List of history awards
This list of history awards covers notable awards given to persons, group of persons or institutions for their contribution to the study of history. It is organized by region. The entries name the prize and sponsoring organization, give notes on the purpose or criteria, and where available give the period in which the prize was awarded. Typically a prize is first awarded in the year after it is established, and applies to work published in the previous year.
Americas
Canada
| Award | Sponsor | Notes | Awarded |
| CHA Best Scholarly Book in Canadian History Prize | Canadian Historical Association | Annual award for the "the most significant contribution to an understanding of the Canadian past" | since 1977 |
| Cundill Prize | McGill University | Literature award for history | since 2008 |
| François-Xavier Garneau Medal | Canadian Historical Association | Awarded every five years for an outstanding Canadian contribution to historical research | since 1980 |
| J. B. Tyrrell Historical Medal | Royal Society of Canada | Outstanding work in the history of Canada. Named in honour of Joseph Tyrrell | since 1928 |
Latin America
| Award | Sponsor | Notes |
| Chilean National History Award | Government of Chile | History of Chile |
| Orden del Pop | Universidad Francisco Marroquín | Guatemala's cultural heritage |
United States
| Award | Sponsor | Notes | Awarded |
| Herbert Baxter Adams Prize | American Historical Association | Distinguished first book by a young scholar in the field of European history | since 1905 |
| AJHA Book Award | American Journalism Historians Association | Best book in media history | |
| AJHA Teaching Awards | American Journalism Historians Association | Excellence in teaching journalism and mass communication history | |
| Gold Medal Award for Distinguished Archaeological Achievement | Archaeological Institute of America | Archaeology | since 1965 |
| Bancroft Prize | Columbia University | Diplomacy or the history of the Americas | since 1948 |
| K. Jack Bauer Award | North American Society for Oceanic History | Life-time contributions to the field of maritime history | |
| George Louis Beer Prize | American Historical Association | Best book in European international history from 1895 to the present | since 1923 |
| Bentley Book Prize | World History Association | First awarded as the World History Association Book Prize. Name changed in 2012 | since 1999 |
| Berkshire Conference of Women Historians Book Prize | Berkshire Conference of Women Historians | Two prizes, one for work that deals with the history of women, gender, and/or sexuality, one for a first book in any field of history that does not focus on the history of women, gender, and/or sexuality. | since 1990 |
| Beveridge Award | American Historical Association | Best English-language book on United States, Canada or Latin America history from 1492 to the present | since 1939 |
| Ray Allen Billington Prize | Organization of American Historians | Best book about American frontier history, including all of North and South America, all post-1492 pioneer experiences, and comparisons between American frontiers and others around the world | since 1981 |
| Margaret A. Blanchard Dissertation Prize | American Journalism Historians Association | Best doctoral dissertation dealing with mass communication history | |
| Cornplanter Medal | Cayuga County Historical Society | Iroquois studies | 1904-1979 |
| Merle Curti Award | Organization of American Historians | Best book in American social and/or American intellectual history | Since 1978 |
| Dexter Award | American Chemical Society | History of chemistry | 1956–2001 |
| Frederick Douglass Prize | Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History | Most outstanding non-fiction book in English on the subject of slavery, abolition or antislavery movements | since 1999 |
| John H. Dunning Prize | American Historical Association | Best book in history related to the United States | since 1929 |
| Sidney M. Edelstein Award | American Chemical Society | History of chemistry | 2002–2009 |
| Eugene M. Emme Astronautical Literature Award | American Astronautical Society History Committee | Truly outstanding book serving public understanding about the positive impact of astronautics upon society. The award is in honor of Eugene M. Emme, NASA's first historian | since 1983 |
| John K. Fairbank Prize | American Historical Association | Outstanding book in the history of China proper, Vietnam, Chinese Central Asia, Mongolia, Manchuria, Korea, or Japan, substantially after 1800 | since 1969 |
| Friend of History Award | Organization of American Historians | For an individual, who is not a professional historian, or an institution or organization for outstanding support for the pursuit of historical research, for the public presentation of history, or for the work of the OAH | since 2005 |
| Leo Gershoy Award | American Historical Association | Best publication in English dealing with the history of Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries | since 1977 |
| Gottschalk Prize | American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies | Outstanding historical or critical study on the 18th century | since 1976 |
| Gilder Lehrman Prize in Military History | Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation | Best book on military history in the English-speaking world. Before 2016 known as the Guggenheim-Lehrman Prize in Military History | since 2014 |
