Premio del Rey
Next Award Year: 2024
The submission deadline has passed. Awardees are announced in the fall, and the next contest will begin in spring 2024.
The American Historical Association awards the Premio del Rey biennially for a distinguished book in English in the field of early Spanish history. It was endowed by a gift of Robert I. Burns, SJ, from his Llull and Catalonia prizes and covers the medieval period in Spain’s history and culture CE 500–1516.
The terms of the prize include works on Hispanic history and culture, including the Islamic and Jewish communities of medieval Spain as well as early New World topics prior to 1516. The current prize amount is $1,000. See the list of past recipients.
The general rules for submission are:
- Only books of a high scholarly historical nature should be submitted. Research accuracy, originality, and literary merit are important factors.
- Books with a copyright of 2022 or 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.
- One copy of each entry must be sent to each committee member and clearly labeled “Premio del Rey 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 City.
For questions, please contact the Prize Administrator.
This year's submission deadline has passed.
The prize submission form for the next competition will be posted by March 15 for submissions due May 15.
2020 Premio del Rey
Thomas W. Barton, University of San Diego
Victory’s Shadow: Conquest and Governance in Medieval Catalonia (Cornell Univ. Press)
Victory’s Shadow shows how the acquisition and integration of New Catalonia was a lengthy and nonlinear process built on previous failures, on contests among rulers, on negotiations with ecclesiastical and secular magnates, and on the fate of territory further afield. With impressive attention to local political and economic contexts and changes in policies and possibilities over two and a half centuries, the book is a marvelously fine-grained account of the mechanics and logics of conquest.