Presidents Book Award

Submissions for the Presidents Book Award are NOW OPEN.

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 June 30, 2023 (or earlier) 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

  • Jeffrey Beemer (SSHA, Executive Director)
    President’s Book Award
    Social Science History Association
    176 Savery Rd
    Searsport, ME 04974
    jbeemer@ssha.org

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

SSH Call for Papers!

Social Science History announces a new series, Advances in Data and Methods. We invite research articles & review essays that propose, develop or explain new or recently articulated sources and/or methodological techniques for use in social science history.

For more information, please visit:

SSH Call for Papers



Conference Updates from SSHA President Anne McCants

Please read SSHA President Anne McCants’s letter on the 2023 annual conference (see link below). Anne provides updated information on this year’s conference format and new registration fees.

Conference updates from SSHA President Anne McCants


SSHA Call for Papers

49th Annual Meeting of the Social Science History Association

Washington DC, USA, November 16-19, 2023
The submission deadline has now expired.

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SSHA Call for Papers PDF


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