The American Historical Association is pleased to announce the winners of its 2024 prizes, to be awarded at the AHA’s 138th annual meeting, which will take place in New York City from January 3–6, 2025.
The AHA offers annual prizes honoring exceptional books, distinguished teaching and mentoring in the classroom, public history, and other historical projects. Since 1896, the Association has conferred over 1,000 awards. This year’s finalists were selected from a field of nearly 1,300 entries by 140 dedicated prize committee members. The names, publications, and projects of those who received these awards are a catalog of the best work produced in the historical discipline.
Awards for Publications
The Herbert Baxter Adams Prize for an author’s first book in European history from ancient times to 1815
Alexander Statman for A Global Enlightenment: Western Progress and Chinese Science (Univ. of Chicago Press, 2023)
The AHA Prize in European International History
Chelsea Schields (Univ. of California, Irvine) for Offshore Attachments: Oil and Intimacy in the Caribbean (Univ. of California Press, 2023)
The AHA Prize in History prior to CE 1000
Julia Kelto Lillis (Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York) for Virgin Territory: Configuring Female Virginity in Early Christianity (Univ. of California Press, 2023)
The Jerry Bentley Prize in world history
Sureshkumar Muthukumaran (National Univ. of Singapore) for The Tropical Turn: Agricultural Innovation in the Ancient Middle East and the Mediterranean (Univ. of California Press, 2023)
The Beveridge Family Prize in the history of the US, Latin America, or Canada since 1492
Dylan C. Penningroth (Univ. of California, Berkeley) for Before the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights (Liveright, 2023)
The Paul Birdsall Prize for European military and strategic history since 1870
Nicholas Mulder (Cornell Univ.) for The Economic Weapon: The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War (Yale Univ. Press, 2022)
The Albert Corey Prize in the history of Canadian–American relations or the history of both countries
Donald Harman Akenson (Queen’s Univ.) for The Americanization of the Apocalypse: Creating America’s Own Bible (Oxford Univ. Press, 2023)
The Raymond J. Cunningham Prize for the best article published in a journal written by an undergraduate student
Becca De Los Santos (Emory Univ.) for “Inversion of the Top-Down Operation: Enslaved Voices and French Abolitionism in 1840s Senegal,” Herodotus 34 (Spring 2024)
Faculty adviser: Richard Roberts (Stanford Univ.)
The Patricia Buckley Ebrey Prize in East Asian history prior to 1800
Elad Alyagon for Inked: Tattooed Soldiers and the Song Empire’s Penal-Military Complex (Harvard Univ. Asia Center, 2023)
The John K. Fairbank Prize in East Asian history since 1800
Tristan G. Brown (Massachusetts Inst. of Technology) for Laws of the Land: Fengshui and the State in Qing Dynasty China (Princeton Univ. Press, 2023)
The Morris D. Forkosch Prize in British, British imperial, or British Commonwealth history since 1485
Andrew Seaton (Univ. Coll. London) for Our NHS: A History of Britain’s Best-Loved Institution (Yale Univ. Press, 2023)
The Leo Gershoy Award in 17th- and 18th-century western European history
Vera Keller (Univ. of Oregon) for The Interlopers: Early Stuart Projects and the Undisciplining of Knowledge (Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 2023)
The William and Edwyna Gilbert Award for the best article in a journal, magazine, or other serial on teaching history
Jocelyn Isabel Aguilera (John C. Fremont High School/California State Univ., Long Beach) for “Reclaiming Narratives through Culturally Sustaining Teaching: Women of Color, Historical Significance, and the Civil Rights Era,” The History Teacher 56, no. 3 (May 2023)
The Friedrich Katz Prize in Latin American and Caribbean history
Yanna Yannakakis (Emory Univ.) for Since Time Immemorial: Native Custom and Law in Colonial Mexico (Duke Univ. Press, 2023)
The Joan Kelly Memorial Prize in women’s history and/or feminist theory
Chelsea Schields (Univ. of California, Irvine) for Offshore Attachments: Oil and Intimacy in the Caribbean (Univ. of California Press, 2023)
The Martin A. Klein Prize in African history
Rachel Jean-Baptiste (Stanford Univ.) for Multiracial Identities in Colonial French Africa: Race, Childhood, and Citizenship (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2023)
The Littleton-Griswold Prize in US law and society
Dylan C. Penningroth (Univ. of California, Berkeley) for Before the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights (Liveright, 2023)
The J. Russell Major Prize in French history
