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The George Washington Book Prize was instituted in 2005 and is awarded annually to the best book on the founding era of the United States; especially ones that have the potential to advance broad public understanding of American history. It is administered by Washington College's C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience; it is sponsored by Washington College in partnership with the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and George Washington's Mount Vernon. At $50,000, the George Washington Book Prize is one of the largest book awards in the United States.
Each year the sponsors appoint a jury of three historians or other qualified scholars who are asked to read all submitted books and narrow the field to three finalists. The finalists are announced at Washington College on or near George Washington's birthday in February. A seven-member committee, made up of two representatives of each of the three sponsoring institutions plus an independent historian, reviews the finalists and chooses a winner. The winner is announced at a gala dinner at Mount Vernon each May that honors the finalists.[1]
Established in 2000 with a grant from the New York-based Starr Foundation, the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience draws on the special historical strengths of Washington College and the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Through educational programs, scholarship, and public outreach, the Starr Center explores the early republic, the rise of democracy, and the manifold ways in which the founding era continues to shape United States culture. In partnership with other institutions and with leading scholars and writers, the center works to promote innovative approaches to the study of history, and to bridge the gaps between historians, contemporary policymakers, and the general public. Washington College was founded in 1782 under the patronage of George Washington, and was the first college chartered in the new nation.
Founded in 1994, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History promotes the study and love of American history among audiences ranging from students to scholars to the general public. It creates history-centered schools and academic research centers, organizes seminars and enrichment programs for educators, produces print and electronic publications and traveling exhibitions, and sponsors lectures by eminent historians. In addition to the George Washington Book Prize, the institute also sponsors the Lincoln Prize in conjunction with the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College, and the Frederick Douglass Prize in cooperation with the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University.
George Washington's Mount Vernon Estate and Gardens, open to the public since 1858, communicates the character and leadership of Washington to millions of Americans each year through a variety of interpretive programs on the Estate and in classrooms across the nation. Mount Vernon is owned and operated by the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association, founded in 1853, making it the oldest national preservation organization in the United States. The George Washington Book Prize is an important element of the Association's outreach program, which engages millions of teachers and students throughout the nation.
| Year | Author | Work | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | Ron Chernow | Alexander Hamilton | [2] |
| 2006 | Stacy Schiff | A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America | |
| 2007 | Charles Rappleye | Sons of Providence: The Brown Brothers, the Slave Trade, and the American Revolution | |
| 2008 | Marcus Rediker | The Slave Ship: A Human History | |
| 2009 | Annette Gordon-Reed | The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family | |
| 2010 | Richard Beeman | Plain, Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution | |
| 2011 | Pauline Maier | Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution: 1787-1788 | |
| 2012 | Maya Jasanoff | Liberty's Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World | |
| 2013 | Stephen Brumwell | George Washington: Gentleman Warrior | |
| 2014 | Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy | The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution and the Fate of the Empire | [3] |
| 2015 | Nick Bunker | An Empire on the Edge: How Britain Came to Fight America | |
