The Army Historical Foundation is pleased to announce the winners of the 2025 Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Writing Awards. The 2025 awards honor books and articles published in 2025.
Book awards
Biography Redemption: MacArthur and the Campaign for the Philippines. By Peter R. Mansoor. Cambridge University Press.
Operational-Battle History A Task Force Called Faith: The Untold Story of the U.S. Army Soldiers Who Fought for Survival at Chosin Reservoir and Honor Back Home. By Steve Vogel. Lyons Press.
Institutional-Functional History The Airborne Mafia: The Paratroopers Who Shaped America’s Cold War Army. By Robert F. Williams. Cornell University Press.
Journals, Memoirs, and Letters Waging War for Freedom with the 54th Massachusetts: The Civil War Memoir of John W.M. Appleton. Edited by James Robbins Jewell and Eugene S. Van Sickle. Potomac Books.
Unit History The Road to Cisterna: Darby’s Rangers and Their Most Consequential Battle in World War II. By David Lyle Williams. Louisiana State University Press.
Reference A Forest of Granite: Union Monuments at Gettysburg, 1863-1913. By Brandan Harris. Brookline Books.
Reprint World War II Order of Battle: An Encyclopedic Reference to U.S. Army Ground Forces from Battalion through Division, 1939-1946. Revised Edition. By Captain Shelby L. Stanton, U.S. Army, Retired. Stackpole Books.
Article awards
Academic Journals “Light Fighters: The 7th Infantry Division (Light) and the Late Cold War, 1983-1989.” By Donald P. Wright. Army History, Winter 2025.
Journals and Magazines “Fort Donelson: Early Turning Point of the Civil War.” By John Walsh. Military Images, Winter 2025.
The book award winners receive a plaque honoring the book and a $1,000 cash award; the winner in the Reprint category receives a plaque only. The article award winners also received a plaque and a $250 cash award.
About the Foundation
The Army Historical Foundation, a 501©(3) nonprofit, tax-exempt organization, is dedicated to preserving the history and heritage of the American soldier. Its goal is to promote greater public appreciation for the contributions that America’s Army, Regular, Reserve, and National Guard, has made to the nation in 251 years of service. The Foundation is the principal fundraiser for the National Museum of the United States Army at Fort Belvoir, VA, which opened to the public on 11 November 2020.
In addition to fundraising for the National Museum of the United States Army, the Foundation’s projects and activities include refurbishment of historical Army buildings; acquisition and conservation of historical art, artifacts, and documents; support of Army history education programs; historical research; publication of historical materials on the American soldier; and providing counsel and support to private and governmental organizations committed to the same goals as the Foundation.
The AHF Distinguished Writing Awards program was established in 1997 to recognize authors who make a significant contribution to the scholarship on U.S. Army history. Each year, nominations are submitted to the Awards Committee by publishers and journal/magazine editors. A small group of finalists is selected and a final judging is made.
Thank you to all the book publishers and journals/magazines who submitted nominees for this year’s awards. We look forward to your participation in next year’s program.
For more information on the Foundation and its activities, see the Army Historical Foundation website.