The ASA Best Book Prize, formerly known as the Herskovits Prize (Melville J. Herskovits Prize), is an annual prize given by the

African Studies Association The African Studies Association (ASA) is a US-based association of scholars, students, practitioners, and institutions with an interest in the continent of Africa. Founded in 1957, the ASA is the leading organization of African Studies in North ...

to the best scholarly work (including translations) on

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

published in

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

in the previous year and distributed in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. The prize was named after

Melville Herskovits Melville Jean Herskovits (September 10, 1895 – February 25, 1963) was an American anthropologist who helped to first establish African and African Diaspora studies in American academia. He is known for exploring the cultural continuity from Af ...

, one of the founders of the ASA. The title of the prize was changed in 2019 in response to efforts to decolonize African studies.

Winners

*1965 – Ruth S. Morgenthau for'' Political Parties in French-Speaking West Africa '' *1966 –

Leo Kuper Leo Kuper (20 November 1908 – 23 May 1994) was a South African sociologist specialising in the study of genocide. Early life and legal career Kuper was born to a Lithuanian Jewish family. His siblings included his sister Mary (d. 1948), who ...

for'' An African Bourgeoisie '' *1967 –

Jan Vansina Jan M. J. Vansina (14 September 1929 – 8 February 2017) was a Belgian historian and anthropologist regarded as an authority on the history of Central Africa, especially of what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, and Burundi. ...

for'' Kingdoms of the Savanna '' *1968 – Herbert Weiss for'' Political Protest in the Congo '' *1969 – Paul J. Bohannan,

Laura Bohannan Laura Bohannan (née Laura Marie Altman Smith), (1922 – March 19, 2002) pen name Elenore Smith Bowen, was an American cultural anthropologist best known for her 1966 article, "Shakespeare in the Bush." Bohannan also wrote two books during the ...

for ''Tiv economy '' *1970 – Stanlake Samkange for ''Origins of Rhodesia '' *1971 –

René Lemarchand René Lemarchand (born 1932) is a French- American political scientist who is known for his research on ethnic conflict and genocide in Rwanda, Burundi and Darfur. Publishing in both English and French, he is particularly known for his work on t ...

for ''Rwanda and Burundi '' *1972 –

Francis Deng Francis Mading Deng (born 1938) is a South Sudanese politician and diplomat. He played an important role in advancing a Responsibility to Protect (R2P) when he was the UN's Special Representative on Internally Displaced Persons (1992–2004). ...

for ''Tradition and Modernization '' *1973 – Allen F. Isaacman for ''Mozambique The Africanization of a European Institution '' *1974 –

John N. Paden John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second Ep ...

for ''Religion and Political Culture in Kano '' *1975 – Elliott Skinner for ''African Urban Life '' *1975 – Lansine Kaba for'' Wahhabiyya: Islamic Reform and Politics in French West Africa '' *1976 –

Ivor Wilks Professor Emeritus Ivor G. Wilks (19 July 1928 – 7 October 2014)"Professor Ivor Wilks is dead"
, Star ...

for'' Asante in the Nineteenth Century: The Structure and Evolution of a Political Order '' *1977 –

Crawford Young Crawford Young is an American lutenist and musicologist residing in Basel, Switzerland. He is the director of the Ferrara Ensemble, Ensemble Project Ars Nova, Shield of Harmony, and is a long time accompanist of Andreas Scholl. Life and career R ...

for '' Politics Cultural Pluralism '' *1978 – William Y. Adams for '' Nubia: Corridor to Africa '' *1979 – Hoyt Alverson for '' Mind in the Heart of Darkness: Value and Self-Identity among the Tswana of Southern Africa '' *1980 –

Margaret Strobel Margaret Strobel (born 1946) is a retired US academic. She studied the history of African women during European colonialism and ran the Women's Studies Program at University of Illinois Chicago. Early life Margaret Ann Strobel was born February 1 ...

