The James A. Rawley Prize in Atlantic History is offered annually to recognize outstanding historical writing that explores aspects of integration of Atlantic worlds before the 20th century.
The current prize amount is $1,000.
The general rules for submission are:
- Only books of a high scholarly and literary merit will be considered. Research accuracy and originality are also important factors in the evaluation of the books.
- Books with a copyright of 2023 are eligible for the 2024 award.
- Nomination submissions may be made by an author or by a publisher. Publishers may submit as many entries as they wish. Authors or publishers may submit the same book for multiple AHA prizes.
- Nominators must complete an online prize submission form for each book submitted. Once you fill out the form you will receive an email with the committee’s contact information.
- One copy of each entry must be sent to each committee member and clearly labeled “Rawley Prize Entry.” Print copies preferred unless otherwise indicated. If only e-copy is available, please contact review committee members beforehand to arrange submission format.
Please Note: Entries must be received by May 15, 2024, to be eligible for the 2024 competition. Entries will not be returned. Recipients will be announced on the AHA website in October 2024 and recognized during a ceremony at the January 2025 AHA annual meeting in New York.
For questions, please contact the Prize Administrator.
James A. Rawley
The prize was created in 1998 in accordance with the terms of a gift from James A. Rawley (1916–2005), Carl Adolph Happold Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. After moving to the University of Nebraska in 1964, Rawley was chair of the history department for a decade while writing four important books on the Civil War era, with an emphasis on race, slavery, and emancipation. He adopted an innovative quantitative approach to historical research in The Transatlantic Slave Trade: A History (1981).
Past Recipients
Current Recipient
Adriana Chira, Emory University
Patchwork Freedoms: Law, Slavery, and Race beyond Cuba’s Plantations (Cambridge Univ. Press)
In 19th-century Santiago de Cuba, Afro-descended peasant communities used colonial-era legal custom to negotiate land access and freedom, bit by bit. This beautifully written and methodically researched book elegantly demonstrates how local ideas about race, manumission, and freedom were shaped in relationship to Atlantic processes. Patchwork Freedoms offers a new methodological framework for scholars of slavery and freedom studying spaces beyond plantation economies and large urban centers of the Atlantic world.