The American Historical Association is pleased to announce the winners of its 2026 prizes, to be awarded at the AHA’s 140th annual meeting, which will take place in New Orleans, Louisiana, from January 7–10, 2027.
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 more than 3,200 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
Herbert Baxter Adams Prize in European History
Barbara Di Gennaro Splendore (Univ. di Bologna and Univ. de Lausanne) for The State Drug: Theriac, Pharmacy, and Politics in Early Modern Italy (Harvard Univ. Press, 2025)
AHA Prize in European International History Since 1895
Edward Baring (Princeton Univ.) for Vulgar Marxism: Revolutionary Politics and the Dilemmas of Worker Education, 1891–1931 (Univ. of Chicago Press, 2025)
AHA Prize in History Prior to CE 1000
Kim Bowes (Univ. of Pennsylvania) for Surviving Rome: The Economic Lives of the Ninety Percent (Princeton Univ. Press, 2025)
Jerry Bentley Prize in World History
Ian Kumekawa (Massachusetts Inst. of Technology and Harvard Univ.) for Empty Vessel: The Story of the Global Economy in One Barge (Knopf, 2025)
Beveridge Family Prize in American History
Lauren Duval (Univ. of Oklahoma) for The Home Front: Revolutionary Households, Military Occupation, and the Making of American Independence (Omohundro Inst. of Early American History and Culture and the Univ. of North Carolina Press, 2025)
Paul Birdsall Prize in European Military and Strategic History
Tom Menger (Univ. of Graz) for The Colonial Way of War: Violence and Colonial Warfare in the British, German, and Dutch Empires, c. 1890–1914 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2024)
Albert B. Corey Prize in Canadian-American Relations
Coll Thrush (Univ. of British Columbia) for Wrecked: Unsettling Histories from the Graveyard of the Pacific (Univ. of Washington Press, 2025)
Raymond J. Cunningham Prize for Undergraduate Articles
George Voelker (Fordham Univ.) for “A Moment in the Sun: Reconstruction in Carroll Parish, Louisiana, 1867–1880,” Journal of Southern History 91, no. 2 (May 2025)
Faculty adviser: Westenley Alcenat (Scripps Coll.)
Patricia Buckley Ebrey Prize in East Asian History
Gregory Smits (Penn State Univ.) for The Ryukyu Islands: A New History from the Stone Age to the Present (Univ. of Chicago Press, 2025)
John K. Fairbank Prize in East Asian History
Joan Judge (York Univ.) for The Politics of Common Reading: Vernacular Knowledge and Everyday Technics in China, 1894–1954 (Univ. of Chicago Press, 2025)
Morris D. Forkosch Prize in British History
Samuel Rutherford (Univ. of Glasgow) for Teaching Gender: The British University and the Rise of Heterosexuality, 1860–1939 (Oxford Univ. Press, 2025)
Leo Gershoy Award in Western European History
Jennifer Ngaire Heuer (Univ. of Massachusetts Amherst) for The Soldier’s Reward: Love and War in the Age of the French Revolution and Napoleon (Princeton Univ. Press, 2025)
William and Edwyna Gilbert Award for Articles on Teaching
Michael P. Marino (Coll. of New Jersey) for “‘Historians Who Walk’: Historical Thinking and Urban Landscapes in New York City and Philadelphia,” The History Teacher 58, no. 3 (May 2025)
Clarence H. Haring Prize in Latin American History
Adrián Gorelik (Univ. Nacional de Quilmes) for La ciudad latinoamericana: Una figura de la imaginación social del siglo XX (Siglo XXI Editores Argentina, 2023)
Friedrich Katz Prize in Latin American and Caribbean History
Renata Keller (Univ. of Nevada, Reno) for The Fate of the Americas: The Cuban Missile Crisis and the Hemispheric Cold War (Univ. of North Carolina Press, 2025)
Joan Kelly Memorial Prize in Women’s History
Susan Ashbrook Harvey (Brown Univ.) for Ministries of Song: Women’s Voices in Ancient Syriac Christianity (Univ. of California Press, 2025)
Martin A. Klein Prize in African History
Yaari Felber-Seligman (City Coll. of New York) for Fashioning Inland Communities: Trade and Popular Culture in Central East Africa (Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 2025)