for'' Muslim Women in Mombasa, 1890-1975'' *1980 –

Richard Borshay Lee Richard Borshay Lee (born 1937) is a Canadian anthropologist. Lee has studied at the University of Toronto and University of California, Berkeley, where he received a Ph.D. He holds a position at the University of Toronto as Professor Emeritus o ...

for ''The !Kung San'' *1981 –

Gavin Kitching Gavin Kitching is a British author and professor of social sciences and international relations (formerly head of School Politics and International Relations) at the University of New South Wales, where he has taught since 1991. In 2007 Kitching be ...

for'' Class and Economic Change in Kenya: The Making of an African Petite-Bourgeoisie '' *1981 –

Gwyn Prins Gwyn or Gwynn may refer to: People * Gwyn (name), includes a list of people with the given name or surname Gwyn, including variants such as Gwynn and Gwynne Fictional or mythological characters * Gwyn ap Nudd, in Welsh mythology * Gwynn (Sluggy F ...

for ''The Hidden Hippopotamus: Reappraisal in African History: The Early Colonial Experience in Western Zambia '' *1982 – Frederick Cooper for'' From Slaves to Squatters: Plantation Labor & Agriculture in Zanzibar & Coastal Kenya, 1890-1925 '' *1982 –

Sylvia Scribner Sylvia Scribner (1923 – July 20, 1991) was an American psychologist and educational researcher who focused on the role of culture in literacy and learning. Her parents were Gussie and Harry Cohen, and Sylvia Scribner also had a sister, Shirley. ...

, Michael Cole for ''The Psychology of Literacy '' *1983 – James W. Fernandez for'' Bwiti: An ethnography of the religious imagination in Africa '' *1984 – J. D. Y. Peel for'' Ijeshas and Nigerians: The Incorporation of a Yoruba Kingdom, 1890s-1970s '' *1984 –

Paulin Hountondji Paulin Jidenu Hountondji (11 April 1942 – 2 February 2024) was a Beninese philosopher, politician and academic considered one of the most important figures in the history of African philosophy. From the 1970s onwards, he taught at the Univers ...

for ''African Philosophy '' *1985 – Claire C. Robertson for ''Sharing the Same Bowl: A Socioeconomic History of Women and Class in Accra, Ghana '' *1986 – Sara Berry for'' Fathers Work for Their Sons: Accumulation, Mobility, and Class Formation in an Extended Yoruba Community '' *1987 – Paul Lubeck for'' Islam and Urban Labor in Northern Nigeria: The Making of a Muslim Working Class '' *1987 – T.O. Beidelman for ''Moral Imagination in Kaguru Modes of Thought'' *1988 – John Iliffe for ''The African Poor: A History '' *1989 – Joseph Calder Miller for'' Way Of Death: Merchant Capitalism And The Angolan Slave Trade, 1730-1830 '' *1989 – V. Y. Mudimbe for ''The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy and the Order of Knowledge '' *1990 – Edwin N. Wilmsen for ''Land Filled with Flies: A Political Economy of the Kalahari '' *1991 –

Johannes Fabian Johannes Fabian (born 19 May 1937) is an emeritus professor of Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam. His ethnographic and historical research focuses on religious movements, language, work, and popular culture in the Shaba mining region of Z ...

for ''Power and Performance: Ethnographic Explorations Through Proverbial Wisdom and Theater in Shaba, Zaire '' *1991 – Luise White for ''The Comforts of Home: Prostitution in Colonial Nairobi '' *1992 – Myron Echenberg for ''Colonial Conscripts: The Tirailleurs Senegalais in French West Africa, 1857-1960 '' *1993 –

Kwame Anthony Appiah Kwame Akroma-Ampim Kusi Anthony Appiah ( ; born 8 May 1954) is an English-American philosopher and writer who has written about political philosophy, ethics, the philosophy of language and mind, and African intellectual history. Appiah is Prof ...

