Gilbert Chinard Book Prize

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Next Award Deadline: December 1, 2025 (extension to January 1, 2026 for books published in the month of December)

The Gilbert Chinard Prize is awarded each year by the Society for French Historical Studies with the financial support of its Institut Français d’Amérique Fund. It recognizes the best book published for the first time and with a copyright date of 2025 by a North American press in one of the two following fields: the history of French-American relations; or the comparative history of France and North, Central, or South America.  Books focusing on any historical period or type of history may be considered. Critical editions of significant source materials, as well as books translated into English, are eligible.

The winner, who receives an award of $1,000, will be announced at the annual meeting of the Society. The prize may not be shared, although an “honorable mention” may be named.

To apply: Copies of books should be sent to each committee member below. Please note that we accept self-nominations.

Committee members:

Ian Merkel (2026) (chair)

American Studies Department
P.O. Box 716
9700 AS Groningen
The Netherlands
i.w.merkel@rug.nl

Nina Kushner (2027)

History Department
Clark University
950 Main Street
Worcester, MA 01610 (USA)
nkushner@clarku.edu

Jeff H. Jackson (2028)

Rhodes College
Department of History
Buckman Hall, 201
2000 North Parkway
Memphis, TN 38112
jacksonj@rhodes.edu

About Gilbert Chinard:

Gilbert Chinard (1881-1972) was a French-born literary historian who was educated at the Universities of Poitiers and Bordeaux.  Moving to New York in 1908 as a visiting instructor in French Literature, he settled into an American academic career that led him to teaching positions at Brown University (1908-12), the University of California, Berkeley (1912-1919), Johns Hopkins University (1919-36), and Princeton University (1937-1950).

Click here to read about the history of the Institut Français d’Amérique.

2026 WINNER

Winner: Marlene Daut, The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe. New York: Knopf, 2025.

The story of Henry Christophe is often told as either tragedy or farce. Marlene Daut’s critical biography moves beyond such tropes, delving into the complexity and the contradictions of this fascinating figure. Thanks to Daut’s careful archival work and eloquent writing, we are invited to look with fresh eyes on Christophe’s world of slavery and emancipation, as well the transformations unleashed by the Age of Revolutions and the forces that sought to control them.

Honorable Mention:

Richard Ivan Jobs and Steven Van Wolputte, In the Land of the Lacandón: A Graphic History of Adventure and Imperialism (McGill).

This graphic history examines the two expeditions of French nobleman and adventurer Bernard de Colmont to “discover” the Lacandón, believed to be authentic descendants of the Maya in the 1930s- 1950s. The committee was impressed by its novel approach and varied materials: graphic history, historical essay, a Lacandón poem and its translation, and an interview with the authors. In the Land of the Lacandón is a remarkable volume that will be of great use in the classroom, bringing to the fore discussions about what can and cannot reliably be said about the past.

Past Winners

2025:
Elisa Camiscioli, Selling French Sex: Prostitution, Trafficking and Global Migrations (Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press, 2024) 9781-009-41840-9. 
Honorable Mention: Raymond Jonas, Habsburgs on the Rio Grande: The Rise and Fall of the Second Mexican Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2024) ISBN 978-0-674-25857-0.

2024:
Katlyn Marie Carter, Democracy in Darkness: Secrecy and Transparency in the Age of Revolutions (The Lewis Walpole Series in Eighteenth-Century Culture and History). (Yale University Press, 2023). 
Honorable mention:  Sara E. Johnson, Encyclopédie noire :  The Making of Moreau de Saint-Méry's Intellectual World. The Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and University of North Carolina Press, 2023.

2023:
Manuel Covo, Entrepôt of Revolutions: Saint-Domingue, Commercial Sovereignty, and the French-American Alliance. (Oxford University Press, 2022).
Honorable mention: Joan DeJean, Mutinous Women: How French Convicts Became Founding Mothers of the Gulf Coast. (Basic Books, 2022).

2022:
Celeste Day Moore, Soundscapes of Liberation: African American Music in Postwar France (Duke University Press, 2021).
Honorable Mention: Tessa Murphy, The Creole Archipelago: Race and Borders in the Colonial Caribbean (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021).

2021:
Vanessa Mongey, Rogue Revolutionaries: The Fight for Legitimacy in the Greater Caribbean (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020).

