The 2025 Society of the Cincinnati Prize Lecture – Beyond Alien Skies: Environment and Suffering in the American Revolution

On October 15, 2025, historian Vaughn Scribner, Ph.D., professor of history at the University of Central Arkansas, was awarded the 2025 Society of the Cincinnati Prize for his book Under Alien Skies: Environment, Suffering, and the Defeat of the British Military in Revolutionary America (University of North Carolina Press), which focuses on the experiences of British and German Soldiers with the American environment during the American Revolution. In this special lecture, Dr. Scribner uses the various themes of his book—“coming over”; “terrains”; “flora and fauna”; “climate, weather, and disease”; “mental illness”; and “going home”— to explore how the American forces dealt with the same natural world during the war.