John K. Fairbank Prize
The John K. Fairbank Prize in East Asian History is offered annually for an outstanding book in the history of China proper, Vietnam, Chinese Central Asia, Mongolia, Manchuria, Korea, or Japan, substantially after 1800. It honors the late John K. Fairbank, Francis Lee Higginson Professor of History and director of the East Asian Research Center at Harvard University, and president of the Association in 1968. Only books of high scholarly and literary merit will be considered. Anthologies, edited works, and pamphlets are ineligible for the competition. The general rules for submission are:
- Books with a copyright of 2016 will be eligible for the 2017 prize.
- Nominators must complete an online prize submission form for each book submitted.
- One copy of each entry must be sent to each committee member and clearly labeled “Fairbank Prize Entry.” Electronic copies may be sent only to committee members who have indicated they will accept them.
Please Note: Entries must be received by May 15, 2017, to be eligible for the 2017 competition. Entries will not be returned. Recipients will be announced on the AHA website in October 2017 and recognized during a ceremony at the January 2018 AHA annual meeting in Washington, DC.
For questions, please contact the Prize Administrator.
The deadline for this year’s submissions has passed. Review committee contact information and the prize submission form for the next prize year will be posted by March 31.
2015 Fairbank Prize
Rian Thum, Loyola Univ. New Orleans
The Sacred Routes of Uyghur History (Harvard Univ. Press)
In this richly textured, rigorously argued, and theoretically provocative work, Rian Thum narrates with profound ethnographic sensitivity the complex histories of community-formation and world-making among the Turkic Muslims of Altishahr—now known as the Uyghur peoples of northwest China. The Sacred Routes of Uyghur History introduces a vital chapter in the histories of Central Asia, Islam, the Qing empire, and the Chinese nation-state, and spurs the historian to reexamine deeply held notions surrounding early modern identity-formation, print culture, nationalism, and the very meaning of writing history.