Richard White holds the Margaret Byrne Professorship in American History at Stanford University, California and is widely regarded as one of the nation's leading scholars in three related fields: the American West, Native American history and environmental history. Professor White is the author of five books. The first edition of The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650–1815 (1991) was named a finalist for the 1992 Pulitzer Prize. Among other honors, he is the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation fellowship.