Nicolas W. Proctor, Ph.D., 1998

Ph.D., M.A., Emory University, 1995, 1998
M.A., University of Kentucky, 1991
B.A., Hendrix College, 1990

I completed my B.A. at Hendrix College, a liberal arts school that is very much like Simpson in some ways but not in others (it does not have a football team or Greek system and is in a dry county in Arkansas). I thought I wanted to be an art major. Then I thought I wanted to be an English major. Then botany. Then English again. I finally settled on history during my third year, which I spent abroad at Oxford University. History seemed to be the discipline that would be most helpful in figuring out why things were the way they were.The next year, I finished my degree in history, but I was burned out, so I went into a master’s program in diplomacy and international commerce at the University of Kentucky, Lexington. I completed that degree, but in the course of it I decided that I wanted to focus on dead people instead of world peace. Consequently, I took a year off to work in a bookstore and read Russian novels. After I was through with that I completed a M.A. and Ph.D. in American history from Emory University.Soon thereafter I was hired on to the faculty at Simpson. Today I teach various courses in American history and the Western Traditions sequence. My first book was Bathed in Blood: Hunting and Mastery in the Old South (2002). My current project, Forest Diplomacy: War, Peace, and Land on the Colonial Frontier, will be published in the near future as part of the Reacting to the Past series. My other research and writing interests include the secession crisis that led to the American Civil War, Cherokee removal, and the creation of Hollywood’s self-imposed production code.

Nicolas W. Proctor
Mary Berry 309
515-961-1632
nick.proctor@simpson.edu