For those of you unfamiliar with the Bancroft Prize, it is given each year by Columbia University to recognize outstanding books on American history or diplomacy. First awarded in 1948, the Bancroft Prize is generally considered to be one of the most prestigious awards in American history writing.
According to Columbia University’s website, “winners are judged in terms of the scope, significance, depth of research and richness of interpretation they present in the areas of American History and Diplomacy.”
If you enjoy American history, you can bet that if a book has won the Bancroft Prize, it’s pretty good and definitely worth reading.
This year’s winners were:
- “Lincoln’s Code: The Laws of War in American History” by John Fabian Witt
- “The Mortal Sea: Fishing the Atlantic in the Age of Sail” by W. Jeffrey Bolster
As you might imagine, a number of outstanding American History books have received the Bancroft Prize over the years. What follows is a complete list of the all-time winners.
1948:
- “Ordeal of the Union” by Allan Nevins
- “Across the Wide Missouri” by Bernard DeVoto
1949:
- “Roosevelt and Hopkins” by Robert E. Sherwood
- “The Rising Sun in the Pacific” by Samuel E. Morison
1950:
- “The Great War for the Empire: Volume VII, The Victorious Year, 1758-1760” by Lawrence H. Gipson
- “Coronado” by Herbert E. Bolton
1951:
- “Our More Perfect Union” by Arthur N. Holcombe
- “Virgin Land” by Henry N. Smith
1952:
- “Charles Evans Hughes” by Merlo J. Pusey
- “Origins of the New South, 1877-1913” by C. Vann Woodward
1953:
- “The Era of Good Feelings” by George Dangerfield
- “Rendezvous with Destiny” by Eric F. Goldman
1954:
- “Seedtime of the Republic” by Clinton Rossiter
- “The Undeclared War” by William L. Langer and S. Everett Gleason
1955:
- “Great River, The Rio Grande” by Paul Horgan
- “The Jacksonians” by Leonard D. White
1956:
- “Henry Adams” by Elizabeth Stevenson
- “Last Full Measure: Lincoln the President” by J.G. Randall and Richard N. Current
1957:
- “Russia Leaves the War” by George F. Kennan
- “Wilson: The New Freedom” by Arthur S. Link
1958:
- “The Crisis of the Old Order” by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.
- “The History of American Magazines, Vol. IV” by Frank Luther Mott
1959:
- “Henry Adams, The Middle Years” by Ernest Samuels
- “The Colonial Experience” by Daniel J. Boorstin
1960:
- “The Age of the Democratic Revolution: A Political History of Europe and America, 1760-1800” by R.R. Palmer
- “In the Days of McKinley” by Margaret Leech
1961:
- “The Jefferson Image In the American Mind” by Merrill D. Peterson
- “Wilson: The Struggle for Neutrality, 1914-1915” by Arthur S. Link
1962:
- “The Transformation of the School” by Lawrence A. Cremin
- “To the Farewell Address: Ideas of Early American Foreign Policy” by Felix Gilbert
- “Charles Francis Adams, 1807-1866” by Martin B. Duberman
1963:
- “John Adams” by Page Smith
- “Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision” by Roberta Wohlstetter
- “The Might of Nations: World Politics in Our Time” by John G. Stoessinger
1964:
- “Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932-1940” by William E. Leuchtenburg
- “The Liberator: William Lloyd Garrison” by John L. Thomas
- “Power, Freedom and Diplomacy: The Foreign Policy of the United States of America” by Paul Seabury
1965:
- “Castlereagh and Adams: England and the United States, 1812-1823” by Bradford Perkins
- “Portrait of a General: Sir Henry Clinton in the War of Independence” by William B. Willcox
- “The United States and the Far Eastern Crisis of 1933-1938” by Dorothy Borg
1966:
- “The Peacemakers: The Great Powers and American Independence” by Richard B. Morris
- “Between Two Empires: The Ordeal of the Philippines, 1929-1946” by Theodore W. Friend III
1967:
- “Prelude to Civil War: The Nullification Controversy in South Carolina, 1816-1836, Vol. II” by Charles Sellers
- “The Washington Community, 1800-1828” by James Sterling Young
1968:
- “A History of Negro Education in the South from 1619 to the Present” by Henry Allen Bullock
- “From Puritan to Yankee: Character and Social Order in Connecticut, 1690-1765” by Richard L. Bushman
- “The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution” by Bernard Bailyn
1969:
- “White Over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550-1812” by Winthrop D. Jordan
- “Woodrow Wilson and World Politics: America’s Response to War and Revolution” by N. Gordon Levin Jr.
