Editor's Note: The purpose of this column, which is published in Perspectives on History as space permits, is to recognize and honor the accomplishments of AHA members. Submissions are welcome; entries will be published in alphabetical order. To submit an entry, write to David Darlington, Associate Editor, AHA, 400 A Street, SE, Washington, DC 20003-3889.

Jonathan Coopersmith is a Fulbright scholar lecturing in the history of technology and conducting research at the Tokyo Institute of Technology in 2008–09.

Bruce Craig (Univ. of Prince Edward Island) has edited the just published 50th-anniversary commemorative edition of Freeman Tilden’s Interpreting Our Heritage (Univ. of North Carolina Press, 2008). The expanded and revised edition includes not only Tilden’s classic work but also five additional essays by Tilden on the art and craft of delivering interpretive programs at heritage sites.

Elizabeth De Wolfe (Univ. of New England) won the annual Peter C. Rollins Book Award from the Northeast Popular Culture/American Culture Association for The Murder of Mary Bean and Other Stories (Kent State Univ. Press).

Thaddeus V. Gromada, professor of history emeritus at New Jersey City University, was named president of the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences in America at the organization’s 66th annual meeting in Philadelphia, June 13–14, 2008 (previously reported on AHA Today).

Leor E. Halevi’s (Vanderbilt Univ.) Muhammad’s Grave: Death Rites and the Making of Islamic Society (Columbia Univ. Press 2007), has won three book awards: the 2007 Albert Hourani Award, given by the Middle East Studies Association; the 2008 American Academy of Religion’s Award for Excellence in the category of analytical-descriptive studies; and Phi Beta Kappa’s 2008 Ralph Waldo Emerson Award.

Charles F. Howlett’s (Malloy Coll.) article “Julien Davies Cornell: Gentle Quaker, Determined Litigator,” published in the May 2007 issue of Friends Journal, received the Award of Excellence in the biographical profile category at the Associated Church Press’s Awards for 2008.

James J. Lorence (Univ. of Wisconsin-Marathon County) was awarded the Appalachian Studies Association/Berea College Weatherford Award for the nonfiction book published in 2007 that best illuminates the challenges, personalities, and unique qualities of the Appalachian South. The prize recognizes Lorence’s A Hard Journey: The Life of Don West (Univ. of Illinois Press, 2007). The award was presented at the ASA annual meeting in Huntington, WV on March 29, 2008. Professor Lorence has also received the Georgia Historical Society’s E. Merton Coulter Award for the best article published in the Georgia Historical Quarterly in 2007. The award recognizes Lorence’s “The Workers of Chicopee: Progressive Paternalism and the Culture of Accommodation in a Modern Mill Village” (Georgia Historical Quarterly, fall 2007).

Allen R. Millett (National WWII Museum) has won the 2008 Pritzker Military Library Literature Award. Last year’s award was given to past AHA president and Civil War historian James McPherson (Princeton Univ.).

Paul Milliman (Univ. of Arizona) has won the 2008 Ambassador Kazimierz Dziewanowski Memorial Award, jointly sponsored by the Polish Institute of Arts & Sciences of America (PIASA) and the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Washington, D.C. The $1,000 prize was given for Milliman’s PhD dissertation, “Disputing Identity, Territoriality, and Sovereignty: The Place of Pomerania in the Social Memory of the Kingdom of Poland and the Teutonic Ordensstaat” completed at Cornell University in 2007 under the direction of Paul R. Hyams. In his dissertation, Milliman subtly argued and deeply researched issues relating to state formation, historical consciousness, and identity construction for the 14th-century Kingdom of Poland and the Ordensstaat of the Knights of the Teutonic Order. He made an impressive contribution to the understanding of a crucial stage in the history of the medieval Polish state. The annual award was established to honor the memory of Ambassador Kazimierz Dziewanowski, the first Polish Ambassador to the U.S. from post-Communist Poland. The presentation was made on Saturday, June 14, 2008, during PIASA’s 66th annual meeting held this year in Philadelphia.

Charles O’Brien (Western Illinois Univ.) published Assassins’ Rage (Severn House, 2008), a historical mystery novel set in Paris at the fall of the Bastille, July 14, 1789, and in the ensuing chaos. The story deals with the assassination of several royal officials.

Nancy G. Siraisi (CUNY) was among the recipients of the 25 fellowships awarded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, which were announced on September 23, 2008. Siraisi, who received the 2005 AHA Award for Scholarly Distinction, is a historian of medicine and science during the Renaissance and in the medieval world. A pioneer in the fields of the history of medicine and science, Siraisi helped to create a body of knowledge through meticulous and extensive research in the Italian and other archives (previously reported on AHA Today).

Arthur Williamson (California State Univ. at Sacramento) has just published Apocalypse Then: Prophecy and the Making of the Modern World (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2008). The volume considers the role of apocalyptic expectations in Western culture from the ancient Near East to the present, but focuses on the axial period 1500–1800 when such lines of thought proved a crucial catalyst to modernity.

Guoqi Xu (Kalamazoo Coll.) has recently published the following books: Olympic Dreams: China and Sports, 1895–2008 (Harvard University Press, 2008) and Convergence de deux civilisations: Recherche sur les traveailleurs chinois en France pendant la Premiere guerre mondiale (Inter-Continental Press, 2007, in both Chinese and French editions). For 2008–09, Professor Xu is a fellow at Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, and is working on his book, Fusions of Civilizations: Chinese Laborers in Europe during the Great War and Their Role in China’s Internationalization.

American Academy of Arts and Sciences announced its Class of Fellows for 2008 in April 2008. The academy, founded by John Adams, James Bowdoin, John Hancock, and other forefathers, has been in existence since 1780. Past members have included Benjamin Franklin, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Albert Einstein. This year’s addition of new fellows (190 in all), include a number of scholars drawn from the field of history. The following fellows are AHA members: Nancy F. Cott (Harvard Univ.), Michael E. Geyer (Univ. of Chicago), Earl Lewis (Emory Univ.), Daniel Rodgers (Princeton Univ.), and Joan Wallach Scott (Inst. for Advanced Study, Princeton Univ.) (previously reported on AHA Today).

The Smithsonian American Art Museum announces the appointment of 22 new fellows for the 2008–09 academic year. The museum’s program grants awards for scholars and students to pursue research at the museum, including senior, predoctoral, and postdoctoral fellowships. The following fellows are AHA members: Joanna Frang (Brandeis Univ.), Jamie Jones (William Woods Univ.), and Robin Veder (Penn State Univ. at Harrisburg). In addition, Marc McClure has received a short-term research appointment at the museum. The deadline for next year’s applications is January 15, 2009. For more information about the fellowship program and the fellows’ abstracts, please visit americanart.si.edu/fellowships.

The Charles A. Ryskamp Research Fellowships provide advanced assistant professors and untenured associate professors in the humanities and related social sciences with time and resources to pursue their research under optimal conditions. The Ryskamp Fellowships particularly recognize those whose scholarly contributions have advanced their fields and who have well designed and carefully developed plans for new research. The following Ryskamp fellowship winners are AHA members: Leor E. Halevi (Vanderbilt Univ.), Erez Manela (Harvard Univ.), Jane E. Mangan (Davidson Coll.), Seth Rockman (Brown Univ.), and Jonathan R. Zatlin (Boston Univ.).