C-SPAN to tape book discussion

The cable television network C-SPAN will tape tonight's Veryl Riddle Distinguished History Lecture at Southeast Missouri State University.

The network's "Book Notes" program will record Dr. James Brooks, a scholar with the School ofAmerican Research in Santa Fe, N.M., speaking at the University Center Ballroom on "Slavery, Kinship and Community in the American Southwest" at 7:30 p.m. Admission is free.

Brooks' first book, "Captives and Cousins," won five awards in 2003 for history writing, the most for any first-time author in his field, said Franklin Nickell, director of the center for regional history at Southeast. The book touched on the origins and legacies of slavery among American Indians in the Southwest.

"He raised a provocative question in the book about how local peoples get along or not get along when they're free to make all the rules, having no central government," Nickell said. "He's on the cutting edge of new ethnic histories."

Brooks' new book, "Nations, Tribes and Colors" will be published soon, Nickell said.

The lecture series is named for Veryl Riddle, a prominent St. Louis lawyer born and raised on a Dunklin County farm and attended Southeast for two years.