Littleton-Griswold Prize
The Littleton-Griswold Prize is an annual award for the best book in any subject on the history of American law and society, broadly defined. In 1961, the Littleton-Griswold Fund Committee created the prize for studies in the legal history of the American colonies and of the United States prior to 1900. The prize was not awarded, however, until 1966, and was abolished the following year. In 1985, the Council revived the prize and expanded the scope to cover all of American history.
The current prize amount is $1,000. See the list of past recipients.
The general rules for submission are:
- Only books of high scholarly and literary merit will be considered.
- Books with a copyright of 2023 will be eligible for consideration 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 “Littleton-Griswold 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: 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.
For questions, please contact the Prize Administrator.
2023 Littleton-Griswold Prize
William J. Novak, University of Michigan
New Democracy: The Creation of the Modern American State (Harvard Univ. Press)
New Democracy is an exhaustive (yet never exhausting) rethinking of the struggle over the functions and capacity of modern US governance during the 75 years after the Civil War. William J. Novak convincingly shows that both state and federal governments reconceptualized the role of the state during this rebirth of the republic, to focus on public utility and the public good, reconstructing administrative structures decades before the New Deal. A field-defining study, it demonstrates such state building was bold, expansive, and democratic.