The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation announced today the shortlist of six books in contention for the inaugural Guggenheim-Lehrman Prize in Military History. The winner of the $50,000 prize will be announced at a ceremony March 17 at the New-York Historical Society in New York City.
"We were inundated with some great works of military history, scholarly, well-written and on important historical subjects," said the chairman of the judging committee, Prof. Andrew Roberts. "There were many books that could have made the shortlist."
The books on the 2013 shortlist:
" The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945 (The Liberation Trilogy) by Rick Atkinson (Henry Holt & Co.)
" Gettysburg: The Last Invasion by Allen C. Guelzo (Alfred A. Knopf)
" Britain Against Napoleon: The Organization of Victory, 1793-1815 by Roger Knight (Allen Lane/Penguin Books)
" Surge: My Journey with General David Petraeus and the Remaking of the Iraq War by Peter R. Mansoor (Yale University Press)
" The Men Who Lost America by Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy (Yale University Press)
" The Bombing War: Europe, 1939-1945 by Richard Overy (Allen Lane/Penguin Books)
"Our purpose in establishing this annual prize is to restore the serious pursuit of military history in research, scholarship, and writing-in recent times ignored by the American academic community-to its traditional role as a staple of historical study," said Josiah Bunting III, president of the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, which is providing part of the funding for the prize, and national chairman of the English Speaking Union.
The Foundation, established by Harry Guggenheim in 1929 to study the predisposing qualities that lead humankind to commit acts of "violence, domination and aggression," has always numbered the history of warfare among its primary research interests. In addition to the Foundation, funding for the prize is also being provided by Lewis E. Lehrman, co-founder of the Gilder-Lehrman Institute of American History, author, and champion of studies in American political and military history.
The judging panel for the prize comprises:
" Andrew Roberts, Ph.D., Merrill Family Visiting Professor of History at Cornell University; Committee Chair
" Charles F. Brower IV, Ph.D., Brigadier General, USA, Ret.; Henry King Burgwyn Professor of Military History, Virginia Military Institute
" Josiah Bunting III, President of the HF Guggenheim Foundation; Recording Secretary to the Committee
" Eliot A. Cohen, Ph.D., Robert E. Osgood Professor of Strategic Studies, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University
" Saul David, Ph.D., Professor of War Studies, University of Buckingham
" Leanda de Lisle, M.A., M.B.A., historian and journalist
" Sir Hew Strachan, Ph.D., Chichele Professor in the History of War, All Souls, Oxford University
Over 100 books were submitted for consideration for 2013. The Prize will be awarded annually in recognition of the best book in the field of military history published in English during the previous calendar year.
