Overview
SUBMISSION DEADLINE: MAY 1, 2024
The Willi Paul Adams Award is given biennially by the Organization of American Historians to the author of the best book on American history published in a language other than English. The award (formerly the Foreign Language Book Prize) is named for Willi Paul Adams, who was an active member of OAH in Germany and a tireless advocate of the internationalization of American history.
For this prize, the OAH defines both “history” and “American” broadly. To be eligible, a book should be concerned with the past (recent or distant) or with issues of continuity and change. It should also be substantially concerned with events or processes that began, developed, or ended in the American colonies and/or the United States. We welcome comparative and international studies that fall within these guidelines.
Authors of eligible books are invited to nominate their work. We urge scholars who know of eligible publications written by others to inform those authors of the award. Since the purpose of the award is to expose Americanists to scholarship originally published in a language other than English—to overcome the language barrier that keeps scholars apart—this award is not open to books whose manuscripts were originally submitted for publication in English or by people for whom English is their first language.
Each entry must have been published during the period January 1, 2023 through December 31, 2024.
Deadline: May 1, 2024
Please write a one- to two-page essay (in English, along with the title in English) explaining why the book is a significant and original contribution to our understanding of American history, and include a summary of the book’s main argument.
The application should also include the following information:
- Name
- Mailing address
- Institutional affiliation
- Fax number
- Email address
- Language of submitted book
- Table of contents in English
Copies of the book and essay will be reviewed by contributing editors of the Journal of American History who are proficient in the language of the submission as well as by referees (proficient in the language of the submitted book) who are experts on its subject matter.
Four copies of the essay and book, clearly labeled “2025 OAH Willi Paul Adams Award Entry,” must be mailed to the following address and postmarked by May 1, 2024:
Willi Paul Adams Award Committee
c/o Organization of American Historians
112 North Bryan Avenue
Bloomington IN 47408-4141
Bound page proofs may be used for books to be published after May 1, 2024 and before January 1, 2025. If bound page proofs are submitted, a bound copy of the book must be postmarked no later than January 7, 2025 and sent to the OAH address above.
Electronic page proofs also will be accepted as a placeholder only. Please email the file to [email protected] by midnight PST on May 1, 2024 and follow with bound copies as soon as they are available.
If a book carries a copyright date that is different from the publication date, but the actual publication date falls during the correct time frame making it eligible, please include a letter of explanation from the publisher with each copy of the book.
2023
Beatriz Carolina Peña, Queens College (CUNY). 26 años de esclavitud: Juan Miranda y otros negros españoles en la Nueva York colonial [26 Years a Slave: Juan Miranda and Other Spanish Negroes in Colonial New York]
2021
Elsa Devienne, Northumbria University, La ruée vers le sable: Une histoire environnementale des plages de Los Angeles au XXe siècle [The Sand Rush: An Environmental History of Los Angeles Beaches in the 20th Century] (Éditions de la Sorbonne)
2019
Anna Mazurkiewicz, University of Gdańsk. Uchodźcy polityczni z Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej w amerykańskiej polityce zimnowojennej, 1948–1954 [Political Exiles from East Central Europe in American Cold War Politics, 1948–1954] (Institute of National Remembrance and University of Gdańsk)
2017
Catherine Collomp, Université Paris-Diderot, Résister au nazisme: Le Jewish Labor Committee, New York, 1934–1945 (CNRS Editions) [Rescue, Relief and Resistance, The Jewish Labor Committee’s Anti-Nazi Operations, 1934–1945] (Wayne State University Press, 2021)
Honorable Mention: Gilles Havard, Centre National de la Recherche Scientique (CNRS), Histoire des coureurs de bois. Amérique du Nord 1600 –1840 (Les Indes Savantes) [A History of Indian Traders. North America, 1600 –1840]
2015
Jürgen Martschukat, Erfurt University, Governing through the Family: Fatherhood and Families in American History since 1770 (Campus Verlag)
2013
Aurora Bosch, University of Valencia (Spain), Fear of Democracy: U.S. Perceptions of the Spanish Second Republic and the Civil War (Editorial Crítica)
2011
Paul Schor, Université Paris Diderot, Counting and Classifying: A History of American Censuses (Éditions de l’École des hautes études en sciences sociales).
2009
Bernd Greiner, Hamburg Institute for Social Research, War without Fronts: The USA in Vietnam (Hamburger Edition).
2007
Pierre Gervais, Département d’Histoire, Université Paris 8/CENA-Mascipo UMR 8168, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales-CNRS, The Origins of the Industrial Revolution in the United States: From Mercantile Economy to Industrial Capitalism, 1800–1850 (Editions de l’École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales)
2005
Michel Cordillot, Université Paris 8, The Democratic and Social Republic in America: French-Speaking Radicals in the USA; A Biographical Dictionary, 1848–1922 (Editions de l’Atelier)
2003
Daria Frezza, University of Siena (Italy), The Leader, the Crowd, and Democracy in American Public Discourse, 1880-1941 (Caroccie Editore)
2001*
Claudia Schnurmann, Georg-August-University Gottingen, Atlantic Worlds: English and Dutch People in the American-Atlantic Area, 1648–1713 (Bohlau Verlag)
1999*
Jong Won Lee, U.S.-Korean Relations and Japan in East Asia’s Cold War (University of Tokyo Press)
1997*
Jean Heffer, The United States and the Pacific: The Story of a Frontier (Albin Michel, Paris)
1996*
Marie-Jeanne Rossignol, The Nationalist Ferment: At the Origins of American Foreign Policy, 1789–1812 (Éditions Belin, FRANCE)
1995*
Ferdinando Fasce, A Family in Stars and Stripes: The Great War and Corporate Culture in America (Il Mulino, ITALY)
1994*
Jacques Portes, Une Fascination Réticente: Les États-Unis Dans L’Opinion Française (Presses Universitaires De Nancy, FRANCE)
* Recipients of award received it as the “Foreign Language Book Prize.”