Department of History

Oscar de la Torre has achieved considerable success with his first book

Oscar de la Torre Cueva's (PhD 2011) book, The People of the River: Nature and Identity in Black Amazonia (University of North Carolina Press, 2018) has been recognized with two book awards and an honorable mention. The People of the River won the 2020 Best Book in Amazonian Studies Award from the Amazonia section of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA); the 2019 Best First Book Prize from the Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora (ASWAD); and Honorable Mention for the 2019 Roberto Reis Book Prize by the Brazilian Studies Association (BRASA). To quote from the LASA Amazonia citation, "focusing on African and Afro-descendant peoples' adaptation to and manipulation of Amazonian environments, The People of the River makes important contributions to Amazonian studies, environmental history, and African diasporic studies, and will surely inspire future work on the contributions of African and Afro-descendant peoples to the Amazon's natural and economic history.”

Oscar is Associate Professor of Africana Studies at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte. Congratulations, Oscar!