Histories of Native America and the Port of Los Angeles Win Bancroft Prize

A sweeping history of Native Americans and a study of the creation of the port of Los Angeles in the 19th century have won this year’s Bancroft Prize, one of the most distinguished honors for scholars of American history.

James Tejani’s “A Machine to Move Ocean and Earth: The Making of the Port of Los Angeles and America,” published by W.W. Norton, reconstructs the complex interactions between 19th-century engineers, merchants, military, Native tribes and others that turned the tiny San Pedro estuary into what is today the busiest seaport in the Western Hemisphere.

Read more at the New York Times.

Associated image credit: Laura Wessell; Michael DeLeón