The American Historical Association offers the Friedrich Katz Prize in Latin American and Caribbean History. The prize will be awarded annually to the best book published in English focusing on Latin America, including the Caribbean.
The current prize amount is $1,000.
The general rules for submission are:
- Books bearing a copyright of 2024 are eligible for the 2025 prize.
- 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 “Katz 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: The competition will open in mid-March. Entries must be received by May 15, 2025, to be eligible for the 2025 competition. Entries will not be returned. Recipients will be announced on the AHA website in October 2025 and recognized during a ceremony at the January 2026 AHA annual meeting in Chicago.
For questions, please contact the Prize Administrator.
Friedrich Katz
The prize honors Friedrich Katz (1927–2010), an Austrian-born specialist in Latin American history, whose nearly 50-year career inspired dozens of students and colleagues in the field. He was Morton D. Hull Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Latin American History at the University of Chicago.
Past Recipients
Current Recipient
Yanna Yannakakis, Emory University
Since Time Immemorial: Native Custom and Law in Colonial Mexico (Duke Univ. Press)
This sophisticated book investigates how Spanish colonial laws and Indigenous customs informed one another in postconquest Mexico. Yanna Yannakakis’s meticulous reading of primary sources and deft theoretical understanding of legal traditions and procedures allow her to make an eminently persuasive argument about how imperial laws were not imposed from above but (re)built and (re)imagined locally. The productive marriage of legal and social histories in this well-crafted book will significantly influence Latin American history.