Nicole Eustace, professor of history at New York University and the director of the NYU Atlantic History Workshop, was selected to receive the 65th annual Francis Parkman Prize from the Society of American Historians. The Francis Parkman Prize is awarded annually to a nonfiction work of history on an American theme published the previous year that is distinguished by its literary merit. The prize is named for Francis Parkman, whose monumental work, France and England in North America, was widely praised for its literary elegance as well as its historical importance.
Professor Eustance was honored for her book Covered with Night: A Story of Murder and Indigenous Justice in Early America (Liveright, 2021). The price committee stated that “this is, quite simply, a brilliant work. Covered with Night artfully builds on the story of white colonists’ murder of a Native person to construct a richly illuminating history of the clash of Native peoples’ concepts of justice, reparations, and civility with those of the English colonials. Readers come away with a significantly enhanced, deepened understanding of indigenous cultures and the nuances of settler-indigene interaction in 18th-century America.” This spring, the book also won a Pulitzer Prize in history.
Professor Eustace is also the author of 1812: War and the Passions of Patriotism (University of Pennsylvania Press, 20212) and Passion Is the Gale: Emotion, Power, and the Coming of the American Revolution (University of North Carolina Press, 2008). She earned a Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania.