The Society for Military History Distinguished Book Awards

For more information about The Society for Military History, sponsor of these awards, click here.

2018     The rivers ran backward : the Civil War and the remaking of the American middle border by Christopher Phillips; Motivation in war : the experience of common soldiers in Old-Regime Europe by Ilya Berkovich; Omar Nelson Bradley : America's GI general by Steven L. Ossad; The Holocaust : an encyclopedia and document collection, edited by Paul R. Bartrop and Michael Dickerman

2017     Fatal Sunday : George Washington, the Monmouth Campaign, and the politics of battle by Mark Edward Lender and Garry Wheeler Stone; The gunpowder age : China, military innovation, and the rise of the West in world history by Tonio Andrade; The commander : Fawzi al-Qawuqji and the fight for Arab independence, 1914-1948 by Laila Parsons; The battle of Crécy : a casebook, edited by Michael Livingston and Kelly DeVries

2016     Braddock's defeat : the Battle of Monongahela and the road to revolution by David Preston; The Iran-Iraq war by Pierre Razoux; Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich : Supreme Commander of the Russian Army by Paul Robinson; Germany at war : 400 years of military history, edited by David T. Zabecki

2015     The men who lost America : British leadership, the American Revolution, and the fate of the empire by Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy; Ring of steel : Germany and Austria-Hungary in World War I by Alexander Watson; Blucher : scourge of Napoleon by Michael V. Leggiere

2014     Jackson's sword : the Army Officer Corps on the American frontier, 1810-1821 and Peacekeepers and conquerors : the Army Officer Corps on the American frontier, 1821-1846 by Samuel J. Watson; Global crisis : war, climate change and catastrophe in the seventeenth century by Geoffrey Parker; The young Ataturk : from Ottoman soldier to statesman of Turkey by George W. Gawrych; American Civil War : the definitive encyclopedia and document collection, edited by Spencer Tucker

2013     The school of hard knocks : combat leadership in the American Expeditionary Forces by Richard S. Faulkner; The Wehrmacht retreats : fighting a lost war, 1943 by Robert M. Citino; Stalin's general : the life of Georgy Zhukov by Geoffrey Roberts; Of duty well and faithfully done : a history of the regular army in the Civil War by Clayton R. Newell and Charles R. Shrader

2012     Kevlar legions : the transformation of the U.S. Army, 1989-2005 by John Sloan Brown; The battle for China : essays on the military history of the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-1945, edited by Mark Peattie, Edward Drea, and Hans van de Ven; Manstein : Hitler's greatest general by Mungo Melvin; US Army Order of Battle 1919-1941 by Steven E. Clay

2011     Torchbearers of democracy : African American soldiers in the World War I era by Chad L. Williams; The Thirty Years War : Europe's tragedy by Peter H. Wilson; Triquet's Cross : a study of military heroism by John MacFarlane; The Oxford encyclopedia of medieval warfare and military technology, edited by Clifford J. Rogers

2010     A savage conflict : the decisive role of guerrillas in the American Civil War by Daniel E. Sutherland; Japan's Imperial Army : its rise and fall, 1853-1945 by Edward J. Drea; Douglas Haig and the First World War by J.P. Harris; The Encyclopedia of the Spanish-American and Philippine-American wars : a political, social, and military history, edited by Spencer C. Tucker

2009     The Cold War U.S. Army : building deterrence for limited war by Ingo Trauschweizer; Vauban under siege : engineering efficiency and martial vigor in the War of the Spanish Succession by Jamel Ostwald; Vietnam's forgotten army : heroism and betrayal in the ARVN by Andy Wiest; The Cambridge history of Greek and Roman warfare, edited by Philip Sabin, Hans van Wees, and Michael Whitby

2008     1812 : war with America by Jon Latimer; War and genocide in Cuba, 1895-1898 by John Lawrence Tone; Your death would be mine : Paul and Marie Pireaud in the Great War by Martha Hannah; The Encyclopedia of the Cold War : a political, social and military history, edited by Spencer C. Tucker

2007     The first way of war : American war making on the frontier, 1607-1814 by John Grenier; Pyrrhic victory : French strategy and operations in the Great War by Robert A. Doughty; Caesar : life of a colossus by Adrian Goldsworthy; Encyclopedia of war & American society, edited by Peter Karsten

2006     The battle of Leyte Gulf : the last fleet action by H. P. Willmott; Princes, posts, and partisans : the army of Louis XIV and partisan warfare in the Netherlands (1673-1678) by George Satterfield; Atlas of the Civil War by Steven E. Woodworth and Kenneth J. Winkle; Horatio Nelson, the new letters, edited by Colin White

2005     The regulars : the American Army, 1898-1941 by Edward M. Coffman; Blitzkrieg to Desert Storm : the evolution of operational warfare by Robert M. Citino; United States Army unit and organizational histories : a bibliography by James T. Controvich

2004     Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg! by George C. Rable; Fields of fire : the Canadians in Normandy by Terry Copp; A good idea of hell : letters from a chasseur a pied, edited by Joshua Brown; The Naval War of 1812 : a documentary history : volume 3 : 1814-1815, edited by Michael J. Crawford

2003     An army at dawn : the war in North Africa, 1942-1943 by Rick Atkinson; The First World War : volume 1 : To arms by Hew Strachan; By tank into Normandy : a memoir of the campaign in north-west Europe from D-Day to VE Day by Stuart Hills; Encyclopedia of the American Civil War : a political and military history, edited by David S. Heidler and Jeanne T. Heidler

2002     Allies and adversaries : the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Grand Alliance, and U.S. strategy in World War II by Mark Stoler; At war, at sea : sailors and naval combat in the twentieth century by Ronald H. Spector; A youth in the Meuse-Argonne, A colonel in the armored divisions : a memoir, 1941-1945, and In the Philippines and Okinawa : a memoir, 1945-1948, by William S. Triplet, edited by Robert H. Ferrell

2001     Inside Hitler's High Command by Geoffrey P. Megargee; The Philippine War, 1899-1902 by Brian McAllister Linn; The Oxford companion to American military history, John Whiteclay Chambers II (Editor in Chief) (also available online for MSUM students, staff, and faculty)

2000     The GI offensive in Europe : the triumph of American infantry divisions, 1941-1945 by Peter R. Mansoor; Sir John Fisher's naval revolution by Nicholas A. Lambert

1999     Kaigun : strategy, tactics, and technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887-1941 by David C. Evans and Mark R. Peattie; Tecumseh : a life by John Sugden

1998     Guardians of empire : the U.S. Army and the Pacific, 1902-1940 by Brian McAllister Linn; The king's army : warfare, soldiers, and society during the wars of religion in France, 1562-1576 by James B. Wood

1997     Courage and air warfare : the Allied aircrew experience in the Second World War by Mark K. Wells; American samurai : myth, imagination, and the conduct of battle in the First Marine Division, 1941-1951 by Craig M. Cameron

1996     One hundred years of sea power : the U.S. Navy, 1890-1990 by George W. Baer; Rich relations : the American occupation of Britain, 1942-1945 by David Reynolds

1995     Paul Revere's ride by David Hackett Fischer; A world at arms : a global history of World War II by Gerhard L. Weinberg (2d ed. (2005) here)

1994     A history of warfare by John Keegan; An American profession of arms : the army officer corps, 1784-1861 by William B. Skelton

1993     The French Foreign Legion by Douglas Porch; War Plan Orange : the U.S. strategy to defeat Japan, 1897-1945 by Edward S. Miller

1992     The age of battles : the quest for decisive warfare from Breitenfeld to Waterloo by Russell F. Weigley; Forged in battle : the Civil War alliance of Black soldiers and white officers by Joseph T. Glatthaar

1991     The Women's Army Corps, 1945-1978 by Bettie J. Morden; Limits of empire : the Roman army in the East by Benjamin Isaac

1990     Technology and war : from 2000 B.C. to the present by Martin Van Creveld; The War of 1812 : a forgotten conflict by Donald R. Hickey

1989     Battle cry of freedom : the Civil War era by James M. McPherson; The military revolution : military innovation and the rise of the West by Geoffrey Parker

1988     To raise an army : the draft comes to modern America by John W. Chambers, II

1987     Pershing, general of the armies by Donald Smythe