Sara E. Johnson (Univ. of California, San Diego) for Encyclopédie Noire: The Making of Moreau de Saint-Méry’s Intellectual World (Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture and the Univ. of North Carolina Press, 2023)
The Helen and Howard R. Marraro Prize in Italian history or Italian-American relations
Massimo Mazzotti (Univ. of California, Berkeley) for Reactionary Mathematics: A Genealogy of Purity (Univ. of Chicago Press, 2023)
The George L. Mosse Prize in the intellectual and cultural history of Europe since 1500
Ari Joskowicz (Vanderbilt Univ.) for Rain of Ash: Roma, Jews, and the Holocaust (Princeton Univ. Press, 2023)
The John E. O’Connor Film Award for outstanding interpretations of history through film
Documentary: The Lady Bird Diaries, Dawn Porter, director; Kim Reynolds, producer (Trilogy Films, 2023)
The Eugenia M. Palmegiano Prize in the history of journalism
Kathryn Cramer Brownell (Purdue Univ.) for 24/7 Politics: Cable Television and the Fragmenting of America from Watergate to Fox News (Princeton Univ. Press, 2023)
The James A. Rawley Prize in the integration of Atlantic worlds before the 20th century
Nicholas Radburn (Lancaster Univ.) for Traders in Men: Merchants and the Transformation of the Transatlantic Slave Trade (Yale Univ. Press, 2023)
The Premio del Rey for a distinguished book in English in the field of early Spanish history
Abigail Krasner Balbale (New York Univ.) for The Wolf King: Ibn Mardanīsh and the Construction of Power in al-Andalus (Cornell Univ. Press, 2023)
The John F. Richards Prize in South Asian history
Divya Cherian (Princeton Univ.) for Merchants of Virtue: Hindus, Muslims, and Untouchables in Eighteenth-Century South Asia (Univ. of California Press, 2023)
The James Harvey Robinson Prize for a teaching aid for the teaching and learning of history in any field for public or educational purposes
Bruce Allyn Lesh (Carroll County Public Schools, Md.) for Developing Historical Thinkers: Supporting Historical Inquiry for All Students (Teachers Coll. Press, 2023)
The Dorothy Rosenberg Prize in the history of the Jewish diaspora
Rebekka Voß (Goethe Univ. Frankfurt) for Sons of Saviors: The Red Jews in Yiddish Culture (Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 2023)
The Roy Rosenzweig Prize for creativity in digital history
Christopher Marsh (Queen’s Univ. of Belfast), Angela McShane (Univ. of Warwick), Andy Watts (The Carnival Band), and their technical team, project musicians, and research assistants for 100 Ballads (Digital Humanities Inst., 2023)
The Sinclair Prize for historical podcasts
Andrew J. Falk (Christopher Newport Univ.) for Past Is Prologue Podcast
The Wesley-Logan Prize in African diaspora history
Joan Flores-Villalobos (Univ. of Southern California) for The Silver Women: How Black Women’s Labor Made the Panama Canal (Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 2023)
Awards for Scholarly and Professional Distinction
The Troyer Steele Anderson Prize for the advancement of the purposes of the AHA
Chris McNickle
The Eugene Asher Distinguished Teaching Award for outstanding postsecondary history teaching
Andria Crosson (Univ. of Texas at San Antonio)
The Equity Award for excellence in recruiting and retaining underrepresented groups into the historical discipline
Grambling State University Department of History
The Herbert Feis Award for distinguished contributions to public history
Erin Kimmerle (Univ. of South Florida)
The John Lewis Award for History and Social Justice for leadership and sustained engagement at the intersection of historical work and social justice
James N. Gregory (Univ. of Washington)
The John Lewis Award for Public Service to the Discipline of History for significant contributions to history in the interest of social justice
Stanley Nelson (Firelight Media)
The Nancy Lyman Roelker Mentorship Award for teachers of history who teach, guide, and inspire their students
Susan Pedersen (Columbia Univ.)
The Tikkun Olam Prize for promoting public historical literacy
Heather Cox Richardson (Boston Coll.)
The Honorary Foreign Member for a distinguished foreign scholar who has “notably aided the work of American historians”
Catherine Hall (Univ. Coll. London)
The Award for Scholarly Distinction to senior historians for lifetime achievement
Barbara J. Fields (Columbia Univ.)
William Chester Jordan (Princeton Univ.)
Franklin W. Knight (Johns Hopkins Univ.)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Attribution must provide author name, article title, Perspectives on History, date of publication, and a link to this page. This license applies only to the article, not to text or images used here by permission.