| 2015 Special Achievement Award | Lin-Manuel Miranda | Hamilton | [4] |
| 2016 | Flora Fraser | The Washingtons: George and Martha, “Join’d by Friendship, Crown’d by Love” | |
| 2017 | Nathaniel Philbrick | Valiant Ambition: George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and the Fate of the American Revolution | |
| 2018 | Kevin J. Hayes | George Washington: A Life in Books | |
| 2019 | Colin Calloway | The Indian World of George Washington: The First President, the First Americans, and the Birth of the Nation | |
| 2020 | Rick Atkinson | The British are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777 | |
| 2021 | Mary Beth Norton | 1774: The Long Year of Revolution | |
| 2022 | Bruce A. Ragsdale | Washington at the Plow: The Founding Farmer and the Question of Slavery | |
| 2023 | Maurizio Valsania | First Among Men: George Washington and the Myth of American Masculinity | |
= winner
| Year | Author | Book |
|---|---|---|
| 2005 | Ron Chernow | Alexander Hamilton |
| Rhys Isaac | Landon Carter's Uneasy Kingdom | |
| Gordon Wood | The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin | |
| 2006 | Edward G. Lengel | General George Washington: A Military Life |
| Stacy Schiff | A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France and the Birth of America | |
| Stanley Weintraub | America's Battle for Freedom, Britain's Quagmire: 1775-1883 | |
| 2007 | Catherine Allgor | A Perfect Union: Dolley Madison and the Creation of the American Nation |
| Francois Furstenberg | In the Name of the Father: Washington's Legacy, Slavery, and the Making of a Nation | |
| Charles Rappleye | Sons of Providence: The Brown Brothers, the Slave Trade and the American Revolution | |
| 2008 | Woody Holton | Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution |
| Jon Latimer | 1812: War With America | |
| Marcus Rediker | The Slave Ship: A Human History | |
| 2009 | Annette Gordon-Reed | The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family |
| Kevin J. Hayes | The Road to Monticello: The Life and Mind of Thomas Jefferson | |
| Jane Kamensky | The Exchange Artist: A Tale of High-Flying Speculation and America's First Banking Collapse | |
| 2010 | Richard Beeman | Plain, Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution |
| R. B. Bernstein | The Founding Fathers Reconsidered | |
| Edith B. Gelles | John and Abigail: Portrait of a Marriage | |
| 2011 | Pauline Maier | Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788 |
| Jack Rakove | Revolutionaries: A New History of the Invention of America | |
| Alan Taylor | The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels, and Indian Allies | |
| 2012 | John Fea | Was America Founded As A Christian Nation?: A Historical Introduction |
| Benjamin H. Irvin | Clothed in Robes of Sovereignty: The Continental Congress and the People Out of Doors | |
| Maya Jasanoff | Liberty's Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World | |
| 2013 | Stephen Brumwell | George Washington: Gentleman Warrior |
| Eliga H. Gould | Among the Powers of the Earth: The American Revolution and the Making of a New World Empire | |
| Cynthia A. Kierner | Martha Jefferson Randolph, Daughter of Monticello: her Life and Times | |
| Brian Steele | Thomas Jefferson and American Nationhood | |
| 2014 | Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy | The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire |
| Jeffrey L. Pasley | The First Presidential Contest: 1796 and the Founding of American Democracy[5] | |
| Alan Taylor | The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832 | |
| 2015 | Nick Bunker | An Empire on the Edge: How Britain Came to Fight America |
| Richard S. Dunn | A Tale of Two Plantations: Slave Life and Labor in Jamaica and Virginia | |
| François Furstenberg | When the United States Spoke French: Five Refugees Who Shaped a Nation | |
| Eric Nelson | The Royalist Revolution: Monarchy and the American Founding | |
| 2016 | Mary Sarah Bilder | Madison's Hand: Revising the Constitutional Convention |
| Kathleen DuVal | Independence Lost: Lives on the Edge of the American Revolution | |
| Flora Fraser | The Washingtons: George and Martha, "Join’d by Friendship, Crown'd by Love" | |
| Robert Middlekauff | Washington's Revolution: The Making of America's First Leader | |
| Janet Polasky | Revolutions without Borders: The Call to Liberty in the Atlantic World | |
