Howard F. Cline Book Prize in Mexican History
About the award
The Howard F. Cline Book Prize in Mexican History is presented at each LASA International Congress to the author of an outstanding book of major importance to the development of the field of Mexican history, published in English or Spanish. The name of the prize shall be exclusively and always the Howard F. Cline Book Prize in Mexican History to honor Howard F. Cline (1915-1971), Director of the Hispanic Foundation at the Library of Congress (1952-1971), who was a historian of Mexico and a founder of the Latin American Studies Association.
Call for nominations
Books eligible for the 2025 award must have been published between July 1, 2023, and June 30, 2024. Books will be judged on the quality of research, analysis, and writing, and the significance of their contribution to the history of Mexico. Books may be nominated by authors, LASA members, or publishers.
Persons who nominate books are responsible for confirming the publication date and for uploading a digital copy.
The nomination should include a statement justifying the nomination; a copy of the nominated book in digital form; and the complete mailing address, telephone number, and e-mail address of the nominee. Nominations for the Howard F. Cline Book Prize in Mexican History must be submitted electronically. Please fill out the award submission form by September 20, 2024.
By January 20, 2025, the Committee will select a winning book. The award will be announced at the LASA2025 Welcome Ceremony, and the awardee will be publicly honored. In addition, the awardee will present his/her book in a special panel during the Congress. LASA membership is not a requirement to receive the award.
Members of the 2025 Committee
Aurora Gómez Galvarriato Freer (chair)
El Colegio de México
Corinna Zeltsman
Princeton University
Rafael Rojas - Gutiérrez
El Colegio de México
Berta Gilabert Hidalgo
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
Prize history
2024
AWARDEE: Miguel Valerio, Sovereign Joy: Afro-Mexican Kings and Queens, 1539-1640 (Cambridge University Press, 2022)
HONORABLE MENTION: Margaret Chowning, Catholic Women and Mexican Politics, 1750-1940 (Princeton University Press, 2023)
2023
AWARDEE: Silvia Marina Arrom, La Güera Rodríguez: The Life and Legends of a Mexican Independence Heroine (University of California Press, 2021)
HONORABLE MENTION: Richard M. Conway, Islands in the Lake: Environment and Ethnohistory in Xochimilco, New Spain (Cambridge University Press, 2021)
HONORABLE MENTION: Danielle Terrazas Williams, The Capital of Free Women: Race, Legitimacy and Liberty in Colonial Mexico (Yale University Press, 2022)
2022
AWARDEE: Corinna Zeltsman, Ink Under the Fingernails: Printing Politics in Nineteenth-Century Mexico (University of California Press, 2021)
HONORABLE MENTION: Paul Gillingham, Unrevolutionary Mexico: The Birth of a Strange Dictatorship (Yale University Press, 2021)
2021
AWARDEES: Pablo Yankelevich, Los otros: raza, normas y corrupción en la gestión de la extranjería en México, 1900-1950 (Iberoamericana Editorial Vervuert / Bonilla Artiga Editores, 2020) and Theodore Cohen, Finding Afro-Mexico: Race and Nation after the Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 2020)
2020
AWARDEE: Benjamin T. Smith, The Mexican Press and Civil Society, 1940-1976. Stories from the Newsroom, Stories from the Street (University of North Carolina Press, 2018)
HONORABLE MENTION: Martin A. Nesvig, Promiscuous Power: An Unorthodox History of New Spain (University of Texas Press, 2018)
2019
AWARDEE: Ben Vinson III, Before Mestizaje: The Frontiers of Race and Caste in Colonial Mexico (Cambridge University Press, 2017)
2018
AWARDEE: William B. Taylor, Theater of a Thousand Wonders: A History of Miraculous Images and Shrines in New Spain (Cambridge University Press, 2016)
HONORABLE MENTION: Nora E. Jaffary, Reproduction and Its Discontents in Mexico: Childbirth and Contraception from 1750 to 1905 (University of North Carolina Press, 2016)