The Francis Parkman Prize, named after

Francis Parkman Francis Parkman Jr. (September 16, 1823 – November 8, 1893) was an American historian, best known as author of '' The Oregon Trail: Sketches of Prairie and Rocky-Mountain Life'' and his monumental seven-volume ''France and England in North Ame ...

, is awarded by the Society of American Historians for the best book in American history each year. Its purpose is to promote literary distinction in historical writing. The Society of American Historians is an affiliate of the

American Historical Association The American Historical Association (AHA) is the oldest professional association of historians in the United States and the largest such organization in the world. Founded in 1884, the AHA works to protect academic freedom, develop professional s ...

Eligibility

The Parkman Prize is offered annually to a non-fiction book, including biography, that is distinguished by its literary merit and makes an important contribution to the history of what is now the United States. The author need not be a citizen or resident of the United States, and the book need not be published in the United States. Textbooks, edited collections, bibliographies, reference works, and juvenile books are ineligible. The book's copyright must be in the previous year.

The prize

In 2013 the prize consisted of a certificate and $2,000. A certificate is also presented to the publisher. The prize is awarded at the society's annual meeting in May.

Winners

*1957 – George F. Kennan for '' Russia Leaves the War'' *1958 – Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. for ''The Crisis of the Old Order'' *1959 – Ernest Samuels for ''Henry Adams: The Middle Years'' *1960 –

Matthew Josephson Matthew Josephson (February 15, 1899 – March 13, 1978) was an American journalist and author of works on nineteenth-century French literature and American political and business history of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Josephson popu ...

for ''Edison: A Biography'' *1961 – Elting E. Morison for ''Turmoil and Tradition: A Study of the Life and Times of Henry L. Stimson'' *1962 –

Leon Wolff Leon Wolff (September 2, 1914 – October 11, 1991)''California, Death Index, 1940-1997'' was an American historian who wrote '' In Flanders Fields: The 1917 Campaign''. Biography Wolff was born and raised in Chicago in a Jewish family, the son o ...

for ''Little Brown Brother: How the United States Purchased and Pacified the Philippine Islands at the Century's Turn'' *1963 – James Thomas Flexner for ''That Wilder Image: The Painting of America's Native School from Thomas Cole to Winslow Homer'' *1964 – William Leuchtenburg for ''Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal'' *1965 – Willie Lee Nichols Rose for ''Rehearsal for Reconstruction: The Port Royal Experiment'' *1966 – Daniel J. Boorstin for ''The Americans: The National Experience'' *1967 –

William H. Goetzmann William Harry Goetzmann (July 20, 1930 – September 7, 2010) was an American historian and emeritus professor in the American Studies and American Civilization Programs at the University of Texas at Austin. He attended Yale University as a gradua ...

for ''Exploration and Empire: The Explorer and the Scientist in the Winning of the American West'' *1969 –

Winthrop Jordan Winthrop Donaldson Jordan (November 11, 1931 – February 23, 2007) was an American historian and professor who specialized in the history of slavery in the United States and racism against Black Americans. His 1968 work ''White Over Black: ...

for ''White Over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550-1812'' *1970 – Theodore A. Wilson for ''The First Summit: Roosevelt and Churchill at Placentia Bay, 1941'' *1971 – James MacGregor Burns for '' Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom, 1940-1945'' *1972 –

Joseph P. Lash Joseph Paul Lash (December 2, 1909 – August 22, 1987) was an American radical political activist, journalist, and writer. A close friend of Eleanor Roosevelt, Lash won both the Pulitzer Prize for Biography Kenneth S. Davis Kenneth Sydney Davis (September 29, 1912 – June 10, 1999) was an American historian and university professor, most renowned for his series of biographies of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Davis also wrote biographies of Charles Lindbergh, ...

for ''FDR: The Beckoning of Destiny, 1882-1928'' *1974 – Robert W. Johannsen for ''Stephen A. Douglas'' *1975 – Robert A. Caro for '' The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York'' *1976 –

Edmund S. Morgan Edmund Sears Morgan (January 17, 1916 – July 8, 2013) was an American historian and an eminent authority on early American history. He was the Sterling Professor of History at Yale University, where he taught from 1955 to 1986. He specialized in ...

for ''American Slavery, American Freedom'' *1977 –

Irving Howe Irving Howe (; June 11, 1920 – May 5, 1993) was an American literary and social critic and a prominent figure of the Democratic Socialists of America. Early years Howe was born as Irving Horenstein in The Bronx, New York. He was the son of ...