| David Preston | Braddock's Defeat: The Battle of the Monongahela and the Road to Revolution | |
| John Sedgwick | War of Two: Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and the Duel that Stunned the Nation | |
| 2017 | T.H. Breen | George Washington's Journey: The President Forges a New Nation |
| Annette Gordon-Reed and Peter S. Onuf | "Most Blessed of the Patriarchs": Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination | |
| Michael Klarman | The Framers' Coup: The Making of the United States Constitution | |
| Jane Kamensky | A Revolution in Color: The World of John Singleton Copley | |
| Mark Edward Lender and Garry Wheeler Stone | Fatal Sunday: George Washington, the Monmouth Campaign, and the Politics of Battle | |
| Nathaniel Philbrick | Valiant Ambition: George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and the Fate of the American Revolution | |
| Alan Taylor | American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750-1804 | |
| 2018 | S. Max Edelson | The New Map of Empire: How Britain Imagined America before Independence |
| Kevin J. Hayes | George Washington: A Life in Books | |
| Eric Hinderaker | Boston's Massacre | |
| Jon Kukla | Patrick Henry: Champion of Liberty | |
| James E. Lewis, Jr. | The Burr Conspiracy: Uncovering the Story of an Early American Crisis | |
| Jennifer Van Horn | The Power of Objects in Eighteenth-Century British America | |
| Douglas L. Winiarski | Darkness Falls on the Land of Light: Experiencing Religious Awakenings in Eighteenth-Century New England | |
| 2019 | Colin Calloway | The Indian World of George Washington: The First President, the First Americans, and the Birth of the Nation |
| Stephen Fried | Rush: Revolution, Madness, and Benjamin Rush, the Visionary Doctor Who Became a Founding Father | |
| Catherine Kerrison | Jefferson's Daughters: Three Sisters, White and Black, in a Young America | |
| Joyce Lee Malcolm | The Tragedy of Benedict Arnold: An American Life | |
| Nathaniel Philbrick | In the Hurricane's Eye: The Genius of George Washington and the Victory at Yorktown | |
| Russell Shorto | Revolution Song: A Story of American Freedom | |
| Peter Stark | Young Washington: How Wilderness and War Forged America's Founding Father | |
| 2020 | Rick Atkinson | The British are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777 |
| Richard Bell | Stolen: Five Free Boys Kidnapped into Slavery and Their Astonishing Odyssey Home | |
| Matthew R. Costello | The Property of the Nation: George Washington's Tomb, Mount Vernon, and the Memory of the First President | |
| Douglas Egerton | Heirs of an Honored Name: The Decline of the Adams Family and the Rise of Modern America | |
| Richard Godbeer | World of Trouble: A Philadelphia Quaker Family's Journey through the American Revolution | |
| David Head | A Crisis of Peace: George Washington, the Newburgh Conspiracy, and the Fate of the American Revolution | |
| Martha Saxton | The Widow Washington: The Life of Mary Washington | |
| 2021 | Mary Beth Norton | 1774: The Long Year of Revolution |
| Mark Boonshoft | Aristocratic Education and the Making of the American Republic | |
| Vincent Brown | Tacky's Revolt: The Story of an Atlantic Slave War | |
| Peter Cozzens | Tecumseh and the Prophet: The Shawnee Brothers Who Defied a Nation | |
| Honorée Fanonne Jeffers | The Age of Phillis | |
| Michael W. McConnell | The President Who Would Not Be King: Executive Power under the Constitution | |
| William G. Thomas III | A Question of Freedom: The Families Who Challenged Slavery from the Nation's Founding to the Civil War | |
| 2022 | Bruce A. Ragsdale | Washington at the Plow: The Founding Farmer and the Question of Slavery |
| Max Edling | Perfecting the Union: National and State Authority in the US Constitution | |
| Julie Flavell | The Howe Dynasty: The Untold Story of a Military Family and the Women Behind Britain's Wars for America | |
| Jeffrey H. Hacker | Minds and Hearts: The Story of James Otis Jr. and Mercy Otis Warren | |
| David O. Stewart | George Washington: The Political Rise of America's Founding Father | |
| 2023 | Maurizio Valsania | First among Men: George Washington and the Myth of American Masculinity |
| Mary Sarah Bilder | Female Genius: Eliza Harriot and George Washington at the Dawn of the Constitution | |
| Fred Kaplan | His Masterly Pen: A Biography of Jefferson the Writer | |
| Stacy Schiff | The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams | |
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