Rhodes Professor-designate of American History at Oxford University, Dr. Pekka Hämäläinen, currently Associate Professor of History at UC Santa Barbara, gave this year’s BritWeek public lecture, based on his prize-winning book, The Comanche Empire (Yale University Press, 2008) to a packed audience in the California Room of the UCLA Faculty Center on Thursday, May 3rd, 2012, followed by a reception.
The event, which was free and open to the public, was co-sponsored by BritWeek 2012, the Rothermere American Institute at Oxford University, and the UCLA Department of History.
Dr. Hämäläinen described how, in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, at a time of imperial struggles in North America, the Comanche rose to control broad territories in the American Southwest, the southern Great Plains, and northern Mexico, through horseback raids that challenged both European powers and also other indigenous Indians, and led to the widespread adoption of Comanche customs and trading networks. This offers a new perspective on Native American-European relations in the colonial period, he said.
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 UCLA Executive Vice Chancellor Scott Waugh welcomes attendees |
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 Dr. Nigel Bowles, Director Rothermere American Institute at Oxford University |
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 Cynthis Drakeman of Oxford University's North America Office, BritWeek Chairman Bob Peirce, and Ambassador & Mrs. Frank Baxter of LA World Affairs Coucil |
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