2017 Organization of American Historians Book Awards

Every year, the Organization of American Historians awards prizes for the best books in United States history for that year in different historical disciplines. These books are evaluated by extremely qualified historians and they highlight some of the best new books in American history for 2017.

Frederick Jackson Turner Award

The Turner Award is given to an author for their first scholarly book on United States history.

Blue Texas by Max Krochmal

Merle Curti Intellectual History Award

The Curti Award is given to the best new books in the fields of American intellectual history.

Merle Curti Social History Award

The Curti Award is given to the best new books in the fields of American social history.

Avery O. Craven Award

The Craven award is given to best book covering the Civil War, the Civil War years, or the Era of Reconstruction. Military history books are excluded from this prize.

Ray Allen Billington Prize

The Strange Career of William Ellis by Karl Jacoby

The Billington Prize is awarded for the best book on the history of native and/or settler peoples in frontier, border, and borderland zones of intercultural contact.

James A. Rawley Prize

The Rawley Prize recognizes the best new book addressing the history of race relations in the United States.

Ellis W. Hawley Prize

The Hawley prize is awarded for the best book-length on the political economy, politics, or institutions of the United States, in its domestic or international affairs, from the Civil War to the present.

Liberty Legacy Foundation Award

The Liberty Legacy Award is specifically for the best book by a historian on the civil rights struggle.

HONORABLE MENTION: Elizabeth Hinton, From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America (Harvard University Press).

Lawrence W. Levine Award

The Levine Award focuses on the best book in American cultural history.

Kīkā Kila by John W. Troutman

David Montgomery Award

The Montgomery Award is given to the best book on a topic in American labor and working-class history.

Mary Jurich Nickliss Prize in U.S. Women’s and/or Gender History

The Nickless Prize is awarded to the most original book in during any period of American women’s or gender history.

Darlene Clark Hine Award

The Clark Award is given to the author of the best book in African American women’s and gender history.

Willi Paul Adams Award

Every 2 years, this award is given to the author of the best book on American history published in a foreign language.

  • Catherine Collomp, Université Paris-Diderot, Résister au nazisme: Le Jewish Labor Committee, New York, 1934–1945

(CNRS Editions) [Relief, Rescue and Resistance: The Jewish Labor Committee’s Anti-Nazi Operations: 1934–1945]

HONORABLE MENTION: Gilles Havard, Histoire des coureurs de bois. Amérique du Nord 1600 –1840 (Les Indes Savantes) [A History of Indian Traders. North America, 1600 –1840].