John Dower, Ford International professor of history, was the 2007–2008 James R. Killian, Jr. Faculty Achievement Award winner. Professor Dower is renowned for his expertise in modern Japanese history and US-Japan relations. His book, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II, won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction and the 1999 National Book Award for nonfiction, among many other awards. His lecture used examples from the past 66 years of warfare to show how government leaders, once bent on war, both deny history and rely on it.