Waldo G. Leland Prize for Reference Tools
Andrew Denning (Univ. of Kansas) and Heidi J. S. Tworek (Univ. of British Columbia), editors, for The Interwar World (Routledge, 2024)
Littleton-Griswold Prize in American Law and Society
Kevin Arlyck (Georgetown Univ. Law Center) for The Nation at Sea: The Federal Courts and American Sovereignty, 1789–1825 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2025)
Russell Major Prize in French History
Miranda Spieler (American Univ. of Paris) for Slaves in Paris: Hidden Lives and Fugitive Histories (Harvard Univ. Press, 2025)
Helen and Howard R. Marraro Prize in Italian History
Rachel Midura (Virginia Tech) for Postal Intelligence: The Tassis Family and Communications Revolution in Early Modern Europe (Cornell Univ. Press, 2025)
George L. Mosse Prize in European Intellectual and Cultural History
Keith Michael Baker (Stanford Univ.) for Jean-Paul Marat: Prophet of Terror (Univ. of Chicago Press, 2025)
Documentary: Bombshell
Ben Loeterman, director & writer; Ben Loeterman and Gaia De Simoni, producers; Cameo George, executive producer (Ben Loeterman Productions)
Eugenia M. Palmegiano Prize in the History of Journalism
Tom Arnold-Forster (Univ. of Oxford) for Walter Lippmann: An Intellectual Biography (Princeton Univ. Press, 2025)
James A. Rawley Prize in Atlantic History
Miranda Spieler (American Univ. of Paris) for Slaves in Paris: Hidden Lives and Fugitive Histories (Harvard Univ. Press, 2025)
Premio del Rey in Early Spanish History
Teresa Witcombe (Univ. of Oxford) for On the Edges of Christendom: Maurice of Burgos and the Church and Culture of Medieval Castile (British Academy Monographs, 2025)
John F. Richards Prize in South Asian History
Julia Stephens (Rutgers, The State Univ. of New Jersey) for Worldly Afterlives: Tracing Family Trails Between India and Empire (Princeton Univ. Press, 2025)
James Harvey Robinson Prize for Teaching Aids
Kate Masur (Northwestern Univ.) and Elizabeth Clarke, illustrator, for Freedom Was in Sight! A Graphic History of Reconstruction in the Washington, DC, Region (Univ. of North Carolina Press, 2025)
Dorothy Rosenberg Prize in Jewish Diaspora History
Laura Hobson Faure (Univ. Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) for Who Will Rescue Us: The Story of the Jewish Children Who Fled to France and America During the Holocaust (Yale Univ. Press, 2025)
Sinclair Prize for Historical Podcasts
Unhealed: A Story of Race, Memory, and a Teaching Hospital
Jeffrey Baker and Damon Tweedy, co-hosts; Beverley Abel, producer (Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities and History of Medicine, Duke Univ. School of Medicine, in collaboration with the Duke Univ. Institutional History Project)
Wesley-Logan Prize in African Diaspora History
Marlene Daut (Yale Univ.) for The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe (Knopf, 2025)
Awards for Scholarly and Professional Distinction
Eugene Asher Distinguished Teaching Award
Jennifer Cote (Univ. of St. Joseph)
Beveridge Family Teaching Prize
Texas History for Teachers
Center for Security, Race and Rights at Rutgers University
Lepage Center Award for Historical Work in the Public Interest
History Colorado
John Lewis Award for History and Social Justice
Mary Ziegler (Univ. of California, Davis)
John Lewis Award for Public Service to the Discipline of History
Carla Hayden (14th Librarian of Congress)
Nancy Lyman Roelker Mentorship Award
Rajbir Singh Judge (California State Univ., Long Beach)
Tikkun Olam Prize for Promoting Public Historical Literacy
Geoffrey C. Ward (Florentine Films)
Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger (Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin)
Award for Scholarly Distinction
Earl Lewis (Univ. of Michigan)
Joel Mokyr (Northwestern Univ.)
Imani Perry (Harvard Univ.)
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