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Acknowledgments While writing this book I have benefited from the kindness and support of many people. This support has taken every form imaginable, from financial assistance and intellectual mentoring, to emotional encouragement. Scholarship , at its best, is a collaborative enterprise, and I have been fortunate to spend my time at academic institutions that generously supported this project and fostered my intellectual development. In the history department at the University of Washington I received generous financial and intellectual support. I am especially indebted to Alexandra Harmon, Richard Johnson, and Richard White, who served on my committee, all outstanding scholars with infinite patience and a deep intellectual engagement and commitment to my training as a historian. I am grateful for their mentorship. I owe a special thanks to Richard White. His work has been an inspiration for me as a scholar, and his incredible generosity through the years profoundly shaped my intellectual development. I also benefited from the support and engagement of an amazing cohort including Ned Blackhawk, Matthew Booker, Connie Chiang, Liz Escobedo, Roberta Gold, Matthew Klingle, Rachel St. John, Jennifer Seltz, Jay Taylor, and Coll Thrush. While I got off to an excellent start at the University of Washington, I thoroughly revised and completed this book at the University of Michigan. The support and mentoring I have received at Michigan has been truly fantastic . This book evolved significantly during my time here thanks to the engagement of my colleagues in Native Studies, the Program in American Culture, and the Department of History. Geoff Eley and Mary Kelly were outstanding mentors as chairs in the history department, and Phil Deloria and Greg Dowd in the Program in American Culture. Phil has been a tremendous influence as a friend and scholar. I learned much of what I know about interdisciplinary scholarship by studying his scholarship, teaching with him, and through his work as a public intellectual. Phil tolerated me popping in to his office repeatedly, always unannounced, to discuss the minutia of this book project. In similar fashion Greg Dowd made himself available to discuss the book, and to help me to think through the biggest and the smallest of ques- 448 Acknowledgments tions related to our shared interests in the history of the Great Lakes, and to American Indian and early American history in general. He has been a good friend, and a scholar who has profoundly influenced my thinking about the practice of history. Greg and Phil have both generously read and commented on multiple versions of this book, which has benefited enormously from their care and attention. My colleagues in Native Studies, past and present, have been an inspiration for thinking about the fields of Native Studies and American Indian history. In addition to Phil and Greg, Tiya Miles, Joe Gone, Gustavo Verdesio (who served on my third year review and promotion committees), Andrea Smith, Barbra Meeks, Lincoln Fowler, Howard Kimewon, and Meg Nori have contributed to this project with tremendous intellectual support, and in creating a fantastic Native Studies program. My work with language in this book owes an enormous debt to Meg who always made herself available to help me with translations and to think through the most tortuous eighteenth-century French renditions of Anishinaabemowin. Gichi-miigwetch to you all. I am grateful to the Ford Foundation, which provided me with a PostDoctoral Fellowship that allowed me to complete the final stages of research for An Infinity of Nations. This fellowship brought me to the Minnesota Historical Society, a wonderful institution with marvelous collections for anyone studying the Great Lakes and Upper Mississippi Valley, as well as a fabulous archivist in the person of the Reference Specialist Debbie Miller. Before, during , and after my Ford fellowship I received tremendous support, kindness, and wisdom from Brenda Child and Jean O’Brien-Kehoe at the University of Minnesota. Another Gichi-miigwetch to Brenda and Jeani, I am a far better scholar because of their contributions to the field of Native Studies, and their support for my work. The Program in American Culture at the University enabled me to complete the final stage of revisions for An Infinity of Nations through a generous manuscript workshop. Damon Salesa and Amy Stillman read my manuscript for this workshop and provided me with critical interventions that improved the book immeasurably. Daniel Richter, an amazing scholar and Early American Studies series editor at the University of Pennsylvania Press read through multiple drafts of this book and provided deeply insightful comments. In addition , I am...

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