- “The Brains Trust” by Rexford Guy Tugwell
1970:
- “Charles Wilson Peale” by Charles Coleman Sellers
- “The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787” by Gordon S. Wood
- “Scottsboro: A Tragedy of the American South” by Dan T. Carter
1971:
- “The Image Empire: A History of Broadcasting in the United States, Vol. III – From 1953” by Erik Barnouw
- “Birth Control in America: The Career of Margaret Sanger” by David M. Kennedy
- “Andrew Carnegie” by Joseph Frazier Wall
1972:
- “Neither Black Nor White” by Carl N. Degler
- “The Mathers: Three Generations of Puritan Intellectuals, 1596-1728” by Robert Middlekauff
- “The European Discovery of America: The Northern Voyages” by Sameul Eliot Morison
1973:
- “Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam” by Frances FitzGerald
- “The United States and the Origins of the Cold War” by John Lewis Gaddis
- “Booker T. Washington” by Louis R. Harlan
1974:
- “Frederick Jackson Turner: Historian, Scholar, Teacher” by Ray Allen Billington
- “The Devil and John Foster Dulles” by Townsend Hoopes
- “The Other Bostonians: Poverty and Progress in the American Metropolis, 1880-1970” by Stephan Thernstrom
1975:
- “Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery” and “Time On the Cross: Evidence and Methods – A Supplement” by Robert William Fogel
- “Deterrence in American Foreign Policy: Theory and Practice” by Alexander L. George and Richard Smoke
- “Roll, Jordan, Roll” by Eugene Genovese
1976:
- “The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770-1823” by David Rion Davis
- “Edith Wharton: A Biography” by R.W.B. Lewis
1977:
- “Class and Community: The Industrial Revolution in Lynn” by Alan Dawley
- “The Minutemen and Their World” by Robert A. Gross
- “Slave Population and Economy in Jamaica, 1807-1834” by Barry W. Higman
1978:
- “The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business” by Alfred D. Chandler Jr.
- “The Transformation of American Law, 1780-1860” by Morton J. Horwitz
1979:
- “Allies of a Kind: The United States, Britain and the War Against Japan, 1941-1945” by Christopher Thorne
- “Rockdale: The Growth of an American Village in the Early Industrial Revolution” by Anthony F.C. Wallace
1980:
- “Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932-1945” by Robert Dallek
- “Women at Work: The Transformation of Work and Community in Lowell, Massachusetts, 1826-1860” by Thomas Dublin
- “Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s” by Donald Worster
1981:
- “Walter Lipmann and the American Century” by Ronald Steel
- “Alice James: A Biography” by Jean Strouse
1982:
- “A People in Revolution: The American Revolution and Political Society in New York, 1760-1790” by Edward Countryman
- “Cradle of the Middle Class: The Family in Oneida County, New York, 1790-1865” by Mary P. Ryan
1983:
- “Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England” by John Putnam Demos
- “Eugene V. Debs: Citizen and Socialist” by Nick Salvatore
1984:
- “Booker T. Washington: The Wizard of Tuskegee, 1901-1915” by Louis R. Harlan
- “The Social Transformation of American Medicine: The Rise of a Sovereign Profession and the Making of a Vast Industry” by Paul Starr
1985:
- “The Free Woman of Petersburg: Status and Culture in a Southern Town, 1784-1860” by Suzanne Lebsock
- “The Life and Times of Cotton Mather” by Kenneth Silverman
1986:
- “Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States” by Kenneth T. Jackson
- “Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow: Black Women, Work and the Family from Slavery to the Present” by Jacqueline Jones
1987:
- “A Vigorous Spirit of Enterprise: Merchants and Economic Development in Revolutionary Philadelphia” by Thomas Doerflinger
- “Roots of Violence in Black Philadelphia, 1860-1900” by Roger Lane
1988:
- “The Rise of American Air Power: The Creation of Armageddon” by Michael S. Sherry
- “Unfree Labor: American Slavery and Russian Serfdom” by Peter Kolchin
1989:
- “Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877” by Eric Foner
- “Inventing the People: The Rise of Popular Sovereignty in England and America” by Edmund S. Morgan
1990:
- “The Indians’ New World: Catawbas and Their Neighbors from European Contact Through the Era of Removal” by James H. Merrell
- “Dark Journey: Black Mississippians in the Age of Jim Crow” by Neil R. McMillen
1991:
- “Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919-1939” by Lizabeth Cohen
- “A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812” by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
1992:
- “Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West” by William Cronon
- “The Destructive War: William Tecumseh Sherman, Stonewall Jackson and the Americans” by Charles Royster
1993:
- “Margaret Fuller: An American Romantic Life, Vol. I: The Private Years” by Charles Capper
