vol. 24, no. 21	April 23, 1999

Three American Historians Awarded 1999 Bancroft Prizes for Books on Slavery and on King Philip's War

BY LAUREN MARSHALL

Three books exploring American history -- two on slavery and one on how King Philip's War shaped American identity--have been named winners of the 1999 Bancroft Prize, one of the most prestigious awards in the field of history presented annually by Columbia.

In recognition of their books of exceptional merit and distinction in the fields of American history, biography or diplomacy, the recipients were honored at a formal dinner on April 14 in Low Rotunda. In addition to the prize, each winner received $4,000.

The three recipients were Ira Berlin, professor of history at the University of Maryland, College Park, for "Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America," published by Belknap Press of Harvard University; Philip D. Morgan, professor of history at the College of William and Mary and editor of The William and Mary Quarterly, for "Slave Counterpoint: Black Culture in the Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake and Lowcountry" published for the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture by the University of North Carolina Press; and Jill Lepore, assistant professor of history at Boston University, for "The Name of War: King Philip's War and the Origins of American Identity," published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.

President George Rupp presented the awards; George J. Ames, chairman of the Friends of the Columbia Libraries, which sponsors the awards dinner, presided.

Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America is acclaimed as a "sweeping study of the evolution of America's "peculiar institution" from the earliest white settlement through the early Republic period," in a review by Neal M. Rosendorf in the Christian Science Monitor. The book is a culmination of two decades of research by Ira Berlin, one of the nation's foremost historians on slavery. Considered by some to be the best general history on the subject, it recounts two hundred years of American slave life as differing "from place to place and from time to time." The book is novel in its examination of slavery's diversity through three chronological eras of four geographically-based slave "societies;" one of which is the subject of another of this year's Bancroft-winning books.

In Slave Counterpoint: Black culture in the eighteenth-century Chesapeake and Lowcountry, Philip Morgan gives a comprehensive analysis of two principal colonial American slave societies, which accounted for nearly three-quarters of all African Americans in British America. According to T. H. Breen of the New York Times Book Review, Morgan's examination succeeds in providing "a balanced appreciation for the oppressiveness of bondage and of the ability of slaves to shape their lives."

Historian Jill Lepore, at age 33, is among the youngest recipients in the history of the Bancroft prize. In The Name of War, she takes a unique approach to historical interpretation by examining war and how it defined early American identity through the geographical, political, cultural and national boundaries that people drew. Lepore, acclaimed as "a remarkable storyteller" by the New Republic, recounts many dramatic events that stemmed from strange and ironic episodes of the past.

The Bancroft Prizes were established at Columbia in 1948 with a bequest from Frederic Bancroft, the historian, author and librarian of the Department of State, to provide steady development of library resources to support instruction and research in American history and diplomacy and to recognize exceptional books in the field. Books eligible for the 1999 prizes, which are awarded annually by the University Trustees, were published in 1998.