2026 awards and prizes

Recipients of the Society's awards, prizes and grants presented in 2026.

Samuel Eliot Morison Prize

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

  • Andrew Wiest, University of Southern Mississippi

Distinguished Book Awards

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

  • DistinguishedJohn M. Kinder

    World War Zoos: Humans and Other Animals in the Deadliest Conflict in the Modern Age · University of Chicago Press, 2025

  • DistinguishedAndrew Preston

    Total Defense: The New Deal and the Invention of National Security · Harvard University Press, 2025

  • First BookLauren Duval

    The Home Front: Revolutionary Households, Military Occupation, and the Making of American Independence · Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture & University of North Carolina Press, 2025

  • Biography and MemoirsHanna Diamond

    Josephine Baker’s Secret War · New Haven: Yale University Press, 2025

  • Edited and ReferenceIan Ona Johnson & Robert Clemm

    A Violent Peace: A Global Military History of the Interwar Period · University Press of Kansas, 2025

    In the Journal: Robert H. Clemm

The Vandervort Prizes

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

SMH Public History Award

The contribution of public historians to the field of military history.

  • Molly Bompane, USAHEC

    This We’ll Defend: Celebrating 250 Years of Army History · Museum Exhibit at Carlisle Barracks, PA.

  • Chris Magra, Center for the Study of Tennesseans at War

    Oral History Archive

Edward M. Coffman First Manuscript Prize

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

  • Travis Salley, University of Southern Mississippi

    Sex and Danger, Airborne Ranger: A Historical Analysis of G.I. Songs, Jody Calls and Marching Cadences

    In the Journal: Travis G. Salley

  • Honorable mentionBoyd Raumcharoen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

    Deteriorating Relations: Weatherable Materials, Tropical Decay, and American Power, 1942–1970s

Allan R. Millett Dissertation Research Grant

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

  • Srijita C. Pal, University of Southern California

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

  • Runner-upJules Anderson, Duke University

    Waging a Maritime Vernichtungskrieg: A Sociocultural History of Submarine Warfare in Nazi Germany, 1935-1945

  • Runner-upDongil Shin, University of Maryland-College Park

    Recognition through Violence: Trans-Imperial Counterinsurgency and Militarized Decolonization in Korea

Russell F. Weigley Graduate Student Travel Grants

Travel support for graduate students presenting at the annual meeting.

  • Lauren Cain, University of Maryland-College Park

    ’A souvenir from France’: How the US Military Mitigated War Bride Marriage, 1918-1923

  • Eleanor Lenoe-Williams, Rutgers University

    Militarized Boyhood: Japanese Child Army Followers in the Allied Occupation and the Korean War

    Grad Talks roundtable about dissertation topics

  • Marlon Londoño, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

    The ’Silly War’ That Wasn’t: Colombian Military History and the Untold Story of the Panama Canal

  • Srijita C. Pal, University of Southern California

    The War within the War: the 1918 Influenza Pandemic on the Western Front of the First World War

  • Brian Washam, University of Southern Mississippi

    The Battle over National Reconciliation: Gerald Ford’s Efforts to Heal the Wounds of the Nation through Clemency after the Vietnam War

  • Ariel Wilks, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

    A Colonial Tradition: Discourse of Privateering Before and During the American Revolution

Jeffrey Grey Memorial Travel Grant

Travel support for a graduate student from outside North America presenting at the annual meeting.

  • Piotr Bruzda, Adam Mickiewicz University

    Beyond Megan McLaughlin’s Legacy: Revisiting Medieval Reactions to Women Warriors

CSIS Graduate Student Prize in Applied Military History

The best graduate essay using military history to inform a current international security problem.

  • Kent Maximilian Ninomiya, Columbia University

    Guerrillas at the Arsenal: An Analysis of the 1943 Polish Home Army Operation, “Akcja Pod Arsenalem”

Edwin H. Simmons Award

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