Michael Punke is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Revenant, ''a superb revenge story'' (The Washington Post Book World) set in the 19th century U.S. frontier that was the basis for the Academy Award–winning film of the same name. His other writing includes nonfiction books about the efforts to save the buffalo and an infamous 1917 Montana mining disaster. Currently the Vice President for Global Public Policy for Amazon Web Services, Punke formerly served as the U.S. Ambassador to the World Trade Organization in Geneva, an adjunct professor, and a history correspondent for the Montana Quarterly. In his new novel, Punke investigates an important but little-known 1866 conflict between the U.S. Army and the Lakota tribes of present-day Wyoming.

(recorded 6/7/2021)