Richard White is a professor of history at the University of Washington. He is the winner of the Albert J. Beveridge Award of the American Historical Association, the James A. Rawley Prize presented by the Organization of American Historians and the Francis Parkman Prize from the Society of American Historians. His books include The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815, "It's Your Misfortune and None of My Own" A History of the American West and The Organic Machine: The Remaking of the Columbia River