2020:
Céline Carayon, Eloquence Embodied: Nonverbal Communication among French and Indigenous Peoples in the Americas (University of North Carolina Press, 2019).

2019:
Eric Jennings, Escape from Vichy: The Refugee Exodus to the French Caribbean (Harvard University Press, 2018).
Honorable Mention: Francesca Lidia Viano, Sentinel: The Unlikely Origins of the Statue of Liberty (Harvard University Press, 2018).

2018:
Paul Cheney, Cul de Sac: Patrimony, Capitalism, and Slavery in French Saint Domingue (University of Chicago Press, 2017).

2017:
Kristen Stromberg Childers, Seeking Imperialism's Embrace: National Identity, Decolonization, and Assimilation in the French Caribbean (Oxford University Press, 2016).

2016: 
Nathan Perl-Rosenthal, Citizen Sailors: Becoming American in the Age of Revolution (Harvard University Press, 2015).

2015:
Michael Kwass, Contraband: Louis Mandrin and the Making of a Global Underground (Harvard University Press, 2014).

2014:
Mary Louise Roberts, What Soldiers Do: Sex and the American G.I. in World War II France (University of Chicago Press, 2013).

2013:
Rebecca Scott and Jean Hébrard, Freedom Papers: An Atlantic Odyssey in the Age of Emancipation (Harvard University Press, 2012).

2012:
Brooke Blower, Becoming Americans in Paris: Transatlantic Politics and Culture between the World Wars (Oxford University Press, 2011).

2011:
Ashli White, Encountering Revolution: Haiti and the Making of the Early Republic (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010).

2010:
Rachel Hope Cleves, The Reign of Terror in America: Visions of Violence from Anti-Jacobinism to Antislavery (Cambridge University Press, 2009).

2009:
Neil Safier, Measuring the New World: Enlightenment Science and South America (University of Chicago Press, 2008).

2008:
Vanessa Schwartz, It’s So French!: Hollywood, Paris, and the Making of Cosmopolitan Film Culture (University of Chicago Press, 2007).

2007:
John Garrigus, Before Haiti: Race and Citizenship in French Saint-Domingue (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006).

2006:
Stacy Schiff, A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Brith of America (Henry Holt and Co., 2005).

2005:
Allan Greer, Mohawk Saint: Catherine Tekakwitha and the Jesuits (Oxford University Press, 2005).

2004:
Brent Hayes Edwards, The Practice of Diaspora: Literature, Translation, and the Rise of Black Internationalism (Harvard University Press, 2003).

2003:
Mark Hulliung, Citizens and Citoyens: Republicans and Liberals in America and France (Harvard University Press, 2002).

2002:
Irwin M. Wall, France, the United States, and the Algerian War (University of California Press, 2001).

2001:
Jacques Portes, Fascination and Misgivings: The United States in French Opinion, 1870-1914, translated by Elborg Forster (Cambridge University Press, 2000).

2000:
Samuel Scott, From Yorktown to Valmy (University of Colorado Press, 1999).

1999:
Philip Katz, From Appomattox to Montmartre: Americans and the Paris Commune (Harvard University Press, 1998).

1998:
Nancy Green, Ready-to-Wear, Ready-to-Work: A Century of Industrialization and Immigration in New York and Paris (Duke University Press, 1997).

1997:
Lloyd Kramer, Lafayette in Two Worlds: Public Culture and Personal Identities in an Age of Revolutions (University of North Carolina Press, 1996).

1996:
Laura Meixner, French Realist Painting and the Critique of American Society, 1856-1900 (Cambridge University Press, 1995).

1995:
Elisa C. Klaus, Every Child a Lion: The Origins of Maternal and Infant Health Policy in the United States and France, 1890-1920 (Cornell University Press, 1993).

1994:
No prize awarded.

1993:
Richard Kuisel, Seducing the French: The Dilemma of Americanization (University of California Press, 1993).

1992:
No prize awarded

1991:
Irwin M. Wall, The United States and the Making of Postwar France, 1945-1954 (Cambridge University Press, 1991).

1990:
No prize awarded.

1989:
Patrice Higonnet, Sister Republics: The Origins of French and American Republicanism (Harvard University Press, 1988).

