Historian Carl A. Brasseaux has received many well-deserved accolades during his decades-long career.

The retired University of Louisiana at Lafayette professor, who was also the director of the Center for Louisiana Studies and the Center for Eco-Tourism, was awarded the title of Chevalier de l'Ordre des Palmes Académiques by the French government for scholarly work that contributed significantly to French culture. In 2000, he received the National Educational Telecommunications Association's Best Documentary Award for "Against the Tide: The Story of the Cajun People of Louisiana." He was recently named a Louisiana Sea Grant recipient. The list goes on.

And on Thursday, Brasseaux will be among eight to be honored by the Foundation for a Historical Louisiana. He will receive the 2014 Cultural Preservation Award.

And he has done plenty of cultural preservation.

"He and Barry Ancelet occupy the top stratum of researchers in Cajun culture," said historian Shane K. Bernard of New Iberia.

Brasseaux has written about 30 books on Cajun and Creole history and culture and is acknowledged as one of the world's top experts on the Acadian Diaspora that began in 1754 with Le Grand Dérangement, the expulsion of the Acadians from Acadie, now known as Nova Scotia.

Bernard called him a pioneer in the study of Cajun history and culture who helped to make it "a legitimate field of academic inquiry."

Not so many years ago, there was precious little written about the history of the Cajuns of Louisiana.

Brasseaux has been interviewed on the topic by reporters from USA Today and The Washington Post, but he always had time for local reporters working on stories about the culture and history of the region.

Apparently not one to rest on his laurels, Brasseaux has been busy since his 2010 retirement from UL Lafayette — or as he puts it, "since I've ridden off into the sunset."

He has written four books since then, but what excites him these days is his collaboration with retired LSU cultural geographer Don Davis on an effort to document changes on Louisiana's coastal plain.

The two are focusing on the more recent history of the Gulf Coast from Brownsville, Texas, to Key West, Florida.

Their work involves conducting thousands of interviews with coastal residents and scanning images of the area. They are also working to facilitate the publication of a series of books on Gulf Coast issues with a tentative title, "America's Third Coast." The "forgotten coast," Brasseaux calls it. The first book, Brasseaux said, will be titled, "Ain't Der No More."

Brasseaux's passion for local history and culture have taken him from studying the Acadian expulsion to documenting post-Katrina/Rita culture of the Gulf Coast.

A St. Landry Parish native with a doctoral degree from the Université de Paris, Brasseaux's down-to-earth demeanor is an interesting counterpoint to his decades of scholarly work.

His work has contributed volumes to the recorded history of the Cajun and Creole people of Louisiana.

Honors and accolades aside, everyone of Acadian ancestry who has longed to know more about their history and heritage owes Brasseaux a debt of gratitude.