Dangerous Ground: Squatters, Statesmen, and the Antebellum Rupture of American Democracy (Oxford University Press, 2022) by John Suval received the Southern Historical Association’s 2023 James A. Rawley Award for the best book on secession and/or the sectional crisis published during the previous two years. John earned his PhD in 2018 under the direction of Professor Emeritus William Cronon.