LAND of the ONEIDAS
CENTRAL NEW YORK STATE AND THE CREATION OF AMERICA, FROM PREHISTORY TO THE PRESENT
presented by Dr. Daniel Koch,
Deputy Headmaster Kimbolton School, Cambridgeshire, UK
Sunday, August 4, 2024 ~ 1 pm
FREE EVENT
National Abolition Hall of Fame & Museum
5255 Pleasant Valley Road
Peterboro NY 13134
www.NationalAbolitionHallofFameandMuseum.org
315.308.1890
Land of the Oneidas tells the story of the land and the people who made their homes there from its earliest habitation to the present day. The book examines this region's impact on the making of America, from its strategic importance in the Revolution and Early Republic to its symbolic significance now to a nation grappling with challenges rooted deep in its history. The book shows that in central New York—perhaps more than in any other region in the United States—the past has never remained neatly in the past. Land of the Oneidas is the first book in eighty years that tells the history of this region as it changed from century to century and into our own time.
Milton C. Sernett PhD, professor emeritus, Syracuse University African-American Studies and History, stated that "I have never encountered an author who has so masterfully painted a canvas with the grand panorama of the history of this region.” Sernett also predicted that the Koch book would have a wide audience appeal, and he is correct in that readers of the new work are exclaiming about it.
Dr. Daniel Koch is an American historian based in Cambridgeshire, where he teaches History and is deputy headmaster of Kimbolton School. He is the author of Ralph Waldo Emerson in Europe: Class, Race, and Revolution in the Making of an American Thinker. Dr. Koch grew up in Oneida NY. He completed a B.A. in History and French at the State University of New York at Albany. He then studied for an M.St. and D.Phil. (Ph.D.) in History at the University of Oxford. Koch clarifies the purpose of his work as “This is a history of the land where I grew up. It is a land of immense natural beauty and a complex past. Some of its history is uplifting and some of it tragic. I have been captivated by the history of this land since I was a boy. My parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents all grew up here too. I began reading about the CNY history in my grandparents’ book collections. I became conscious of the importance of what happened here to our larger national history. But there was not a book I could find there or in any of the libraries I’ve haunted over the years that brings the story together in an accessible way. That is what I hope this book will do.” The book is available at https://sunypress.edu/Books/L/Land-of-the-Oneidas2