| HIST Award for Outstanding Achievement in the History of Chemistry | American Chemical Society | History of chemistry | since 2013 |
| J. C. Harrington Award in Historical Archaeology | Society for Historical Archaeology | For a life-time of contributions to the discipline centered on scholarship | since 1982 |
| Hattendorf Prize | Naval War College | Original research that contributes to a deeper historical understanding of the broad context and interrelationships involved in the roles, contributions, limitations, and uses of the sea services in history | since 2011 |
| Ellis W. Hawley Prize | Organization of American Historians | Best historical study of the political economy, politics, or institutions of the United States, in its domestic or international affairs, from the American Civil War to the present | since 1997 |
| Alice Davis Hitchcock Award | Society of Architectural Historians | Most distinguished work of scholarship in the history of architecture | since 1949 |
| Commodore Dudley W. Knox Naval History Lifetime Achievement Award | Naval Historical Foundation | Recognize the lifetime achievements of historians of the United States Navy | since 2013 |
| Sidney Kobre Award for Lifetime Achievement in Journalism History | American Journalism Historians Association | History of journalism in the United States | since 1986 |
| Richard W. Leopold Prize | Organization of American Historians | Best history book on U.S. federal government agencies, U.S. foreign policies, U.S. military affairs, or biographies of government officials | since 1984 |
| Lawrence W. Levine Award | Organization of American Historians | Best book in American cultural history | since 2008 |
| Suzanne J. Levinson Prize | History of Science Society | Book in the history of the life sciences and natural history | since 2006 |
| Wesley Logan Prize | American Historical Association Association for the Study of African American Life | Outstanding book in African diaspora history | since 1994 |
| John Lyman Book Awards | North American Society for Oceanic History | Excellence in published books making a major contribution to the study and understanding of maritime and naval history | since 1995 |
| Mark Lynton History Prize | Nieman Foundation for Journalism Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism | History, on any subject, that best combines intellectual or scholarly distinction with felicity of expression | since 1999 |
| Alfred Thayer Mahan Award for Literary Achievement | Navy League of the United States | Notable literary contribution that has advanced the knowledge of the importance of sea power in the United States | since 1957 |
| George L. Mosse Prize | American Historical Association | European History | since 2000 |
| Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award | Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights | Works which extend understanding of the root causes of bigotry | 1985–2008 |
| New-York Historical Society book prizes | New-York Historical Society | American History Book Prize New-York Historical Society Children's History Book Prize Gilder Lehrman Prize for Military History | |
| Francis Parkman Prize | Society of American Historians | Best book in American history | since 1957 |
| Pulitzer Prize for History | Columbia University | Distinguished book about the history of the United States | since 1917 |
| James A. Rawley Prize | American Historical Association | Best book in Atlantic history | since 1990 |
| James A. Rawley Prize | Organization of American Historians | Best book on race relations in the United States | since 1999 |
| Rome Prize | American Academy in Rome | Italian studies | since 1896 |
| Theodore and Franklin D. Roosevelt Prize in Naval History | Navy League of the United States Roosevelt Institute Theodore Roosevelt Association | Naval History | since 1986 |
| Margaret W. Rossiter History of Women in Science Prize | History of Science Society | Outstanding book or article on the history of women in science | since 1987 |
| George Sarton Medal | History of Science Society | Historian of science from the international community distinguished for a lifetime of scholarly achievement | since 1955 |
| John Gilmary Shea Prize | American Catholic Historical Association | Contribution to knowledge of the history of the Catholic Church | since 1945 |
| Philip Taft Labor History Book Award | Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations | Books relating to labor history of the United States | since 1978 |
| Frederick Jackson Turner Award | Organization of American Historians | Author's first book on American history | since 1959 |
| Abbot Payson Usher Prize | Society for the History of Technology | Best scholarly work on the history of technology published... under the auspices of the Society | since 1961 |
| Robert M. Utley Book Award | Western History Association | Best book on military history of the frontier and western North America from prehistory through the 20th century | since 2003 |
| Watumull Prize | American Historical Association | Best book on the history of India | 1945–1982 |
| Justin Winsor Prize | American Historical Association | History in the Western Hemisphere | 1896–1938 |
| Justin Winsor Prize | American Library Association | Best library history essay | since 1978 |
