Allan Sharlin Memorial Book Award
Submissions for the Allan Sharlin Memorial Book Award are now open.
Books published in 2025 are eligible for consideration. Authors or publishers wishing to nominate a book should mail a book to each member of the award committee. Self-nominations are accepted.
A $1,000 prize is awarded annually for an outstanding book in social science history to honor the memory of Allan Sharlin. Allan exemplified the finest traditions of social science history. His training and scholarship were broadly interdisciplinary and he used both quantitative and more traditional methodologies.
Submission Deadline: Submissions with a postmark of July 15, 2026 will be accepted. Late entries will not be considered.
Authors or publishers wishing to nominate a book should mail print copies to each member of the award committee and email the committee with a notification about the book, author, and expected arrival dates (if possible). Electronic (PDF, linked, emailed) copies will not be considered.
Award Committee and Addresses
Taisu Zhang (Chair), Yale University
Email: taisu.zhang@yale.edu
Address:
Taisu Zhang
127 Wall Street, Room 206
New Haven, CT 06511
United States
Dagmar Herzog (City University of New York)
Email: Dherzog@gc.cuny.edu
Address:
Dagmar Herzog
457 West 57th St.
#1710
New York, NY 10019
United States
Desmond King (Oxford University)
Email: desmond.king@nuffield.ox.ac.uk
Address:
Professor Desmond King
Nuffield College
Worcester Street
Oxford OX1 INF
United Kingdom
Paul McLean (Rutgers University)
pmclean@rutgers.edu
Address:
Paul McLean
Professor of Sociology
Rutgers University
26 Nichol Avenue
New Brunswick, NJ 08901
Book Award Co-Winner
Dagmar Herzog
The Question of Unworthy Life: Eugenics and Germany’s Twentieth Century
Princeton University Press
(2024)
Honorable Mentions
Benjamin Breen
Tripping on Utopia: Margaret Mead, the Cold War, and the Troubled Birth of Psychedelic Science
Grand Central Publishing/Hachette (2024)
Vladimir Hamed-Troyansky
Empire of Refugees: North Caucasian Muslims and the Late Ottoman State
Stanford University Press (2024)
Past Winners
2022
Precolonial Legacies in Postcolonial Politics. Representation and Redistribution in Decentralized West Africa.
2022
Agents of Reform: Child Labor and the Origins of the Welfare State. (Honorable Mention)
2021
Genesis of Rebellion: Governance, Grievance, and Mutiny in the Age of Sail.
2021
Power in Modernity Agency Relations and the Creative Destruction of the King’s Two Bodies.
2021
Empires of Vice: The Rise of Opium Prohibition across Southeast Asia. (Honorable Mention)
2020
Agents of Disorder. Inside China’s Cultural Revolution.
2020
Sorting Out the Mixed Economy: The Rise and Fall of Welfare and Developmental States in the Americas. (Honorable Mention)
2020
Dark Matter Credit: The Development of Peer-to-Peer Lending and Banking in France. (Honorable Mention)
2019
Property and Dispossession: Natives, Empires and Land in Early Modern North America.
2019
The Unsolid South: Mass Politics and National Representation in a One-Party Enclave. (Honorable Mention)
2019
The Unsolid South: Mass Politics and National Representation in a One-Party Enclave. (Honorable Mention)
2018
Competition in the Promised Land: Black Migrants in Northern Cities and Labor Markets.
2018
American Routes: Racial Palimpsests and the Transformation of Race.
2018
A Culture of Growth: The Origins of the Modern Economy.
2017
Contested Embrace: Transborder Membership Politics in Twentieth-Century Korea.
2016
Arresting Contagion: Science, Policy, and Conflicts over Animal Disease Control.
2015
Between Monopoly and Free Trade.
2015
National Colors: Racial Classification and the State in Latin America.
2014
Mabiki: Infanticide and Population Growth in Eastern Japan, 1660-1950.
2013
The Land of Too Much.
2012
Making a New World.
2011
Reputation and Power.
2010
American Homicide.
2009
The People’s Peking Man.
2008
The Devil’s Handwriting.
2007
Freedom is Not Enough.
2006
The Merchants of Zigong.
2005
Growing Public.
2004
Indispensable Outcasts.
2003
Cultures in Contact: World Migrations in the Second Millennium.
2002
The War Come Home.
2001
Dulcinea in the Factory: Myths, Morals, and Women in Colombia’s Industrial Experiment.
2000
Mobility and Modernity.
2000
One Quarter of Humanity.
1999
Cousins and Strangers.
1998
Civic Ideals.
1997
Growth in a Traditional Society.
1996
Urbanization and Crime.
1995
Bandits and Bureaucrats.
1994
Family, Dependence, and the Origins of the Welfare State.
1993
Proctecting Soldiers and Mothers.
1992
When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away.
1991
Understanding the Gender Gap.
1990
The Transformation of Criminal Justice.
1989
The Politics of Community
1988
Prolonged Connections.
1987
The Parameters of Urban Fiscal Policy.
1986
Peasant, Lord and Merchant.
1985
Settlers and the Agrarian Question.