
The apse mosaic of Sant’ Apollinare in Classe, Ravenna’s patron saint. Judith Herrin’s ‘Ravenna: Capital of Empire Crucible of Europe’ from Princeton University Press has won the 2021 European History category PROSE Award. Image – iStockphoto: Sergio Delle Vedove
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
Swann: ‘Exceptional Scholarship’
You’ll remember Publishing Perspectives‘ listing a week ago of the 130 PROSE Awards finalists for 2021 from the Association of American Publishers (AAP) in 45 categories of scholarly publishing.Today (January 28), we have the winners in those 45 subject categories in this, the 45th year of the PROSE Awards’ operation. And that puts us halfway through the selection-announcement cycle of this long-running award program.
Next, in the process, five titles will be chosen for each of five super-categories, with an announcement of those five winners anticipated next week. Those five major categories are:
- Biological and Life Sciences
- Humanities
- Physical Sciences and Mathematics
- Social Sciences
- Reference Works

Yale’s four-volume boxed edition of ‘Leonardo da Vinci Rediscovered’
Each of those five wins, then, will be in contention for the ultimate award, the RR Hawkins Award that last year was won by Carmen C. Bambach for her four-volume Leonardo da Vinci Rediscovered from Yale University Press (July 2019).
On today’s winners’ announcement, Syreeta Swann, AAP’s vice-president of programs and administration, says, “These 45 works all represent exceptional scholarship, and significant contributions to their various fields.”
The submissions this year are being juried by 23 judges, and they have reviewed more than 590 entries.
2021 PROSE Biological and Life Sciences Category Winners
Biological Science
- Desert Navigator: The Journey of an Ant, Rüdiger Wehner, Harvard University Press
Biomedicine
- The Plasticity of Sex: The Molecular Biology and Clinical Features of Genomic Sex, Gender Identity and Sexual Behavior, Marianne J. Legato, Elsevier
Clinical Medicine
- Managing Health in the Genomic Era: A Guide to Family Health History and Disease Risk, Vincent Henrich, Lori Orlando, and Brian Shirts, Elsevier
Clinical Psychology & Psychiatry
- The Wiley Handbook of Healthcare Treatment Engagement, Andrew Hadler, Stephen Sutton, and Lars Osterberg, John Wiley & Sons
Neuroscience
- Brain Fables: The Hidden History of Neurodegenerative Diseases and a Blueprint to Conquer Them, Alberto Espay and Benjamin Stecher, Cambridge University Press
Nursing and Allied Health
- Pediatric Nursing: A Case-Based Approach, 1st Edition, Catherine Gannon Tagher and Lisa Marie Knapp, Wolters Kluwer
2021 PROSE Humanities Category Winners
Architecture and Urban Planning
- Painting in Stone: Architecture and the Poetics of Marble from Antiquity to the Enlightenment, Fabio Barry, Yale University Press
Art Exhibitions
- Mesopotamia: Civilization Begins, Edited by Ariane Thomas and Timothy Potts, J. Paul Getty Museum
Art History & Criticism
- A History of Arab Graphic Design, Bahia Shehab and Haytham Nawar, American University in Cairo Press
Biography & Autobiography
- Goya: A Portrait of the Artist, Janis A. Tomlinson, Princeton University Press
Biological Anthropology, Ancient History & Archaeology
- Ancient Maya Politics: A Political Anthropology of the Classic Period 150–900 CE, Simon Martin, Cambridge University Press
Classics
- Scale, Space and Canon in Ancient Literary Culture, Reviel Netz, Cambridge University Press
European History
- Ravenna: Capital of Empire, Crucible of Europe, Judith Herrin, Princeton University Press
Language & Linguistics
- The Handbook of Asian Englishes, Kingsley Bolton, Werner Botha, and Andy Kirkpatrick, Wiley Blackwell
Literature
- The Ferrante Letters: An Experiment in Collective Criticism, Sarah Chihaya, Merve Emre, Katherine Hill, and Jill Richards, Columbia University Press
Media and Cultural Studies
- The Decisive Network: Magnum Photos and the Postwar Image Market, Nadya Bair, University of California Press
Music & the Performing Arts
- Switched On Pop: How Popular Music Works, and Why It Matters, Nate Sloan and Charlie Harding, Oxford University Press
Nonfiction Graphic Novels
- Witness to the Age of Revolution: The Odyssey of Juan Bautista Tupac Amaru, Charles F. Walker and Liz Clarke, Oxford University Press
