The story of one of the most powerful Native empires in North American history will be the topic of the next Paul A. Olson seminar in Great Plains Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Pekka Hamalainen, associate professor of history at the University of California, Santa Barbara, will deliver "Imperial Layers: How an Indigenous Empire Changed the Course of American History," at 3:30 p.m. Nov. 18 in the Great Plains Art Museum, 1155 Q St.

His talk and a 3 p.m. reception in the museum are free and open to the public.

The talk is the fourth Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize Lecture and will be based on Hamalainen's book, "The Comanche Empire," winner of the 2009 Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize.

Hamalainen, who earned his Ph.D. at the University of Helsinki in Finland, did most of his research for the book in Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma. He spent three years at UNL, first as a visiting Fulbright scholar, then as a research assistant for "The Encyclopedia of the Great Plains."