for'' In My Father's House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture '' *1994 – Keletso E. Atkins for ''The Moon is Dead! Give Us Our Money!: The Cultural Origins of an African Work Ethic, atal, South Africa, 1843-1900 '' *1995 – Megan Vaughan, Henrietta L. Moore for ''Cutting Down Trees: Gender, Nutrition, and Agricultural Change in the Northern Province of Zambia, 1890-1990 '' *1996 –

Jonathon Glassman Jonathon is a male given name. It is an often used alternative spelling of " Jonathan", as is "Johnathan". Notable people named Jonathon include: *Jon Allen (musician) (born 1977), English singer-songwriter *Jonathon Brandmeier (born 1956), a Chica ...

for ''Feasts and Riot: Revelry, Rebellion, & Popular Consciousness on the Swahili Coast, 1856-1888 '' *1997 –

Mahmood Mamdani Mahmood Mamdani, FBA (born 23 April 1946) is an Indian-born Ugandan academic, author, and political commentator, based in New York City. He is the Herbert Lehman Professor of Government and a Professor of Anthropology, Political Science and ...

for'' Citizen and Subject '' *1997 – Charles van Onsen for ''

The Seed is Mine ''The Seed is Mine: The Life of Kas Maine, a South African Sharecropper 1894-1985'' is a microhistorical study by Charles van Onselen. It is a profound social history of an African peasant sharecropper and his family in a racially divided South A ...

'' *1998 –

Susan Mullin Vogel Susan Mullin Vogel is a curator, professor, scholar, and filmmaker whose area of focus is African art. She was a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, founded what is now The Africa Center in the early 1980s, served as Director of the Yale Un ...

for ''Baule: African Art, Western Eyes '' *1999 –

Peter Uvin Peter Uvin (born 1962) is a Belgian-born American political scientist. He is a professor of Government at Claremont McKenna College. He was the Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of Faculty. He resigned that position on 28 August 2020. H ...

for ''Aiding Violence: The Development Enterprise in Rwanda '' *2000 –

Nancy Rose Hunt Nancy may refer to: Places France * Nancy, France, a city in the northeastern French department of Meurthe-et-Moselle and formerly the capital of the duchy of Lorraine ** Arrondissement of Nancy, surrounding and including the city of Nancy ...

for ''A Colonial Lexicon: Of Birth Ritual, Medicalization, and Mobility in the Congo '' *2001 – J. D. Y. Peel for ''Religious Encounter and the Making of the Yoruba '' *2001 –

Karin Barber Dame Karin Judith Barber, (born 2 July 1949) is a British cultural anthropologist and academic, who specialises in the Yoruba-speaking area of Nigeria. From 1999 to 2017, she was Professor of African Cultural Anthropology at the University of ...

for ''The Generation of Plays: Yoruba Popular Life in Theater '' *2002 – Diana Wylie for ''Starving on a Full Stomach: Hunger and the Triumph of Cultural Racism in Modern South Africa '' *2002 –

Judith A. Carney The Book of Judith is a deuterocanonical book included in the Septuagint and the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christian Old Testament of the Bible but excluded from the Hebrew canon and assigned by Protestants to the apocrypha. It tells o ...

for ''Black Rice: The African Origins of Rice Cultivation in the Americas '' *2003 – Joseph E. Inikori for'' Africans and the Industrial Revolution in England: A Study in International Trade and Economic Development '' *2004 – Allen F. Roberts, Mary Nooter Roberts, Gassia Armenian, Ousmane Gueye for ''A Saint in the City: Sufi Arts of Urban Senegal '' *2005 –

Adam Ashforth Adam is the name given in Genesis 1–5 to the first human. Adam is the first human-being aware of God, and features as such in various belief systems (including Judaism, Christianity, Gnosticism and Islam). According to Christianity, Adam sin ...

for ''Witchcraft, Violence, and Democracy in South Africa '' *2005 –

for'' How Societies Are Born: Governance in West Central Africa Before 1600 '' *2006 – J. Lorand Matory for ''Black Atlantic Religion: Tradition, Transnationalism, and Matriarchy in the Afro-Brazilian Candomble '' *2007 – Barbara MacGowan Cooper for ''Evangelical Christians in the Muslim Sahel '' *2008 – Linda Heywood and John K. Thornton for ''Central Africans, Atlantic Creoles, and the Foundation of the Americas, 1585-1660'' *2008 –