- “A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration and the Cold War” by Melvyn P. Leffler
1994:
- “The Age of Federalism: The Early American Republic, 1788-1800” by Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick
- “Tumult and Silence at Second Creek: An Inquiry into a Civil War Slave Conspiracy” by Winthrop D. Jordan
- “The Biography of a Race, 1868-1919” by David Levering Lewis
1995:
- “The Refiner’s Fire: The Marking of Mormon Cosmology, 1644-1844” by John L. Brooke
- “Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi” by John Dittmer
1996:
- “William Cooper’s Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic” by Alan Taylor
- “Walt Whitman’s America: A Cultural Biography” by David S. Reynolds
1997:
- “Explicit and Authentic Acts: Amending the U.S. Constitution, 1776-1995” by David E. Kyvig
- “Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945-1974” by James T. Patterson
1998:
- “Southern Cross: The Beginnings of the Bible Belt” by Christine Leigh Heyrman
- “The Clash: A History of U.S.-Japan Relations” by Walter LaFeber
- “The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit” by Thomas J. Sugrue
1999:
- “Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America” by Ira Berlin
- “Black Culture in Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake and Low Country” by Philip D. Morgan
- “The Name of War: King Philip’s War and the Origins of American Identity” by Jill Lepore
2000:
- “Into the American Woods: Negotiators on the American Frontier” by James H. Merrell
- “Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II” by John Dower
- “The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction” by Linda Gordon
2001:
- “Roaring Camp: The Social World of the California Gold Rush” by Susan Lee Johnson
- “The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst” by David Nasaw
2002:
- “Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory” by David W. Blight
- “In Pursuit of Equity: Women, Men and the Quest for Economic Citizenship in 20th Century America” by Alice Kessler-Harris
2003:
- “Captives and Cousins: Slavery, Kinship and Community in the Southwest Borderlands” by James F. Brooks
- “The Indian Slave Trade: The Rise of the English Empire in the American South, 1670-1717” by Alan Gallay
2004:
- “In the Presence of Mine Enemies: War in the Heart of America, 1859-1863” by Edward L. Ayers
- “A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration” by Steven Hahn
- “Jonathan Edwards: A Life” by George M. Marsden
2005:
- “Israel on the Appomattox: A Southern Experiment in Black Freedom from the 1790s through the Civil War” by Melvin Patrick
- “From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality” by Michael J. Klarman
- “Conjectures of Order: Intellectual Life and the American South, 1810-1860” by Michael O’Brien
2006:
- “Dwelling Place: A Plantation Epic” by Erskine Clarke
- “The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times” by Odd Arne Westad
- “The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln” by Sean Wilentz
2007:
- “Mockingbird Song: Ecological Landscapes in the South” by Jack Temple Kirby
- “William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism” by Robert D. Richardson
2008:
- “The Cigarette Century: The Rise, Fall and Deadly Persistence of the Product that Defined America” by Allan M. Brandt
- “The Populist Vision” by Charles Postel
- “Our Savage Neighbors: How Indian War Transformed Early America” by Peter Silver
2009:
- “Killing for Coal: America’s Deadliest Labor War” by Thomas G. Andrews
- “This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War” by Drew Gilpin Faust
- “The Comanche Empire” by Pekka Hamalainen
2010:
- “Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits” by Linda Gordon
- “Abigail Adams” by Woody Holton
- “White Mother to a Dark Race: Settler Colonialism, Maternalism and the Removal of Indigenous Children in the American West and Australia, 1880-1940” by Margaret D. Jacobs
2011:
- “Ourselves Unborn: A History of the Fetus in Modern America” by Sara Dubow
- “The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery” by Eric Foner
- “Freedom Bound: Law, Labor and Civic Identity in Colonizing English America” by Christopher Tomlins
2012:
- “Empires, Nations and Families: A History of the North American West, 1800-1860” by Anne F. Hyde
- “Age of Fracture” by Daniel T. Rodgers
- “Courage to Dissent: Atlanta and the Long History of the Civil Rights Movement” by Tomiko Brown-Nagin
2013:
- “Lincoln’s Code: The Laws of War in American History” by John Fabian Witt
- “The Mortal Sea: Fishing the Atlantic in the Age of Sail” by W. Jeffrey Bolster
In the end, how many of these Bancroft Prize-winning books have you had a chance to read? Which did you like or dislike? Which would you recommend? Let us know in the comments section below.
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