At the Bibliotheca Alexandria, the modern Library at Alexandria, the sixth-largest francophone library in the world. Image, November 24, 2021 – Getty iStockphoto: Ron Odenthal
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
Drawn From a Pool of 560 Submissions
Those who follow world publishing’s myriad prizes and book awards know that the annual PROSE Awards from the Association of American Publishers (AAP) are a very big program.
These honors for “professional and scholarly excellence”—the source of the acronym PROSE—are now in their 46th iteration.
And while they’re focused on academic and scholarly publishing, what they have in common with the Wattys, the Audies, and the Nibbies is that they showcase an enormous body of valuable content.
The PROSE Awards are huge:
- This year, there are 106 finalists
- There are 39 category winners
- There was a starting pool of at least 560 entries
- And the whole program has been handled by 24 jurors
Those jurors this year include many familiar faces. Here are Peter Berkery, executive director of the Association of University Presses; Deborah Logan, who heads up Elsevier’s energy and earth science journals; Nigel Fletcher-Jones, of the American University in Cairo Press; Bloomsbury Academic’s senior editor Katie Gallof; Stanford University Press’ humanities lead Erica Wetter; and Maureen “Shawn” Kennedy, editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Nursing—and at a time when health-care workers are leaving the field in record numbers under the brunt of the still-ongoing coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic, Kennedy’s journal is one covering both heroism and extraordinary strain.
What we have today (January 25) is a combined list of both the 39 subject categories’ winners and finalists.
After today’s announcement of the 106 finalists and the 39 category winners, the top contenders will be named in four super-categories to receive “Awards for Excellence“:
- Biological and Life Sciences
- Humanities
- Physical Sciences and Mathematics
- Social Sciences
Update, January 26: Perceptive readers will notice that a fifth super-category, Reference, is not included this year.
In answer to Publishing Perspectives‘ inquiry, we have this explanation from the AAP team, emphasis theirs:
“The 2022 PROSE Awards of all types–including reference works, journals, digital products, monographs, etc.–were assessed first by the subject area as part of a drive to make ‘contribution to the subject area’ and/or ‘ease of use or utility’ ‘the most important judging criteria, regardless of the method of delivery. This resulted in an interesting reshuffling of categories.
“In one subject area, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, for example, a monograph, a journal, and a reference work were the three finalists, and reference works and journals also appeared elsewhere among the finalists.
“The result was that some extraordinary reference works ended up being recognized in other categories, including Engineering and Technology, Environmental Science, and Biological Anthropology, Archaeology and Ancient History, rather than in Reference–in the process eliminating the need for the separate Reference category in this year’s awards.”
In answer to Publishing Perspectives‘ inquiry, we have this explanation from the AAP team, emphasis theirs:Once the four super-category winners are named, they go into competition for the top PROSE recognition, the R.R. Hawkins Award, which is normally celebrated during the AAP’s annual meeting in June.
Swann: ‘Every Conceivable Area of Study’
Syreeta Swann
In a prepared statement on today’s announcement, Syreeta Swann, AAP’s COO, is quoted, saying, “This year’s PROSE Award entries overwhelmingly raised the bar in quality, content, and diversity, reflecting the profound expertise that goes into creating scholarly publications in every conceivable area of study.
“We’re pleased to announce that our panel of 24 judges has reviewed more than 560 entries, in the process singling out 106 titles to be honored as finalists. From this list, our judges then identified 39 outstanding titles to be honored as category winners.”
Nigel Fletcher-Jones
And Fletcher-Jones, the chief juror of the group, says, “Despite all the trials and tribulations of the last year, the standard of entries has been universally high.
“This led to very close competition in almost all subject areas and will lead no doubt to stiff competition among the ‘Awards for Excellence’ nominees.”
Last year, Simon Martin’s Ancient Maya Politics: A Political Anthropology of the Classic Period 150–900 CE from Cambridge University Press was the winner of the 2021 RR Hawkins Award.