for ''World of Our Fathers'' *1978 –

David McCullough David Gaub McCullough (; July 7, 1933 – August 7, 2022) was an American popular historian. He was a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. In 2006, he was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United Stat ...

for '' The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914'' *1979 –

R. David Edmunds R. or r. may refer to: * ''Reign'', the period of time during which an Emperor, king, queen, etc., is ruler. * '' Rex'', abbreviated as R., the Latin word meaning King * ''Regina'', abbreviated as R., the Latin word meaning Queen * or , abbreviat ...

for ''The Potawatomis: Keepers of the Fire'' *1980 – Leon F. Litwack for ''Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery'' *1981 – Charles Royster for ''A Revolutionary People at War: The Continental Army and American Character, 1775-1783'' *1982 – William S. McFeely for ''Grant: A Biography'' *1983 –

John R. Stilgoe John Robert Stilgoe (born 1949) is a historian and photographer who is the Robert and Lois Orchard Professor in the History of Landscape at the Visual and Environmental Studies Department of Harvard University, where he has been teaching since 197 ...

for ''Common Landscape of America, 1580-1845'' *1984 – William Cronon for ''Changes in the Land, Revised Edition: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England'' *1985 –

Joel Williamson Joel or Yoel is a name meaning "Yahweh Is God" and may refer to: * Joel (given name), origin of the name including a list of people with the first name. * Joel (surname), a surname * Joel (footballer, born 1904), Joel de Oliveira Monteiro, Brazili ...

for ''The Crucible of Race: Black-White Relations in the American South since Emancipation'' *1986 –

Kenneth T. Jackson Kenneth Terry Jackson (born 1939) is a professor emeritus of history and social sciences at Columbia University. A frequent television guest, he is best known as an urban historian and a preeminent authority on the history of New York City, where ...

for '' Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States'' *1987 – Michael G. Kammen for ''A Machine That Would Go of Itself: The Constitution in American Culture'' *1988 – Eric Larrabee for ''Commander in Chief: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, His Lieutenants, and Their War'' *1989 –

Eric Foner Eric Foner (; born February 7, 1943) is an American historian. He writes extensively on American political history, the history of freedom, the early history of the Republican Party, African-American biography, the American Civil War, Reconst ...

for '' Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877'' *1990 –

Geoffrey C. Ward Geoffrey Champion Ward (born 1940) is an American editor, author, historian and writer of scripts for American history documentaries for public television. He is the author or co-author of 19 books, including 10 companion books to the documentar ...

for ''A First-Class Temperament: The Emergence of Franklin Roosevelt'' *1991 – Paul E. Hoffman for ''A New Andalucia and a Way to the Orient: The American Southeast During the Sixteenth Century'' *1992 – Richard White for ''The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815'' *1993 –

for '' Truman'' *1994 –

David Levering Lewis David Levering Lewis (born May 25, 1936) is an American historian, a Julius Silver University Professor, and a professor of history at New York University. He is twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography, for part one and ...

for '' W. E. B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 1868-1919'' *1995 –

John Putnam Demos John Putnam Demos is an American author and historian. He has written two books that discuss witch hunts and has discovered that one of his ancestors was John Putnam Senior, a member of the Putnam family that was prominent in the Salem witch trials ...

for ''The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story from Early America'' *1996 – Robert D. Richardson, Jr. for ''Emerson: The Mind on Fire'' *1997 –

Drew Gilpin Faust Catharine Drew Gilpin Faust (born September 18, 1947) is an American historian and was the 28th president of Harvard University, the first woman to serve in that role. She was Harvard's first president since 1672 without an undergraduate or gradu ...

for ''Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War'' *1998 – John M. Barry for ''Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America'' *1999 – Elliott West for ''The Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers, & the Rush to Colorado'' *2000 – David M. Kennedy for '' Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945'' *2001 – Fred Anderson for ''Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766'' *2002 –

Louis Menand Louis Menand (; born January 21, 1952) is an American critic, essayist, and professor, best known for his Pulitzer-winning book '' The Metaphysical Club'' (2001), an intellectual and cultural history of late 19th and early 20th century America. ...

for '' The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America'' *2003 – James F. Brooks for ''Captives and Cousins: Slavery, Kinship, and Community in the Southwest Borderlands'' *2004 –

