Tom Watson Brown Book Award

The Society of Civil War Historians solicits nominations for the Tom Watson Brown Book Award for books published in 2025. Publishers are asked to send books, along with a cover letter nominating the work for the Tom Watson Brown Award, directly to the four prize jurors no later than January 31, 2026. Only books published in 2025 will be considered.

All genres of scholarship on the causes, conduct, and effects, broadly defined, of the Civil War are eligible. This includes, but is not exclusive to, monographs, synthetic works presenting original interpretations, and biographies. Edited collections, works of fiction, poetry, and textbooks, however, will not be considered. Jurors will consider nominated works' scholarly and literary merit as well as the extent to which they make original contributions to our understanding of the period.

Michael E. Woods, Professor of History and Director of the Andrew Jackson Papers at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, will chair the prize jury. The other members are Kristen T. Oertel, Mary Frances Barnard Chair in 19th-Century American History, University of Tulsa, and Laura F. Edwards, Class of 1921 Bicentennial Professor in the History of American Law and Liberty in the History Department, Princeton University. Tad Brown, President of the Watson-Brown Foundation, Inc., will serve as a non-voting member of the jury.

The winner will be announced by August 1, 2026. The prize will be presented at the SCWH banquet at the Southern Historical Association annual meeting, where the winner will deliver a formal address that may be published in a subsequent issue of the Journal of the Civil War Era. Review the 2025 call for submissions here.