Parker Shipton Parker may refer to: People * Parker (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Parker (surname), including a list of people and fictional characters with the surname Arts and entertainment * ''Parker ...

for ''The Nature of Entrustment: Intimacy, Exchange, and the Sacred in Africa'' *2009 –

Sylvester Ogbechie Sylvester Okwunodu Ogbechie is a Nigerian-American art historian, artist, and curator. He is Professor of History of Art and Architecture at the University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barb ...

for ''Ben Enwonwu: The Making of an African Modernist'' *2010 – Trevor H.J. Marchand for ''The Masons of Djenne'' *2010 – Adeline Masquelier for ''Women and Islamic Revival in a West African Town'' *2011 –

G. Ugo Nwokeji G is the seventh letter of the Latin alphabet. G may also refer to: Places * Gabon, international license plate code G * Glasgow, UK postal code G * Eastern Quebec, Canadian postal prefix G * Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne, Australia, ...

for ''The Slave Trade and Culture in the Bight of Biafra: An African Society in the Atlantic World'' *2011 –

Neil Kodesh Neil is a masculine name of Irish origin. The name is an anglicisation of the Irish ''Niall'' which is of disputed derivation. The Irish name may be derived from words meaning "cloud", "passionate", "victory", "honour" or "champion".. As a surname ...

for ''Beyond the Royal Gaze: Clanship and Public Healing in Buganda'' *2012 –

Simon Gikandi Simon E. Gikandi (born 30 September 1960) is a Kenyan Literature Professor and Postcolonial scholar. He is the Class of 1943 University Professor of English and Chair, Department of English at Princeton University. He is perhaps best known for h ...

for ''Slavery and the Culture of Taste'' *2013 – Derek Peterson for ''Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival: A History of Dissent, c. 1935-1972'' *2014 – Carola Lentz for ''Land, Mobility and Belonging in West Africa'' *2014 – Allen Isaacman and Barbara Isaacman for ''Dams, Displacement and the Delusion of Development: Cahora Bassa and its Legacies in Mozambique, 1965-2007'' *2015 – Abena Dove Osseo-Asare for ''Bitter Roots: The Search for Healing Plants in Africa'' *2016 – Chika Okeke-Agulu for ''Postcolonial Modernism: Art and Decolonization in Twentieth-Century Nigeria'' *2017 – Fallou Ngom for ''Muslims beyond the Arab World: The Odyssey of Ajami and the Muridiyya'' *2018 – Lisa A. Lindsay for ''Atlantic Bonds: A Nineteenth-Century Odyssey from America to Africa'' *2019 – Michael A. Gomez for '' African Dominion: A New History of Empire in Early and Medieval West Africa'' *2020 –

Adom Getachew Adom Getachew is an Ethiopian-American political scientist. She is Professor of Political Science and Race, Diaspora & Indigeneity at the University of Chicago. She is the author of '' Worldmaking after Empire: The Rise and Fall of Self-Determin ...

for '' Worldmaking after Empire: The Rise and Fall of Self-Determination'' *2021 – Naminata Diabate for ''Naked Agency: Genital Cursing and Biopolitics in Africa'' *2022 –

Cajetan Iheka Cajetan and Kajetan is the Anglicized, Germanized and Slavicized form of the Italian given name Gaetano. People with this name include: * Thomas Cajetan (1469–1534), Italian Dominican theologian, cardinal, and opponent of Martin Luther * Saint C ...

for ''African Ecomedia: Network Forms, Planetary Politics'' *2023 – Mariana P. Candido for ''Wealth, Land, and Property in Angola: A History of Dispossession, Slavery, and Inequality'' * 2024 – Gabrielle Hecht for ''Residual Governance: How South Africa Foretells Planetary Futures''

References

{{reflist

External links

ASA Best Book Prize
American non-fiction literary awards