Cromwell Book Prize
Criteria
Excellence in scholarship in the field of American legal history by an early career scholar.
Amount
$5,000
Deadline
June 1, 2026
The William Nelson Cromwell Foundation Book Prize is awarded annually to the best book in the field of American legal history by an early career scholar. The prize is designed to recognize and promote new work in the field by graduate students, law students, post-doctoral fellows and early career faculty. The work may be in any area of American legal history, including constitutional and comparative studies, but scholarship in the colonial and early national periods will receive some preference. The prize is limited to a first book copyrighted no later than the tenth calendar year following the calendar year in which the author was awarded a PhD or other highest degree earned. Submission of a book by an author who has previously been awarded a Cromwell Foundation Prize for a dissertation or article must be accompanied by a showing that the book enhances, or differs in subject from, the previous work.
The author of the winning book receives a prize of $5,000. The Foundation awards the prize after a review of the recommendation of the Cromwell Prize Advisory Committee of the American Society for Legal History. The Committee shall consider a book in the year of its copyright date or of its actual publication. However, no book shall be considered for the prize more than once.
The committee will accept nominations from authors, presses, or anyone else, of any book published in the previous calendar year or that bears a copyright date from the previous calendar year. To nominate a book, please send copies of it and the curriculum vitae of its author to John D. Gordan, III, Chair of the Cromwell Prize Advisory Committee, and to each member of the Cromwell Book Prize Advisory Committee with a postmark no later than June 1. Please note that some committee members have elected to receive both digital and paper copies.
Committee Members
John D. Gordan, III
Secretary of the Cromwell Foundation
1133 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10128
Hard copies only.Katrina Jagodinsky, Chair
University of Nebraska
Oldfather Hall
660 N 12th St Suite 612
Lincoln, NE 68508
kjagodinsky@unl.edu
Each submission should include both a hard copy and e-book.Michael Blaakman
Princeton University
102 Dickinson Hall
Department of History
Princeton, NJ 08544
Blaakman@Princeton.edu
Hard copies only.Sarah Milov
University of Virginia
Nau Hall, South Lawn
1540 Jefferson Park Avenue
Charlottesville, VA 22904
sem9dw@virginia.edu
Each submission should include both a hard copy and e-book.Bill Novak
University of Michigan
625 S. State St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Hard copies only.