Biking About (No.4)

    

    Back in November 2023, I put away my bike and the odometer displayed the number 6009. Although the weather is nice now, I probably will not be riding it again this year. We leave for Vancouver today for two weeks and it is likely I will be shovelling rather than biking when I return. 
   I took this picture yesterday and it looks like I pedalled just over 1400K during our brief summer period. It appears that I did about the same distance last year. I probably could have gone farther if I had one of those fancy Spandex biking outfits. 
   The main purpose of this post is that it provides me with a record of my summer cycling accomplishments and it gives you something to read which doesn't involve the American election.
   For more fascinating details see: "Biking About (No.3) and this one. To see if biking affects your sex life read, "Biking About." It had no affect on mine. 

The Cundill History Prize Winner

Kathleen DuVal    

   An election was held south of our border and you may need a distraction from it. I have been busy and the weather nice so the only thing I will offer quickly is an update to the Cundill post immediately below this one.
   The winner of the approximately $100,000 (CDN) is the American historian Kathleen DuVal and her book is: Native Nations: A Millenium in North America (the London Public Libraries have copies, but they are all out as I write.) She is also the author of, Independence Lost and The Native Ground: Indians and Colonists in the Heart of the Continent and teaches at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 
   For more about the Cundill see my post below. The winning announcement is available at the Cundill website at McGill. The folks in the History Department at UNC are happy as you will see here. 
  Among the news announcements see: "Kathleen DuVal Wins $75k Cundill History Prize, by Melina Spanoudi, The Bookseller, Oct. 31, 2024. 

"The winning book is the culmination of a 25-year project, in which DuVal shows how, before colonisation, Indigenous peoples adapted to climate change and instability. The author refutes that the arrival of Europeans led to the end of Indigenous civilisations in North America, demonstrating the relationships that developed between nations.
Lisa Shapiro, dean of the faculty of the Arts at McGill, added: “DuVal’s winning book truly embodies the Cundill History Prize’s aims. It is not only an outstanding achievement in historical scholarship, but it also engages the reader and dramatically reorients our perspectives on North America. It demonstrates the real significance of history writing.”