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Bancroft Prize Winners

The Bancroft Prize is awarded each year to two authors of "distinguished works" in American history and diplomacy. Bestowed by Columbia University, it is considered to be among the most prestigious awards in the field of American history. This collection includes excerpts of essays and books by prize recipients from the past several years, as well as reviews of the award-winning books.
created by Tony Field on May 24, 2023
KKK march overlaid on J. Edgar Hoover

How Hoover Took Down the Klan

The FBI’s successful campaign against white supremacists is also a cautionary tale.
by Beverly Gage via The Atlantic on November 20, 2022
 
Excerpt of 2023 awardee “G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century,” by Beverly Gage.
J. Edgar Hoover (center) with President John F. Kennedy and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, February 23, 1961.

J. Edgar Hoover Tried to Destroy the Left — and Liberals Enabled Him

The author of a new biography explains how liberals played an important role in enabling Hoover’s antidemocratic crusade.
by Beverly Gage, Michael Brenes via Jacobin on November 28, 2022
 
Interview with 2023 Bancroft winner Beverly Gage about
J. Edgar Hoover collage.

J. Edgar Hoover’s Long Shadow

The FBI’s first director built the agency around some of his own worst instincts.
by Michael Kazin via The New Republic on December 9, 2022
Black and white image of people observing photographs hanging on the wall at an exhibition in Oaxaca in 1999 about magonismo.

The Mexican Revolution as U.S. History

Making the case for why U.S. history only makes sense when told as a binational story.
by Jonna Perrillo via Boston Review on August 4, 2022
Ricardo Flores Magon's mugshot.

The Anarchist Who Authored the Mexican Revolution

A new history of the rebels led by Ricardo Flores Magón emphasizes the role of the United States in the effort to take them down.
by Geraldo Cadava via The New Yorker on October 5, 2022
Photo of California gold fragment found by John Sutter in 1848

A Pacific Gold Rush

On the roads and seas miners traveled to reach gold in the United States and Australia.
by Mae Ngai via Lapham’s Quarterly on August 25, 2021
 
Excerpt of 2022 awardee “The Chinese Question: The Gold Rushes and Global Politics,” by Mae Ngai.
A black and white photo of historian Mae Ngai.

“We’ve Always Had Activists in Our Communities”

May Ngai uses her experiences as an activist in the 1980s and her research on the 19th century Chinese diaspora to debunk stereotypes about Chinese Americans.
by Mae Ngai, Jilene Chua via Public Books on October 13, 2021
 
Interview with 2022 Bancroft winner Mae Ngai about the caricatures of Chinese Americans that have cropped up through history as a result of various political agendas.
Tarred as a “coolie race,” the Chinese were cast as a threat to free white labor. Train with fire around it and a face in the back.

America Was Eager for Chinese Immigrants. What Happened?

In the gold-rush era, ceremonial greetings swiftly gave way to bigotry and violence.
by Michael Luo via The New Yorker on August 20, 2021
 
Review of 2022 awardee “The Chinese Question: The Gold Rushes and Global Politics,” by Mae Ngai.
Segregated waiting room at Union Station railroad depot in Jacksonville, Florida.

Historian Mia Bay on ‘Traveling Black’

Bay’s new book explores the intertwined history of travel segregation and African American struggles for freedom of movement.
by Kristen De Groot, Mia Bay via Penn Today on February 9, 2021
 
Interview with 2022 Bancroft winner Mia Bay about her book “Traveling Black: A Story of Race and Resistance.”

‘Traveling Black: A Story of Race and Resistance’

An excerpt from a new book that explores the intertwined history of travel segregation and African American struggles for freedom of movement.
by Mia Bay via Boston Globe Magazine on March 25, 2021
 
Excerpt of 2022 awardee “Traveling Black: A Story of Race and Resistance," by Mia Bay.
Men on horses walking through the desert.

How a Commissary General and His Clerks Dispossessed Thousands of Their Native Land

From Claudio Saunt's Cundill Prize-nominated "Unworthy Republic."
by Claudio Saunt via Literary Hub on October 14, 2020
 
Excerpt of 2021 awardee "Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory," by Claudio Saunt.

Indian Removal

One of the world's first mass deportations, bureaucratically managed and large-scale, took place on American soil.
by Claudio Saunt via Aeon on April 23, 2020
 
Essay by 2021 Bancroft winner Claudio Saunt about the centrality of Indian removal to U.S. nation-building, and how it served as a model for both the Nazis and the French occupation of Algeria.

How Is a Disaster Made?

Studying Hurricane Katrina as a discrete event is studying a fiction.
by Andy Horowitz via Lapham’s Quarterly on July 7, 2020
 
Excerpt of 2021 awardee "Katrina: A History, 1915-2015," by Andy Horowitz.
A house and an american flag

A Disaster 100 Years in the Making

Covid-19 and climate change are drastically intensifying insecurity in New Orleans.
by Eric Klinenberg via New York Review of Books on October 22, 2020
 
Review of 2021 awardee "Katrina: A History, 1915-2015," by Andy Horowitz.

The Midcentury Battle to Save America’s Cities from Crisis

Lizabeth Cohen on the poverty and prosperity of the American city.
by Lizabeth Cohen via Literary Hub on October 8, 2019
 
Excerpt of 2020 awardee "Saving America's Cities: Ed Logue and the Struggle to Renew Urban America in the Suburban Age," by Lizabeth Cohen.
A picture of Boston being modernized through urban development, construction is happening on several buildings.

How Did American Cities Become So Unequal?

A new history of Ed Logue and his vision of urban renewal documents the broken promises of midcentury liberalism.
by Kim Phillips-Fein via The Nation on October 19, 2020
 
Review of 2020 awardee "Saving America's Cities: Ed Logue and the Struggle to Renew Urban America in the Suburban Age," by Lizabeth Cohen.

The Double Battle

A review of David Blight's new biography of Frederick Douglass.
by Eric Foner via The Nation on October 24, 2018
 
Review of 2019 awardee "Frederick Douglass, Prophet of Freedom," by David W. Blight.
Frederick Douglass.

Frederick Douglass, Abolition, and Memory

On Douglass’s monumental life, the voice of the biographer, memory and tragedy, and why history matters right now.
by David W. Blight, Martha Hodes via Public Books on November 26, 2018
 
Interview with 2019 Bancroft winner David Blight about the challenges of writing a new Frederick Douglass biography.
A painting of George Whitefield preaching to a crowd.

Darkness Falls on the Land of Light

Divisions in society and religion that still exist today resulted from the "Great Awakenings" of the 18th Century.
by Douglas Winiarski via American Heritage on February 1, 2018
 
Excerpt of 2018 awardee "Darkness Falls on the Land of Light: Experiencing Religious Awakenings in Eighteenth-Century New England," by Douglas Winiarski.

Indians, Slaves, and Mass Murder: The Hidden History

Two historians shed light on the atrocities of Native American enslavement and genocide.
by Peter Nabokov via New York Review of Books on November 24, 2016
 
Review of 2017 awardee "The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America,"by Andrés Reséndez.

Revisiting the Ghosts of Attica

A wrenching new book recounts the bloodiest prison battle in our history.
by Tom Robbins via The Marshall Project on September 19, 2016
 
Review of 2017 awardee "Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy," by Heather Ann Thompson.
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