Presidents Book Award

Submissions for the Presidents Book Award are TBA.

A $1000 prize is awarded annually for a meritorious first work by an early-career scholar. Entrants are judged on scholarly significance, interdisciplinary reach, and methodological innovativeness within monographs analyzing past structures and events and change over time. Books with a copyright date of the previous year that are published within eight years of the author’s Ph.D. are eligible for consideration.

Submission Deadline: Submissions with a postmark of TBA 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. Electronic (PDF, linked, emailed) copies will not be considered.

Award Committee

  • J. David Hacker (Chair)
    4840 Vincent Ave S
    Minneapolis, MN 55410
    hacke010@umn.edu

  • Fiona Greenland
    710 Belmont Avenue
    Charlottesville, VA 22902
    fg5t@virginia.edu

  • Ho-fung Hung
    Dept of Sociology
    Johns Hopkins University
    3400 N Charles street
    Baltimore, MD 21218
    hofung@jhu.edu

  • (SSHA, Executive Director)


Past Winners

YearAuthorInstitutionTitle
2020James PoskettUniversity of WarwickMaterials of the Mind: Phrenology, Race, and the Global History of Science, 1815-1920
2019Seth ArcherUtah State UniversitySharks upon the Land: Colonialism, Indigenous Health, and Culture in Hawai’i, 1778–1855
2018Keri Leigh MerrittIndependent ScholarMasterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum South
2018Taisu ZhangYaleThe Laws and Economics of Confucianism: Kinship and Property in Preindustrial China and England
2017William RankinYaleAfter the Map: Cartography, Navigation, and the Transformation of Territory in the Twentieth Century
2016Jonathan WyrtzenYaleMaking Morocco: Colonial Intervention and the Politics of Identity
2015Aaron PanofskyUniversity of ChicagoMisbehaving Science: Controversy and the Development of Behavior Genetics
2014Vanessa OgleUniversity of PennsylvaniaContesting Time: The Global Struggle for Uniformity and Its Unintended Consequences, 1870s-1950s
2013Yiching WuUniversity of TorontoThe Cultural Revolution at the Margins: Chinese Socialism in Crisis
2012Lisa StampniktzkyHarvardDisciplining Terror-How Experts Invented Terrorism
2011Elizabeth Popp BermanBerkeleyCreating the Market University
2010Ho-fung HungJohns
Hopkins
Protests with Chinese Characteristics
2009Greta KrippnerMichiganCapitalizing on Crisis
2008Anthony ChenNorthwesternThe Fifth Freedom
2007Brodwyn FischerUniversity of ChicagoFor our Poverty of Rights
2007Issac MartinBerkeleyIn Defense of Privilege
2006Sarah IgoVanderbiltThe Averaged American: Surveys, Citizens and the Making of a Mass Public
2005Joseph GerteisMinnesotaClass and the Color Line
2004Steven PfaffWashingtonFight or Flight? Exit Voice Dynamics and the Collapse of East Germany
2003Geoff CunferUniversity of SaskatchewanOn the Great Plains: Agriculture and Environment
2002Robert D. JohnsonYaleThe Radical Middle Class
2001Stephen M. StrifflerUniversity of ArkansasIn the Shadow of State and Capital
2000Mark S. WeinerYaleAmericans Without Law
1999Daniel Lord SmailFordhamImaginary Cartographies: Possession and Identity in Late Medieval Marseille
1998Robert FreelandStanfordThe Struggle for Control of the Modern Corporation
1997Robert LiebermanColumbiaShifting the Color Line
1996Thomas SugrueUniversity of PennsylvaniaThe Origins of the Urban Crisis
1995Leslie J. ReaganUniversity of IllinoisWhen Abortion Was a Crime
1994Mary E. OdemEmoryDelinquent Daughters
1993Mauro F. GuillenMITModels of Management
1992Stewart TolnayAlbanyFestival of Violence
1991no award given
1990Richard MaddoxAugustana CollegeEl Castillo
1989no award given
1988Gary A. AbrahamSt. BonaventureMax Weber and the Jewish Question


Announcements

SSHA Town Hall, Monday March 25

The SSHA officers invite SSHA members to attend a Zoom town hall on Monday March 25 from 12:00 noon to 1:30 pm EST to discuss and answer questions about the four Executive Committee motions passed on December 20, 2023, and February 8, 2024. The zoom link is here (Meeting ID: 895 1708 6578 | Password: 602250).

These motions concern our association journal, Social Science History, specifically editorial procedure guidelines, journal scope and the editor model. These motions have been posted on the SSHA website.

2024 Annual Conference Submissions Now Open

SSHA is now accepting paper and session submissions for the 2024 Annual Conference. Please visit our submission portal ssha2024.ssha.org to submit a paper or session proposal by March 22, 2024.

Submission Portal


SSHA Call for Papers

50th Annual Meeting of the Social Science History Association

Toronto, ON, Canada, October 31 - November 3, 2024.

Trust and Distrust of Historical Sources in the Digital Age

SSHA Call for Papers PDF


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