1988:
No prize awarded.

1987:
Robert S. Weddle, editor, La Salle, the Mississippi, and the Gulf: Three Primary Documents (Texas A&M University Press, 1987).

1986:
Carl J. Ekberg, Colonial Ste. Genevieve: An Adventure on the Mississippi Frontier (Patrice Press, 1985).

1985:
James Axtell, The Invasion Within: The Contect of Cultures in Colonial North America (Oxford University Press, 1985).

1984:
Patricia Kay Galloway, editor for volumes IV and V of Mississippi Provincial Archives: French Dominion, 1729-1748, 1749-1763 (Louisiana State University Press, 1984).

1983:
Jon Butler, The Huguenots in America: A Refugee People in New World Society (Harvard University Press, 1983).

1982:
Orville T. Murphy, Charles Fravier, Comte de Vergennes: French Diplomacy in the Age of Revolution, 1719-1787 (State University of New York Press, 1982).

1981:
John G. Reid, Acadia, Maine, and New Scotland: Marginal Colonies in the Seventeenth Century (University of Toronto Press, 1981).

1980:
James H. Hutson, John Adams and the Diplomacy of the American Revolution, (University of Kentucky Press, 1980).
Incentive Prize: Robert R. Crout, "The Diplomacy of Trade: The Influence of Commercial Considerations on French Involvement in the Anglo-American War of Independence, 1775-1778" (dissertation at the University of Georgia, 1977).

1979:
Stanley J. Idzerda, Lafayette in the Age of the American Revolution: Selected Letters and Papers, 1776-1790 (Cornell University Press, 1983).
Incentive Prize: Edward Angel, "James Monroe's Mission to Paris, 1794-1796" (dissertation).

1978:
Jay Higginbotham, Old Mobile: Fort Louis de la Louisiane, 1702-1711 (Museum of the City of Mobile, 1977).
Incentive Prize: Thomas A. Sancton, "Red, White, and Blue: A Study of the American Image in the Eyes of the French Left, 1848-1871."

1977:
Lee Kennett, The French Forces in America 1780-1783 (Greenwood Press, 1977).

1976:
No prize awarded.
Honorable Mention: Howard C. Rice, Thomas Jefferson's Paris (Princeton University Press, 1976).

1975:
Jonathan A. Dull, The French Navy and American Independence: A Study of Arms and Diplomacy, 1774-1787 (Princeton University Press, 1976); and
Russell M. Jones, "The Parisian Education of an American Surgeon, 832-1835."
Stephen A. Schuker, The End of French Dominance in Europe (University of North Carolina Press, 1976).
Honorable Mention: Henry Blumenthal, American and French Culture, 1800 to 1900: Interchanges of Arts, Science, Literature, and Society (Louisiana State University Press, 1976).

1974:
Albert Hall Bowman, The Struggle for Neutrality: Franco-American Diplomacy in the Federalist Era (University of Tennessee Press, 1974).
Incentive Prize: Melvin B. Leffler, "The Struggle for Stability: America Policy toward France, 1921-1933."

1973:
William J. Eccles, France in America (Harper & Row, 1972); and
Jacob Price, France and the Chesapeake: A History of the French Tobacco Monopoly, 1574-1791, and Its Relationship to the British and American Tobacco Trades, 2 vols. (University of Michigan Press, 1973).
Incentive Prize: James T. Schlefer, "The Making of Tocqueville's American (manuscript).

1972:
Howard C. Rice, Jr., and Anne S. K. Brown, The American Campaigns of Rochambeau's Army, 1780-1783 (Princeton University Press/Brown University Press, 1972).

1971:
Nancy Nichols Barker, The French Legation in Texas, 2 vols. (Texas State Historical Association, 1971, 1973).

1970:
Laura V. Monti, to support the publication of a detailed inventory of the Rochambeau Papers.

1969:
No prize awarded.

1968:
Daniel Carroll, "Henri Mercier's Diplomatic Mission to Washington" (manuscript, subsequently published as Henri Mercier and the American Civil War [Princeton University Press, 1971]).

1967:
William C. Stinchcombe, "French-American Alliance in American Politics, 1778-1783" (manuscript, subsequently published as The American Revolution and the French Alliance [Syracuse University Press, 1969]).