Suzanne Lebsock Suzanne Lebsock (born December 1, 1949 at Williston, ND) is an American author and historian. Her works include her first book '' The Free Women of Petersburg: Status and Culture in a Southern Town, 1784-1860'' which was published in 1984 and won ...

for ''A Murder in Virginia: Southern Justice on Trial'' *2005 –

Alan Trachtenberg Alan Zelick Trachtenberg (March 22, 1932 – August 18, 2020) was an American historian and the Neil Gray Jr. Professor of English and professor emeritus of American Studies at Yale University. Born in Philadelphia, Trachtenberg attended Temple Un ...

for ''Shades of Hiawatha: Staging Indians, Making Americans, 1880-1930'' *2006 – Megan Marshall for ''The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism'' *2007 –

John H. Elliott Sir John Huxtable Elliott (23 June 1930 – 10 March 2022) was a British historian and Hispanist who was Regius Professor Emeritus at the University of Oxford and honorary fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, and Trinity College, Cambridge. He ...

for ''Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America 1492-1830'' *2008 – Jean Edward Smith for ''FDR'' *2009 –

Jared Farmer Jared Farmer (born 1974) is the Walter H. Annenberg Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania. He specializes in environmental history, landscape studies, and the North American West. Biography Jared Farmer gained his BA from Uta ...

for ''On Zion's Mount: Mormons, Indians, and the American Landscape'' *2010 –

Blake Bailey John Blake Bailey (born July 1, 1963) is an American writer and educator. Bailey is known for his literary biographies of Richard Yates, John Cheever, Charles Jackson, and Philip Roth. He is the editor of the Library of America omnibus editio ...

for ''Cheever: A Life'' *2011 – Jefferson Cowie for ''Stayin' Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class'' *2012 – Richard White for ''Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America'' *2013 - Fredrik Logevall for '' Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam'' *2014 - Philip Shenon for ''A Cruel and Shocking Act: The Secret History of the Kennedy Assassination'' *2015 -

Danielle Allen Danielle Susan Allen (born November 3, 1971) is the James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University. She is also the Director of the Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics. Prior to joining the faculty at Harvard in 2015, Allen wa ...

for ''Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality'' *2016 -

Christine Leigh Heyrman Christine Leigh Heyrman is an American historian. Life She graduated from Macalester College in 1971, and from Yale University with a Ph.D. in 1977. She is Grimble Professor of American History at the University of Delaware. Her current research f ...

for ''American Apostles: When Evangelicals Entered the World of Islam'' *2017 - Joe Jackson for ''Black Elk: The Life of an American Visionary'' *2018 - Christina Snyder for ''Great Crossings: Indians, Settlers & Slaves in the Age of Jackson'' *2019 - David W. Blight for '' Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom'' *2020 - Charles King for ''Gods of the Upper Air: How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex, and Gender in the Twentieth Century'' *2021 -

Christopher Tomlins Christopher is the English version of a Europe-wide name derived from the Greek name Χριστόφορος (''Christophoros'' or '' Christoforos''). The constituent parts are Χριστός (''Christós''), "Christ" or "Anointed", and φέρει� ...

for ''In the Matter of Nat Turner: A Speculative History'' *2022 -

Nicole Eustace Nicole Eustace is an American historian who won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for History, for ''Covered with Night: A Story of Murder and Indigenous Justice in Early America'' and was a finalist for the 2021 National Book Award for Nonfiction. She grad ...

for ''Covered with Night: A Story of Murder and Indigenous Justice in Early America''.

Francis Parkman Prize for Special Achievement

The Francis Parkman Prize for Special Achievement is periodically awarded for scholarly and professional distinction. Established in 1962, it has been awarded only five times.

Winners

* 1994 -

Walter Lord John Walter Lord Jr. (October 8, 1917 – May 19, 2002) was an American author, lawyer, copywriter and popular historian best known for his 1955 account of the sinking of the RMS ''Titanic'', '' A Night to Remember''. Biography Early life L ...

* 1988 - Forrest Pogue * 1974 - Alfred A. Knopf * 1970 - Samuel Eliot Morison * 1962 - Allan Nevins

References

{{reflist

External links

Francis Parkman Prize at the Society of American Historians

Society of American Historians

Francis Parkman Prize at lovethebook
Historiography of the United States American history awards History books about the United States American Historical Association

Eligibility

The prize

Winners

Francis Parkman Prize for Special Achievement

Winners

See also

References

External links