Category 1 of 4: Biological and Life Sciences
Biological Sciences
Category Winner
- Ant Architecture, Walter R. Tschinkel, Princeton University Press
Finalists
- Exuberant Life: An Evolutionary Approach to Conservation in Galapagos, William H. Durham, Oxford University Press
- The Evolution of Social Behaviour, Michael Taborsky , Michael A. Cant , and Jan Komdeur, Cambridge University Press
Biomedicine
Category Winner
- Of Sound Mind: How Our Brain Constructs a Meaningful Sonic World, Nina Kraus, The MIT Press
Finalist
- The Spike: An Epic Journey Through the Brain in 2.1 Seconds, Mark Humphries, Princeton University Press
Clinical Medicine
Category Winner
- Global Health Security: A Blueprint for the Future, Lawrence O. Gostin, Harvard University Press
Finalists
- Neuroscience for Clinicians: Basic Processes, Circuits, Disease Mechanisms, and Therapeutic Implications, Eduardo E. Benarroch, Oxford University Press
- Trans Medicine: The Emergence and Practice of Treating Gender, Stef M. Shuster, NYU Press
Neuroscience
Category Winner
- Conscious Mind, Resonant Brain: How Each Brain Makes a Mind, Stephen Grossberg, Oxford University Press
Finalists
- The Secret Body: How the New Science of the Human Body Is Changing the Way We Live, Daniel M. Davis, Princeton University Press
Nursing and Allied Health
Category Winner
- Advanced Physiology and Pathophysiology: Essentials for Clinical Practice, Nancy Tkacs, PhD, RN; Linda Herrmann, PhD, RN, ACHPN, AGACNP-BC, GNP-BC, FAANP; and Randall Johnson, PhD, RN, Springer Publishing Company
Finalists
- Communication and Care Coordination for the Palliative Care Team, Rebecca S. Imes, PhD; Leah M. Omilion-Hodges PhD; and Jennifer Hester DNP, ACHPN, AOCNS, Springer Publishing Company
- Newman and Carranza’s Clinical Periodontology for the Dental Hygienist, Michael G. Newman, Lory Laughter, Gwendolyn Essex, and Satheesh Elangovan, Elsevier, Inc.
Clinical Psychology & Psychiatry
Category Winner
- Undoing Aloneness and the Transformation of Suffering into Flourishing: AEDP 2.0, Edited by Diana Fosha, American Psychological Association
Category 2 of 4: Humanities
Art Exhibitions
Category Winner
- Cézanne Drawing, Jodi Hauptman and Samantha Friedman, The Museum of Modern Art
Finalists
- Georgia O’Keeffe, Photographer, Lisa Volpe, Yale University Press
- Holbein: Capturing Character, Edited by Anne T. Woollett, with contributions by Austėja Mackelaitė, John T. McQuillen, and others, J. Paul Getty Museum
Art History & Criticism
Category Winner
- Women Artists, Their Patrons, and Their Publics in Early Modern Bologna, Babette Bohn, Penn State University Press
Finalists
- Communicating Knowledge Visually: Will Burtin’s Scientific Approach to Information Design, R. Roger Remington and Sheila Pontis, Ph.D., RIT Press
- Venus and the Arts of Love in Renaissance Florence, Rebekah Compton, Cambridge University Press
Biography & Autobiography
Category Winner
- Eunice Hunton Carter: A Lifelong Fight for Social Justice, Marilyn S. Greenwald and Yun Li, Fordham University Press
Finalists
- The Black President, Claude A. Clegg III, Johns Hopkins University Press
- Bright Galaxies, Dark Matter, and Beyond: The Life of Astronomer Vera Rubin, Ashley Jean Yeager, The MIT Press
Biological Anthropology, Ancient History & Archaeology
Category Winner
- Julius Caesar and the Roman People, Robert Morstein-Marx, Cambridge University Press
Finalists
- A Handbook of Gods and Goddesses of the Ancient Near East: Three Thousand Deities of Anatolia, Syria, Israel, Sumer, Babylonia, Assyria, and Elam, Douglas R. Frayne and Johanna H. Stuckey, with illustrations by Stéphane Beaulieu, Penn State University Press
- Evolutionary Human Sciences, Professor Ruth Mace, Cambridge University Press
Classics
Category Winner
- Tragic Bodies: Edges of the Human in Greek Drama, Nancy Worman, Bloomsbury
Finalist
- The Ancient Greek Roots of Human Rights, Rachel Hall Sternberg, University of Texas Press
European History
Category Winner
- An Infinite History: The Story of a Family in France Over Three Centuries, Emma Rothschild, Princeton University Press
Finalist
- When France Fell: The Vichy Crisis and the Fate of the Anglo-American Alliance, Michael S. Neiberg, Harvard University Press
Language & Linguistics
Category Winner
- Transgender Identities in the Press: A Corpus-based Discourse Analysis, Angela Zottola, Bloomsbury
Finalist
- Storytelling and Ecology: Empathy, Enchantment and Emergence in the Use of Oral Narratives, Anthony Nanson, Bloomsbury
Literature
Category Winner
- Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature, Farah Jasmine Griffin, W. W. Norton & Company
Finalists
- The Quick and the Dead: Selected Stories, Mairtin O Cadhain; Translated from the Irish; Introduction by Louis de Paor, Yale University Press
