To Encourage Literary Distinction in the Writing of History and Biography
Submissions for this year's Allan Nevins Dissertation Prize, the Francis Parkman Prize, and the Society of American Historians Historical Fiction Prize are closed. Information on how to submit for the next SAH prize competitions will be posted in late August 2025.
The Society of American Historians (SAH) was founded in 1939 by the journalist and Columbia University historian Allan Nevins and several fellow scholars to promote literary distinction in the writing of history and biography. Under a charter of incorporation issued by the State of New York, the society has continued to promote its original objective in a variety of ways: through the awarding of prizes, the promotion of historical studies and interests, and cooperation with publishers and other institutions engaged in furthering these aims.
The Society's membership includes more than 450 academic scholars, public historians, and professional writers working on topics in American history. Members are elected based on achievement in the vivid and compelling presentation of history and biography in a variety of forms, including books, essays, film, drama, museum exhibitions, and other emerging forms of public communication. The Society recognizes excellence in historical work marked, among other qualities, by clarity, empathy, narrative power, accuracy, and explanatory force.
We are delighted to announce this year’s prize winners and elected members ahead of our annual dinner on May 12, 2025.
The 6th annual Tony Horwitz Prize honoring distinguished work in American history of wide appeal and enduring public significance will be awarded to James Grossman.
The 69th annual Francis Parkman Prize will be awarded to Jon Grinspan for Wide Awake: The Forgotten Force That Elected Lincoln and Spurred the Civil War (Bloomsbury).
The 18th biennial SAH Prize for Historical Fiction will be awarded to Brinda Charry for The East Indian (Scribner).
The 59th annual Allan Nevins Prize will be awarded to Joshua Lappen (Oxford University) for his dissertation, “Cultures of Power: Electrification, Politics, and Visibility in Greater Los Angeles.”
There were two finalists for the Nevins Prize: Julia Brown-Bernstein (USC), “Liberalizing Belonging: Race, Service, and the Making of the Post-Industrial San Fernando Valley,” and Kaitlin Simpson (Tennessee), “Flowers of El Dorado: Gender, Production, and the Cut Flower Industry in the United States and Colombia, 1908-Present.”
The Society also will welcome our newest elected members: Megan Black, Keisha Blain, Stuart Blumin, Catherine Ceniza Choy, Bruce Dorsey, Kendra Taira Field, Hector Galán, Sonia Hernandez, Katherine Howe, Ann Hagedorn, Maurice Isserman, Blair L. M. Kelley, James Kirchick, Erika Pérez, Andrés Resendez, Noliwe Rooks, Aaron Sachs, Harriet Washington, Chad Williams, and Natasha Zaretsky.