International Book Prize Winners Archive

In 2023, Cécile Fromont received the Gustav Ranis International Book Prize for best book for Images on a Mission in Early Modern Kongo and Angola (Penn State University Press). Didac Queralt received the 2023 Gaddis Smith International Book Prize for best first book by a Yale ladder faculty member for Pawned States: State Building in the Era of International Finance (Princeton University Press). Read the press release

In 2022, Susan Rose-Ackerman received the Gustav Ranis International Book Prize for best book for Democracy and Executive Power: Policymaking Accountability in the US, the UK, Germany, and France (Yale University Press). Lucas Rambo Bender received the Gaddis Smith International Book Prize for best first book by a Yale ladder faculty member for Du Fu Transforms: Tradition and Ethics Amid Societal Collapse (Harvard University Press). Read the press release

In 2021, Jacqueline Jung, professor of history of art, received the Gustav Ranis International Book Prize for best book, Eloquent Bodies: Movement, Expression, and the Human Figure in Gothic Sculpture (Yale University Press). Daniel Mattingly, assistant professor of political science, received the Gaddis Smith International Book Prize for best first book, The Art of Political Control in China (Cambridge University Press). 

In 2020, Robert Harms, the Henry J. Heinz Professor of History & African Studies, and Yair Listokin, the Shibley Family Fund Professor of Law, were awarded international book prizes. Professor Harms received the Gustav Ranis International Book Prize for best book, Land of Tears: The Exploration and Exploitation of Equatorial Africa (Basic Books, 2019). Professor Listokin received the Gaddis Smith International Book Prize for best first book, Law and Macroeconomics: Legal Remedies to Recessions (Harvard University Press, 2019).

In 2019, two faculty members received the Gustav Ranis International Book Prize for best book: Edyta Bojanowska, Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures, for “A World of Empires: The Russian Voyage of the Frigate Pallada” (Harvard University Press, 2018) and Edward Rugemer, Associate Professor of African American Studies & History, for “Slave Law and the Politics of Resistance in the Early Atlantic World” (Harvard University Press, 2018). Robyn Creswell, Associate Professor of Comparative Literature, received the Gaddis Smith International Book Prize for best first book, “City of Beginnings: Poetic Modernism in Beirut” (Princeton University Press, 2019). 

In 2018, Priyamvada Natarajan, professor of astronomy and physics, received the Gustav Ranis International Book Prize for best book for “Mapping the Heavens: The Radical Scientific Ideas that Reveal the Cosmos” (Yale University Press). Two faculty members received the Gaddis Smith International Book Prize for best first book: Kate Baldwin, assistant professor of political science, for “The Paradox of Traditional Chiefs in Democratic Africa” (Cambridge University Press) and Taisu Zhang, associate professor of law, for “The Laws and Economics of Confucianism: Kinship and Property in Preindustrial China and England” (Cambridge University Press).

In 2017, three faculty members received the Gaddis Smith International Book Prize for best first book: Ayesha Ramachandran, assistant professor of comparative literature, for “The Worldmakers: Global Imaging in Early Modern Europe” (The University of Chicago Press, 2015); William Rankin, assistant professor of the history of science, for “After the Map: Cartography, Navigation, and the Transformation of Territory in the Twentieth Century” (The University of Chicago Press, 2016); and Anna Zayaruznaya, assistant professor of music, for “The Monstrous New Art: Divided Forms in the Late Medieval Motet” (Cambridge University Press, 2015). Two faculty members received the Gustav Ranis International Book Prize for best book: Alice Kaplan, the John M. Musser Professor of French, for “Looking for the Stranger: Albert Camus and the Life of a Literary Classic” (The University of Chicago Press, 2016) and Kishwar Rizvi, associate professor in the history of art, for “The Transnational Mosque: Architecture and Historical Memory in the Contemporary Middle East” (The University of North Carolina Press, 2015).

In 2016, Emily Erikson, an associate professor in the Department of Sociology, was awarded the Gaddis Smith International Book Prize for best first book for Between Monopoly and Free Trade: The English East India Company, 1600-1757 (Princeton University Press, 2014). Timothy Snyder, the Bird White Housum Professor of History, received the Gustav Ranis International Book Prize for best book for Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning (Penguin Random House, 2015).

In 2015, Tariq Thachil, Assistant Professor of Political Science, was awarded the Gaddis Smith International Book Prize for best first book for Elite Parties, Poor Voters: How Social Services Win Votes in India (Cambridge University Press, 2014). Stuart Schwartz, George Burton Adams Professor of History, was awarded the Gustav Ranis International Book Prize for best book for Sea of Storms:
A History of Hurricanes in the Greater Caribbean from Columbus to Katrina (Princeton University Press, 2015).

