint purpose is rooted as much in a decolonization roadmap as it is in preservation of culture and identity for the next generations.

PAST WINNERS