- The Other Side of Terror: Black Women and the Culture of US Empire, Erica R. Edwards, New York University Press
- The Idea of Europe: A Critical History, Shane Weller, Cambridge University Press
Media and Cultural Studies
Category Winner
- Empire of Ruins: American Culture, Photography, and the Spectacle of Destruction, Miles Orvell, Oxford University Press
Finalists
- Blackface, Ayanna Thompson, Bloomsbury
- Red Lines: Political Cartoons and the Struggle against Censorship, Cherian George and Sonny Liew, The MIT Press
Music & the Performing Arts
Category Winner
- Liner Notes for the Revolution: The Intellectual Life of Black Feminist Sound, Daphne A. Brooks, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
Finalists
- Soundtrack to a Movement African American Islam, Jazz, and Black Internationalism, Richard Brent Turner, NYU Press
Nonfiction Graphic Novels
Category Winner
- The King of Bangkok, Claudio Sopranzetti, Sara Fabbri, and Chiara Natalucci, University of Toronto Press
Finalists
- Red Lines: Political Cartoons and the Struggle against Censorship, Cherian George and Sonny Liew, The MIT Press
- Hakim’s Odyssey, Book 1: From Syria to Turkey, Fabien Toulmé, Graphic Mundi / Penn State University Press
North American History
Category Winner
- Traveling Black: A Story of Race and Resistance, Mia Bay, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
Finalists
- Paper Trails: The US Post and the Making of the American West, Cameron Blevins, Oxford University Press
- Intimate Integration: A History of the Sixties Scoop and the Colonization of Indigenous Kinship, Allyson Stevenson, University of Toronto Press
Outstanding Works by a Trade Publisher
Category Winner
- Cuba: An American History, Ada Ferrer, Scribner
Finalists
- How Rights Went Wrong, Jamal Greene, Mariner Books, an imprint of HarperCollins
- Halfway Home: Race, Punishment, and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration, Reuben Miller, Little Brown and Company
Philosophy
Category Winner
- Hegel’s Century: Alienation and Recognition in a Time of Revolution, Jon Stewart, Cambridge University Press
Finalists
- One Over Many: The Unitary Pluralism of Plato’s World, Necip Fikri Alican, SUNY Press
- A Companion to Chomsky, Nicholas Allott, Terje Lohndal, and Georges Rey, John Wiley & Sons
Theology & Religious Studies
Category Winner
- Jews and the Qur’an, Meir M. Bar-Asher, Foreword by Mustafa Akyol, Translated by Ethan Rundell, Princeton University Press
Finalists
- Introduction to the Apocrypha: Jewish Books in Christian Bibles, Lawrence M. Wills, Yale University Press
- When the Medium Was the Mission: The Atlantic Telegraph and the Religious Origins of Network Culture, Jenna Supp-Montgomerie, New York University Press
World History
Category Winner
- Experiments in Skin: Race and Beauty in the Shadows of Vietnam, Thuy Linh Nguyen Tu, Duke University Press
Finalists
- The Horde: How the Mongols Changed the World, Marie Favereau, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
- The Armenians of Aintab: The Economics of Genocide in an Ottoman Province, Ümit Kurt, Harvard University Press
Category 3 of 4: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Chemistry/Physics
Category Winner
Introduction to Effective Field Theory: Thinking Effectively about Hierarchies of Scale, C. P. Burgess, Cambridge University Press
Finalists
- Modern Classical Mechanics, T. M. Helliwell and V. V. Sahakian, Cambridge University Press
- Quantum Field Theory: A Diagrammatic Approach, Ronald Kleiss, Cambridge University Press
Computing & Information Sciences
Category Winner
- Deep Learning in Science, Pierre Baldi, Cambridge University Press
Finalists
- The Essence of Software: Why Concepts Matter for Great Design, Daniel Jackson, Princeton University Press
- Compressive Imaging: Structure, Sampling, Learning, Ben Adcock and Anders C. Hansen, Cambridge University Press
Earth Science
Category Winner
- When the Sahara Was Green: How Our Greatest Desert Came to Be, Martin Williams, Princeton University Press
Finalists
- Seismic Hazard and Risk Analysis, Jack Baker, Brendon Bradley, and Peter Stafford, Cambridge University Press
Engineering & Technology
Category Winner
- Atlas of Forecasts: Modeling and Mapping Desirable Futures, Katy Börner, The MIT Press
Finalists
- Things Fall Together: A Guide to the New Materials Revolution, Skylar Tibbits, Princeton University Press
- Biofluid Mechanics: Analysis and Applications, James B. Grotberg, Cambridge University Press
Environmental Science
Category Winner
- One Earth, Edited by Lewis Collins, Shanshan Zhang, and Abel Barral Cuesta, Cell Press
Finalists
- Planetary Health: Safeguarding Human Health and the Environment in the Anthropocene, Andy Haines and Howard Frumkin, Cambridge University Press
