Book Prizes and Awards | National Humanities Center

Book Prizes and Awards

The exceptional work NHC Fellows produce has consistently garnered praise and attention from other scholars, and, each year, many of their books earn prizes and other forms of professional recognition for their excellence.


Brown, Thomas J. (NHC Fellow, 2015–16)

Civil War Monuments and the Militarization of America

2020 Tom Watson Brown Book Award of the Society of Civil War Historians

Brown, Vincent (NHC Fellow, 2011–12)

Tacky’s Revolt: The Story of an Atlantic Slave War

2021 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award of the Cleveland Foundation

2020 Best Black-History Books by Black Perspectives

2020 Phillis Wheatley Book Award of Sons & Daughters of the United States Middle Passage

Dubois, Laurent (NHC Fellow, 2008–09; 2016–17) and Richard Lee Turits (NHC Fellow, 2016–17)

Freedom Roots: Histories from the Caribbean

2020 Choice Outstanding Academic Title by Choice: A Publishing Unit of ACRL

Festa, Lynn (NHC Fellow, 2013–14)

Fiction Without Humanity: Person, Animal, Thing in Early Enlightenment Literature and Culture

2019 James Russell Lowell Prize of the Modern Language Association

2019 Kenshur Prize of the Center for Eighteenth-Century Studies at Indiana University

Gough, Melinda J. (NHC Fellow, 2001–02)

Dancing Queen: Marie de Médicis’ Ballets at the Court of Henri IV

2020 David Bevington Award of the Medieval and Renaissance Drama Society

Hacohen, Malachi Haim (NHC Fellow, 2003–04)

Jacob & Esau: Jewish European History Between Nation and Empire

2020 Center for Austrian Studies Book Prize

Hall, Jacquelyn Dowd (NHC Fellow, 1996–97)

Sisters and Rebels: A Struggle for the Soul of America

2020 PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography

2020 PROSE Award of the Association of American Publishers

2020 Summersell Prize of the Frances S. Summersell Center for the Study of the South

Jaji, Tsitsi Ella (NHC Fellow, 2017–18)

Mother Tongues: Poems

2019 Cave Canem Northwestern University Press Poetry Prize

Johnson, David K. (NHC Fellow, 2014–15)

Buying Gay: How Physique Entrepreneurs Sparked a Movement

2021 John Boswell Prize of the Committee on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender History

2020 National Postal Museum Award for Scholarship in Postal History by the Smithsonian National Postal Museum

Lasso, Marixa (NHC Fellow, 2013–14)

Erased: The Untold Story of the Panama Canal

2020 Friedrich Katz Prize in Latin American and Caribbean History by the American Historical Association

Lekan, Thomas M. (NHC Fellow, 2009–10; 2010–11)

Our Gigantic Zoo: A German Quest to Save the Serengeti

2021 DAAD/GSA Book Prize for the Best Book in History/Social Sciences by the German Academic Exchange Service

Ng, Su Fang (NHC Fellow, 2007–08)

Alexander the Great from Britain to Southeast Asia: Peripheral Empires in the Global Renaissance

2020 Phyllis Goodhart Gordan Book Prize of the Renaissance Society of America

Otto, Elizabeth (NHC Fellow, 2017–18)

Haunted Bauhaus: Occult Spirituality, Gender Fluidity, Queer Identities, and Radical Politics

2019 Peter C. Rollins Book Prize of the Northeast Popular & American Culture Association

Passannante, Gerard (NHC Fellow, 2010–11)

Catastrophizing: Materialism and the Making of Disaster

2019 British Society for Literature and Science Book Prize

Robertson, Cara (Trustee; NHC Fellow, 2004–05; 2005–06)

The Trial of Lizzie Borden: A True Story

2020 New England Society Book Award

Seijas, Tatiana (NHC Fellow, 2016–17), ed.

As If She Were Free: A Collective Biography of Women and Emancipation in the Americas

2020 Best Black-History Books by Black Perspectives

Strocchia, Sharon T. (NHC Fellow, 1998–99; 2015–16)

Forgotten Healers: Women and the Pursuit of Health in Late Renaissance Italy

2021 Phyllis Goodhart Gordan Book Prize of the Renaissance Society of America

2020 Helen and Howard R. Marraro Prize in Italian History by the Society for Italian Historical Studies

Wilson, Blake (NHC Fellow, 2016–17)

Singing to the Lyre in Renaissance Italy: Memory, Performance, and Oral Poetry

2020 Choice Outstanding Academic Title by Choice: A Publishing Unit of ACRL

Witmore, Christopher (NHC Fellow, 2014–15)

Old Lands: A Chorography of the Eastern Peloponnese

2021 Choice Outstanding Academic Title by Choice: A Publishing Unit of ACRL