North American History
- The Deportation Machine: America’s Long History of Expelling Immigrants, Adam Goodman, Princeton, University Press
Outstanding Works by a Trade Publisher
- The Turnaway Study, Diana Greene Foster, Scribner
Philosophy
- Freedom: An Unruly History, Annelein de Dijn, Harvard University Press
Theology & Religious Studies
- How God Becomes Real: Kindling the Presence of Invisible Others, T. M. Luhrmann, Princeton University Press
World History
- Forging a Unitary State, John P. LeDonne, University of Toronto Press
2021 PROSE Physical Science and Mathematics Category Winners
Computing & Information Sciences
- The Ethical Algorithm: The Science of Socially Aware Algorithm Design, Michael Kearns and Aaron Roth, Oxford University Press
Cosmology/Astronomy
- A Philosophical Approach to MOND: Assessing the Milgromian Research Program in Cosmology, David Merritt, Cambridge University Press
Earth Science
- Deep Carbon: Past to Present, Edited by Beth N. Orcutt, Isabelle Daniel, and Rajdeep Dasgupta, Cambridge University Press
Engineering & Technology
- Design Justice: Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need, Sasha Costanza-Chock, The MIT Press
Environmental Science
- River Networks as Ecological Corridors: Species, Populations, Pathogens, Andrea Rinaldo, Marino Gatto, and Ignacio Rodriguez-Iturbe, Cambridge University Press
History of Science, Medicine, and Technology
- Diabetes: A History of Race and Disease, Arleen Marcia Tuchman, Yale University Press
Mathematics
- Lumen Naturae: Visions of the Abstract in Art and Mathematics, Matilde Marcolli, The MIT Press
Popular Science/Math
- Neutron Stars: The Quest to Understand the Zombies of the Cosmos, Katia Moskvitch, Harvard University Press
2021 PROSE Social Science Category Winners
Business, Finance & Management
- Stuck: Why Asian Americans Don’t Reach the Top of the Corporate Ladder, Margaret M. Chin, New York University Press
Cultural Anthropology & Sociology
- The Tragedy of Heterosexuality, Jane Ward, New York University Press
Economics
- The Free-Market Family: How the Market Crushed the American Dream (and How It Can Be Restored), Maxine Eichner, Oxford University Press
Education Practice & Theory
- Mind Over Media: Propaganda Education in a Digital Age, Renee Hobbs, forward by Douglas Rushkoff, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Government & Politics
- Demagogue for President: The Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump, Jennifer Mercieca, Texas A&M University Press
Legal Studies and Criminology
- Whitelash: Unmasking White Grievance at the Ballot Box, Terry Smith, Cambridge University Press
Psychology and Applied Social Work
- Introduction to Social Neuroscience, Stephanie Cacioppo and John T. Cacioppo, Princeton University Press
2021 PROSE Reference Work Category Winners
Best E-Product
- i used to love to dream, A.D. Carson, University of Michigan Press
Best New Journal in Science, Technology & Medicine
- Harvard Data Science Review, Xiao-Li Meng, The MIT Press
Best New Journal in Humanities & Social Sciences
- Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture, Editor-in-Chief: Charlene Villaseñor Black; Associate Editor: Emily Engel, University of California Press
Single and Multivolume Reference, & Textbooks in the Biological & Life Sciences
- Frogfishes: Biodiversity, Zoogeography, and Behavioral Ecology, Theodore W. Pietsch and Rachel J. Arnold, Johns Hopkins University Press
Single and Multivolume Reference, & Textbooks in the Humanities
- The Cambridge World History of Violence 4 Volume Hardback Set, General editor Phillip Dwyer and Joy Damousi, Cambridge University Press
Single and Multivolume Reference, & Textbooks in the Social Sciences
- Seasonal Sociology, Tonya K. Davidson and Ondine Park, University of Toronto Press
Textbook in the Physical Sciences and Mathematics
- Lectures on Astrophysics, Steven Weinberg, Cambridge University
More from Publishing Perspectives on the Association of American Publishers is here, more on digital publishing is here, and more on publishing and book awards is here.
More from us on the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on international book publishing is here