| Barbara and David Zalaznick Book Prize in American History | New-York Historical Society | Adult non-fiction book on American history or biography | since 2006 |
Asia
| Country | Award | Sponsor | Notes |
| Iran | Ashura Year Book Award | Debal Khazaei Foundation | Distinguished merit in the field of Ashura literature |
| Iran | Holy Defense Year Book Award | Government of Iran | Distinguished merit in the fields of Resistance Literature |
| Iran | Jalal Al-e Ahmad Literary Awards | Government of Iran | Best Iranian authors in history and documentation |
| Iran | Saadi Literary Award | Government of Iran | Distinguished merit in the fields of Persian literature |
Europe
| Country | Award | Sponsor | Notes |
| Austria | Francis Stephen Award | Austrian Society of 18th-Century Studies | 18th century or the Habsburg Monarchy |
| Belgium | CINOA Prize | CINOA | Art history since 1977 |
| France | Grand prix Gobert | Académie française | Most eloquent piece of history of France |
| France | Prix Guizot | Académie française | General history |
| France | Prix Marcel Pollitzer | Association des écrivains combattants | Work of history, preferably a biography |
| Germany | Kenneth O. May Prize | International Commission on the History of Mathematics | History of mathematics internationally |
| Germany | Prize for Military History | Federal Ministry of Defence | Military history and history of military technology |
| Italy | Acqui Award of History | Department of Culture, Acqui Terme City Council | Remembering 1943 victims of the Acqui Military Division 1943 |
| Italy | Premio Friuli Storia | Associazione Friuli Storia | History books for a general readership |
| Latvia Lithuania | Balts' Award | Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Latvia and Lithuania | Latvian-Lithuanian culture, history and language |
| Norway | Holberg Prize | Storting | Work in the arts, humanities, social sciences, law and theology |
| United Kingdom | Archaeology Awards | Current Archaeology | Achievements in the field of archaeology |
| United Kingdom | T. S. Ashton Prize | Economic History Society | Best article accepted for publication in The Economic History Review |
| United Kingdom | Alan Ball Local History Awards | Library Services Trust | Local history publishing |
| United Kingdom | Katharine Briggs Folklore Award | The Folklore Society | Promote the study of folklore and improve the standard of folklore publications in Britain and Ireland |
| United Kingdom | Caird Medal | National Maritime Museum | Individual who has done conspicuously important work in the field of the Museum's interests... |
| United Kingdom | Julian Corbett Prize in Naval History | University of London | Original research in the field of naval history |
| United Kingdom | Duff Cooper Prize | Pol Roger | Best work of history, biography, political science or poetry, published in English or French |
| United Kingdom | Gladstone Prize | Royal Historical Society | History book published in Britain on any topic which is not primarily British history |
| United Kingdom | Grote Prize | University of London | Notable research in Ancient history |
| United Kingdom | Hessell-Tiltman Prize | PEN International | Best work of non-fiction of historical content up to and including World War II |
| United Kingdom | Kenyon Medal | British Academy | Work in the field of classical studies and archaeology |
| United Kingdom | Longman-History Today Awards | Longman and History Today | Promote the study, publication and accessibility of history to a wide audience |
| United Kingdom | Mountbatten Maritime Prize | Maritime Foundation | Distinguished publication that has made a significant contribution to the maritime history of the United Kingdom |
| United Kingdom | Saltire Society Literary Awards | Saltire Society | Books which are either by living authors of Scottish descent or residing in Scotland, or deal with the work or life of a Scot or with a Scottish question, event or situation |
| United Kingdom | Thirlwall Prize | University of Cambridge | British history or literature with original research |
| United Kingdom | The Whitfield Prize | Royal Historical Society | British or Irish history, author's first history work |
| United Kingdom | Wolfson History Prize | Wolfson Foundation | Popular history writing |
Oceania
Australia
| Award | Sponsor | Notes | Founded |
| Frank Broeze Memorial Maritime History Prize | Australian Association for Maritime History Australian National Maritime Museum | Maritime history relating to or impacting on Australia | |
| WK Hancock Prize | Australian Historical Association Macquarie University | History book | 2004 |
| Allan Martin Award | Australian National University Australian Historical Association | History of Australia | 2004 |
| New South Wales Premier's History Awards | State Library of New South Wales | Distinguished achievement in the interpretation of history | 1997 |
| Chief Minister's Northern Territory Book History Awards | Northern Territory Library | History of the Northern Territory of Australia | 2004 |
| Prime Minister's Prize for Australian History | Prime Minister of Australia | Significant contribution to understanding of Australian history | 2006 |
| Victorian Community History Awards | Government of Victoria | Preservation of the State's history and excellence in historical research | 1998 |