Historian Catherine Dunlop views wild environments as laboratories for studying how human societies are shaped by natural features and forces. For two months in 2017, she immersed herself in one such laboratory while researching a book about the famous mistral winds of southern France.
“It’s a very atmospheric place,” said Dunlop, a professor in the Department of History and Philosophy in Montana State University’s College of Letters and Science since 2010. “I lived for two months in Provence overlooking the Mediterranean. I got to see the sea whipped up by mistral waves. The shutters would bang with the sound of the mistral, and I’d see the tables with wine glasses sent smashing and breaking from the force of the wind.
“It was important for me to spend time there getting to know the wind,” she said.
Dunlop said that experience was crucial as she began crafting her book, “The Mistral: A Windswept History of Modern France,” which examines how the violent and uncontrollable wind has not only shaped the region’s landscapes, industry and culture for centuries, but also played a decisive role in shaping the course of modern French history. As the inside cover flap explains, “Every year, the chilly mistral wind blows through the Rhône Valley of southern France, across the Camargue wetlands, and into the Mediterranean Sea. Most forceful when winter turns to spring, the wind knocks over trees, sweeps trains off their tracks, and destroys crops. Yet the mistral turns the sky clear and blue, as it often appears in depictions of Provence.”
To Dunlop’s surprise, the book, published in 2024, has been met with enthusiastic acclaim in historical circles and garnered her two national awards from the American Historical Association: the J. Russell Major Prize in French History, which is awarded annually for the best work in English on any aspect of French history; and the George L. Mosse Prize, which is awarded every year for an outstanding major work of extraordinary scholarly distinction, creativity and originality in the intellectual and cultural history of Europe since 1500.
“I was really shocked to receive these two national awards, because when I started writing the book and when I was trained as a graduate student, this was considered a bizarre topic,” Dunlop said. “Human ideas about freedom and liberty and how people govern themselves was traditionally how French history has been told.”
In the introduction to “The Mistral,” Dunlop writes that “scholars have tended to view the spaces of history from an anthropocentric perspective, downplaying the unruly weather features of historical landscapes while emphasizing people’s capacity to govern their surroundings.” For that reason, she says, when she set out to write the book, “I had to make the case that yes, we should pay attention to these nonhuman factors that can shape human societies.”
Dunlop’s interest in the mistral grew out of her lifelong affinity for France. It was nurtured by her mother, who was born there during World War II before emigrating with her family to the United States in the 1950s. Dunlop began studying French language in middle school, then studied abroad in Paris during her junior year of college, ultimately going on to study French history in graduate school.
“Over the course of a career, I’ve enjoyed getting to know different regions of France,” she said.
Dunlop believes understanding how societies are shaped by natural forces is relevant to the study of history anywhere, and she has incorporated that focus into the courses she teaches at MSU.
“I can easily work with students interested in the same interactions in the American West or elsewhere in the world,” she said.
Based on her research for “The Mistral,” Dunlop developed a senior level seminar course on nature and culture in Europe. She is currently on sabbatical researching a new book about the role of environmental knowledge in the planning, execution and aftermath of the D-Day landings at Normandy, and the project has given her some ideas for a class on the intersection of war and the environment.
“I enjoy the curricular openness of our department, which encourages thinking about history in broad and innovative and creative ways,” she said.
Dunlop said she also enjoys collaborating with her MSU colleagues, not only in the history department but across the university. While working on “The Mistral,” she bounced ideas off a geographer friend, learned from an MSU ecologist how wind fits into ecological webs, and sought assistance from the Geospatial Core Facility, whose cartographers created the book’s maps.
Timothy LeCain, head of MSU’s Department of History and Philosophy, said he was not at all surprised that “The Mistral” has won so much acclaim.
“Besides being a joy to read, it really pushes the boundaries of how we historians tell our stories,” he said. “Catherine shows us how a force of nature can shape everything from the way farmers build their houses to the way Van Gogh paints his landscapes. This is cutting-edge history at its best.”
Fittingly, Dunlop will receive her awards in the windy city of Chicago at the annual meeting of the American Historical Association in January.