2025 awards and prizes

Recipients of the Society's awards, prizes and grants presented in 2025.

Samuel Eliot Morison Prize

For a body of contributions to military history over a career.

Distinguished Book Awards

The best book-length publications in English on military history, in four categories.

  • Edited and ReferencePedro Luengo & Gene Allen Smith

    A Fortified Sea: The Defense of the Caribbean in the Eighteenth Century · University of Alabama Press, 2024

    In the Journal: Gene A. Smith

  • Biography and MemoirsKenneth M. Swope

    Struggle for Empire: The Battles of General Zuo Zongtang · Naval Institute Press, 2024

  • First BookJ. Matthew Ward

    Garden of Ruins: Occupied Louisiana in the Civil War · LSU Press, 2024

  • DistinguishedWayne E. Lee

    The Cutting-off Way: Indigenous Warfare in Eastern North America, 1500-1800 · University of North Carolina Press, 2023

  • DistinguishedDouglas Porch

    Resistance and Liberation: France at War, 1942-1945 · Cambridge University Press, 2024

The Vandervort Prizes

Outstanding journal articles in military history, in the Journal and beyond it.

Edward M. Coffman First Manuscript Prize

The best dissertation in military history, defended in the previous calendar year.

  • Jorden Pitt, Texas Christian University

    The Traumatic Blue Sky: The Psychological Consequences of Aerial Combat in the Twentieth Century

  • Honorable mentionBrandon Bernick, Florida State University

    The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend: The Strategic Influence of America’s Flawed Intelligence Partnership with Reinhard Gehlen

  • Honorable mentionJesus Solis, Harvard University

    Black Market Empire: The Illicit Sale of American Goods, Combat Supplies, and Drugs in Japan and America’s Underground Lake, 1945-1975

Allan R. Millett Dissertation Research Grant

Research funding for a doctoral dissertation in any field of military history.

  • Cody J. Billock, Ohio University

    Cold War Citadel: Huế & the Global Vietnamese Civil War, 1945–1975

  • Runner-upSrijita C. Pal, University of Southern California

    The War within the War: the 1918 Influenza Pandemic on the Western Front

Russell F. Weigley Graduate Student Travel Grants

Travel support for graduate students presenting at the annual meeting.

  • Cody J. Billock, Ohio University

    The Viêt Công’s Total War: Communist Mass Mobilization in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War

  • Tristan P. Krause, Texas A&M

    Trading Our Dead for the Living: American Remains Recovery Operations in Soviet-Occupied Territory

    In the Journal: Tristan Krause

  • Kaylie M. McCarthy, Tulane University

    Tattoos and Traitors: The US Military and German Tattoos During the Great War

  • James E. Schroeder, Washington State University

    CIA Agent Michael Korzhan: Ukrainian Nationalist, Orthodox Priest, and Cold War Spy

    In the Journal: James Evan Schroeder

  • Christian C. Singletary, University of Southern Mississippi

    The Pennsylvania National Guard in World War I: Experience, Masculinity, and Culture

  • Anthony L. Zacchino, Kent State University

    Lorenzo Thomas in the Mississippi River Valley: A New Perspective on Emancipation

Edwin H. Simmons Award

For long, distinguished or particularly outstanding service to the Society.

George C. Marshall Lecture in Military History

An annual lecture at the American Historical Association meeting, printed in the Journal.

  • Wayne E. Lee

    The Cutting-Off Way: Indigenous Warfare in Eastern North America, 1500-1800

    American Historical Association annual meeting