Benjamin Madley, UCLA associate professor and historian of Native America, the United States and colonialism in world history, received the inaugural Heyday Books History Award. Heyday Books, founded in 1974 in Berkeley, is a statewide publisher which celebrates and explores California's history and environment and gives voice to its indigenous peoples.
Madley was honored for his recent book, "An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe, 1846-1873." According to a Newsweek story by Alexander Nazaryan on Madley and his book, "There have been books written about the systematic slaughter of California Indians, but none as gruesomely thorough as Benjamin Madley’s 'An American Genocide.' ... He estimates that between 9,000 and 16,000 Indians, though probably many more, were killed by vigilantes, state militiamen and federal soldiers between 1846 and 1873, in what he calls an “organized destruction” of the state’s largely peaceful indigenous peoples."
The 2017 Alden-Berg lecture aty UCLA will feature Madley, who will be discussing his book. The lecture is set for Jan. 24 at 6 p.m. at the CNSI Auditorium.