- The Fight for Climate After COVID-19, Alice C. Hill, Oxford University Press
History of Science, Medicine, and Technology
Category Winner
- Plagues Upon the Earth: Disease and the Curse of Human History, Kyle Harper, Princeton University Press
Finalists
- Mind, State, and Society: Social History of Psychiatry and Mental Health in Britain 1960-2010, Edited by George Ikkos and Nick Bouras, Cambridge University Press
- Grand Transitions: How the Modern World Was Made, Vaclav Smil, Oxford University Press
Innovation in Journal Publishing
Category Winner
- Rapid Reviews: COVID-19, Stefano M. Bertozzi, The MIT Press
Mathematics
Category Winner
- Equivariant Stable Homotopy Theory and the Kervaire Invariant Problem, Michael A. Hill, Michael J. Hopkins, and Douglas C. Ravenel, Cambridge University Press
Finalists
- The Discrete Mathematical Charms of Paul Erdfős: A Simple Introduction, Vašek Chvátal, Cambridge University Press
- Origametry: Mathematical Methods in Paper Folding, Thomas C. Hull, Cambridge University Press
- Visual Differential Geometry and Forms: A Mathematical Drama in Five Acts, Tristan Needham, Princeton University Press
Popular Science/Math
Category Winner
- Do Not Erase: Mathematicians and Their Chalkboards, Jessica Wynne, Princeton University Press
Finalists
- Spark: The Life of Electricity and the Electricity of Life, Timothy J. Jorgensen, Princeton University Press
- Quick(er) Calculations, Trevor Davis Lipscombe, Oxford University Press
Category 4 of 4: Social Sciences
Architecture and Urban Planning
Category Winner
- Building Antebellum New Orleans: Free People of Color and Their Influence, Tara A. Dudley, University of Texas Press
Finalists
- The Metropolis in Latin America, 1830–1930: Cityscapes, Photographs, Debates, Edited by Idurre Alonso and Maristella Casciato, Getty Research Institute
- Modernity for the Masses: Antonio Bonet’s Dreams for Buenos Aires, Ana María León, University of Texas Press
Business, Finance & Management
Category Winner
- Management as a Calling: Leading Business, Serving Society, Andrew J. Hoffman, Stanford University Press
Finalists
- Ultimate Gig, John T. Fleming and Lauren Lawley Head, Emerald Publishing
Cultural Anthropology & Sociology
Category Winner
- Halfway Home: Race, Punishment, and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration, Reuben Miller, Little, Brown and Company
Finalists
- American Afterlives: Reinventing Death in the Twenty-First Century, Shannon Lee Dawdy, Princeton University Press
- Up to Heaven and Down to Hell: Fracking, Freedom, and Community in an American Town, Colin Jerolmack, Princeton University Press
Economics
Category Winner
- How We Give Now: A Philanthropic Guide for the Rest of Us, Lucy Bernholz, The MIT Press
Finalist
- The Future of Money: How the Digital Revolution Is Transforming Currencies and Finance, Eswar S. Prasad, Harvard University Press
Education Practice & Theory
Category Winner
- A Search for Common Ground: Conversations About the Toughest Questions in K–12 Education, Frederick M. Hess and Pedro A. Noguera, Teachers College Press
Finalists
- How We Read Now: Strategic Choices for Print, Screen, and Audio, Naomi S. Baron, Oxford University Press
- Black, Brown, Bruised: How Racialized STEM Education Stifles Innovation, Ebony Omotola McGee, Harvard Education Press
Government & Politics
Category Winner
- A World Without Soil: The Past, Present, and Precarious Future of the Earth Beneath Our Feet, Jo Handelsman, Yale University Press
Finalists
- Shari‘a, Inshallah: Finding God in Somali Legal Politics, Mark Fathi Massoud, Cambridge University Press
- Political Science Is for Everybody: An Introduction to Political Science, Amy L. Atchison, University of Toronto Press
Legal Studies and Criminology
Category Winner
- A Constitution for the Living: Imagining How Five Generations of Americans Would Rewrite the Nation’s Fundamental Law, Beau Breslin, Stanford University Press
Finalists
- A Pattern of Violence: How the Law Classifies Crimes and What It Means for Justice, David Alan Sklansky, Harvard University Press
- The Behavioral Code: The Hidden Ways the Law Makes Us Better or Worse, Benjamin van Rooij and Adam Fine, Beacon Press
Psychology and Applied Social Work
Category Winner
- Roma Minority Youth Across Cultural Contexts: Taking a Positive Approach to Research, Policy, and Practice, Radosveta Dimitrova, David Lackland Sam, and Laura Ferrer Wreder, Oxford University Press
Finalists
- The Intellectual Lives of Children, Susan Engel, Harvard University Press
- Generation Disaster: Coming of Age Post-9/11, Karla Vermeulen, Oxford University Press
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.