In 2014, Fabian Drixler, Assistant Professor of History, and Jenifer Van Vleck, Assistant Professor of History and American Studies, were both awarded the Gaddis Smith International Book Prize for best first book. Drixler for Mabiki: Infanticide and Population Growth in Eastern Japan, 1660-1950 (University of California Press, 2013), and Van Vleck for Empire of the Air: Aviation and the American Ascendancy (Harvard University Press, 2013). Vladimir Alexandrov, B. E. Bensinger Professor of Slavic Languages & Literatures, and Alan Mikhail, Professor of History, were both awarded the Gustav Ranis International Book Prize for best book. Alexandrov for The Black Russian (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2013), and Mikhail for The Animal in Ottoman Egypt (Oxford University Press, 2014).

In 2013, Milette Gaifman, Associate Professor of Greek Art and Archaeology, and Eric Harms, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, were awarded the Gaddis Smith International Book Prize for best first book. Gaifman for Aniconism in Greek Antiquity (Oxford University Press, 2012) and Harms for Saigon’s Edge: On The Margins of Ho Chi Mihn City (University of Minnesota Press, 2012). Valerie Hansen and Anders Winroth, both Professors of History, were awarded the Gustav Ranis International Book Prize for best book. Hansen for The Silk Road: A New History (Oxford University Press, 2012), and Anders for The Conversion of Scandinavia: Vikings, Merchants, and Missionaries in the Remaking of Northern Europe (Yale University Press, 2012).

In 2012, Gundula Kreuzer, Associate Professor of Music, was awarded the Gaddis Smith International Book Prize for best first book for Verdi and The Germans (Cambridge University Press, 2010). Susan Hyde, Assistant Professor of Political Science, and Alan Mikhail, Assistant Professor of History, were both awarded the Gustav Ranis International Book Prize for best book. Hyde for The Pseudo-Democrat’s Dilemma (Cornell University Press, 2011), and Mikhail for Nature and Empire in Ottoman Egypt (Cambridge University Press, 2011).

In 2011, Karuna Mantena, Assistant Professor of Political Science, was awarded the Gaddis Smith International Book Prize for Alibis of Empire (Princeton University Press, 2010). Timothy Snyder, Professor of History, was awarded the Gustav Ranis International Book Prize for Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin (Basic Books, 2010).

In 2010, Charles Walton, Assistant Professor of History, was awarded the Gaddis Smith International Book Prize for Policing Public Opinion in the French Revolution: The Culture of Calumny & the Problem of Free Speech (Oxford University Press, 2008). Steven Pincus, Professor of History was awarded the Gustav Ranis International Book Prize for 1688: The First Modern Revolution (Yale University Press, 2009).

In 2009, Thad Dunning, Associate Professor of Political Science, was awarded the Gaddis Smith International Book Prize for Crude Democracy: Natural Resource Wealth and Political Regimes (Cambridge University Press, 2008). Tina Lu, Professor of Chinese Literature, was awarded the Gustav Ranis International Book Prize for Accidental Incest, Filial Cannibalism and Other Peculiar Encounters in Late Imperial Chinese Literature (Harvard University Asia Center, 2008).

In 2007, Maurice Samuels, Professor of French, was awarded the Gaddis Smith International Book Prize for The Spectacular Past: Popular History and the Novel in Nineteenth-Century France (Cornell University Press, 2004). Frank Snowden, Professor of History and Medicine, was awarded the Gustav Ranis International Book Prize for The Conquest of Malaria: Italy, 1900-1962 (Yale University Press, 2006).

In 2006, Julia Adams, Professor of Sociology, was awarded the Gaddis Smith International Book Prize for The Familial State: Ruling Families and Merchant Capitalism in Early Modern Europe. Keller Easterling, Assistant Professor of Architecture, was awarded the Gustav Ranis International Book Prize for Enduring Innocence: Global Architecture and Its Political Masquerades.

In 2005, the prizes were awarded to Mridu Rai, Assistant Professor of History, for Hindu Rulers, Muslim Subjects: Islam, Rights, and the History of Kashmir (Gaddis Smith International Book Prize for the best first book), and Robert Harms, Professor of History, for The Diligent: A Voyage Through the Worlds of the Slave Trade (Gustav Ranis International Book Prize).