Ethan Bennett

“There is nothing new under the sun except the history you do not know,” according to Harry Truman.  As a historian, I could not agree more.

I love teaching in a great books and great thinkers course because it makes real Truman’s sentiments about the long history of the human experience.  People, even separated by centuries and cultures, are not too dissimilar in their desires, anxieties, and visions for understanding their places in the universe, nor what might count as a good life.  By immersing ourselves in that long continuum of human thought we can better place ourselves in our own moment and maybe launch ourselves into something new.

When not teaching in the Core, my research focuses on military and political history as pathways toward a more inclusive understanding of North American history that examines the rise of the nation-state while challenging the boundaries of national histories.  This work is at the intersection of Native American history, U.S. westward expansion, diplomatic history, and military history.  My dissertation, “Making Nebraska: The Pawnee, The United States, and the Transformation of Space, 1803-1854,” unites military, Native American, and federal state-building histories to explain the processes of empire and governance that shaped how people conceived of space and place in North America.