Outstanding book about the American Revolution garners national praise
University of Central Arkansas Associate Professor of History Vaughn Scribner’s book “Under Alien Skies: Environment, Suffering, and the Defeat of the British Military in Revolutionary America” (UNC Press, 2024) has recently garnered national praise.
The book received the Society of the Cincinnati Prize, a major award given annually for an outstanding book that advances the understanding of the American Revolution and its legacy. Other recipients of the award include three Pulitzer Prize winners, two Bancroft prize winners and one Guggenheim Fellow.
Scribner will receive the award at a ceremony in Washington, D.C., at the Society’s headquarters on Oct. 8.
“Under Alien Skies” is also one of three finalists for the Gilder Lehrman Military History Prize, which recognizes the best English-language book published on American military history, distinguished by its scholarship, its contribution to the literature, and its appeal to the broadest possible general reading public. The three finalists were chosen from a pool of 95 worth candidates by a three-member jury. The winner will be announced in early October, with a ceremony for the winner and finalists to be held at the Yale Club of New York City on Dec. 2.
The Revolutionary War is often celebrated as marking the birth of American republicanism and representative democracy. In his original research, Scribner illustrates how this could not have been further from the truth for tens of thousands of European troops who ventured across the Atlantic. Collecting first-person accounts and researching foreign soldiers’ negative perceptions of the American environment, Scribner reveals harsh wartime realities and the considerable physical and psychological anguish of British and German soldiers.
“Under Alien Skies” is both an account of the American environment and a study of how new realities met foreign soldiers’ expectations. Those who fought in America under the British flag came to see themselves as strangers in an unfamiliar land. Revolutionary America bore little resemblance to the idyllic vision championed by republican propagandists. Instead, the War of Independence unraveled into a mire of anxiety, devastation and hardships wrought as much by the land itself as by combat. As a work of environmental history, Under Alien Skies is a step toward understanding how the American Revolution was shaped by the environment, both the climate and geography, of North America.
About the Society of Cincinnati Prize
The Society of the Cincinnati Prize recognizes the author of an outstanding book that advances understanding of the American Revolution and its legacy. Established in 1989 as a triennial award, the prize is now presented annually. Honorees have included leading historians as well as rising scholars in the field. The prize was created with a generous endowment gift from the family of Dr. H. Bartholomew Cox.
About the Gilder Lehrman Military History Prize
The purpose of the Gilder Lehrman Military History Prize is to draw public attention to American military history not only as an important staple of education in the areas of international relations, diplomacy, and conflict studies, but also as a subject in which any educated citizen should be interested. The study of the steps to war, conduct of military campaigns, and diplomatic responses to war can play an essential role in the quest for a more peaceable future.