The Tomlinson Book Prize

Daniel Larsen, Betsy Rohaly Smoot, and Justin G. Prince awarded the 2022 Tomlinson prize for their World War One books

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The World War One Historical Association (WW1HA) annual Norman B. Tomlinson, Jr., prize for 2022 for the best work of history in English on World War One (19141918) has been awarded to three exceptional historians:

  • Daniel Larsen, author of Plotting for Peace: American Peacemakers, British Codebreakers, and Britain
    at War, 19141917 (Cambridge University Press)
  • Betsy Rohaly Smoot’s biography of Parker Hitt: TheFather of American Cryptology (University Press of Kentucky)
  • Million Dollar Barrage: American Field Artillery in the Great War by Justin G. Prince (University of Oklahoma Press)

This is the seventh time that multiple books won the Tomlinson prize. Four 2021 titles shared the award presented in 2022, three 2018 titles shared the award presented in 2019, three books published in 2016 shared the 2017 award, and three 2010 titles also shared the award presented in 2011. Two books published in 2019 received the award in 2020, and two 2017 books received the award in 2018. The Tomlinson prize started in 1999. WW1HA recognizes that quality research is still being done and we are proud that the Tomlinson is awarded to more than one book when it is deserved.

The Tomlinson prize consists of a cash award and original bronze plaque sculpted by Andrew L. Chernak, a U.S. Army Vietnam War veteran whose sculptures are installed at Arlington Cemetery and state and private parks: andrewchernaksculptures.com

This award was made possible through a grant from Norman B. Tomlinson, Jr., Directoremeritus of The Western Front Association United States Branch. (WFAUS became the World War One Historical Association in 2011.)

Historians Michael Neiberg, Graydon Tunstall, and Heather StreetsSalter, plus former Editor of World War One Illustrated magazine Dana Lombardy form the prize jury for the Norman B. Tomlinson Prize. Normally the prize is awarded in the year following the calendar year of publication, but there are occasional exceptions to that policy. For information on how to submit books for the prize, email dana.lombardy@gmail.com or neiberg102@gmail.com.

Previous Winners

2021

 

For the fifth time in its history, three books shared the Tomlinson prize:

For King and Country: The British Monarchy and the First World War
By Heather Jones
Cambridge University Press

Global War, Global Catastrophe: Neutrals, Belligerents and the Transformation of the First World War
By Maartje Abbenhuis and Ismee Tames
Bloomsbury Collections

The Austro-Hungarian Army and the First World War
By Graydon A. Tunstall
Cambridge University Press


 Honorable Mention
Contact Zones of the First World War: Cultural Encounters across the British Empire
By Anna Maguire
Cambridge University Press
Cover image: For King and CountryCover image: Global War, Global CatastropheCover image: The Austro-Hungarian Army and the First World WarCover image: Contact Zones of the First World War

2020

For the fourth time in its history, three books share the Tomlinson prize:

Britain and Italy in the Era of the Great War: Defending and Forging Empires
By Stefano Marcuzzi
Cambridge University Press

Coalition Strategy and the End of the First World War: The Supreme War Council and War Planning, 1917-1918
By Meighen McCrae
Cambridge University Press

The German Failure in Belgium, August 1914: How Faulty Reconnaissance Exposed the Weakness of the Schlieffen Plan
By Dennis Showalter, Joseph P. Robinson and Janet A. Robinson
McFarland & Company


 Honorable Mention
Before Bletchley Park: The Codebreakers of the First World War
By Paul Gannon
The History Press

2019

When the War Came Home: The Ottomans’ Great War and the Devastation of an Empire
By Yiğit Akin
Stanford University PressThe Imperial Russian Army in Peace, War, and Revolution, 1856-1917
By Roger R. Reese
University Press of Kansas


 Honorable Mention
World War I: A Country-by-Country Guide
By Spencer C. Tucker
ABC-CLIO

2018

For the third time in its history, three books share the Tomlinson prize:

Haig’s Enemy: Crown Prince Rupprecht and Germany’s War on the Western Front
By Jonathan Boff
Oxford University Press, 2018

The Generals’ War: Operational Level Command on the Western Front in 1918
By David T. Zabecki
Indiana University Press, 2018

Pandora’s Box: A History of the First World War
By Jörn Leonhard
The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2018


Honorable Mention
World War One in Southeast Asia: Colonialism and Anticolonialism in an Era of Global Conflict
By Heather Streets-Salter

2017

Co-Winners:

The Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End
By Robert Gerwarth
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2017

Pershing’s Crusaders: The American Soldier in World War I
By Richard Faulkner
University Press of Kansas, 2017


 

2016

For the second time in its history, three books share the Tomlinson prize:

Instrument of War: The German Army 1914-1918
By Dennis Showalter
Osprey Publishing, 2016

The Path to War: How the First World War Created Modern America
By Michael S. Neiberg
Oxford University Press, 2016

Written in Blood: The Battle for Fortress Przemysl in WWI
By Graydon “Jack” Tunstall
Indiana University Press, 2016



 

2015

Serbia and the Balkan Front, 1914: The Outbreak of the Great War
By James Lyon
Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015
book cover

2014

Verdun: The Longest Battle of the Great War
By Paul Jankowski
Oxford University Press, 2013
book cover

2013

Planning Armageddon: British Economic Warfare and the First World War
By Nicholas A. Lambert
Harvard University Press, 2012

2012

The Romanian Battlefront in World War I
By Glenn E. Torrey
The University Press of Kansas, 2011

2011

The Russian Origins of the First World War
By Sean McMeekin
Harvard University Press, 2011

2010

The Final Battle: Soldiers of the Western Front in the German Revolution of 1918
By D. Scott Stephenson
Cambridge University Press, 2009Blood on the Snow: The Carpathian Winter War of 1915
By Graydon “Jack” Tunstall
University Press of Kansas, 2010Breakthrough: The Gorlice-Tarnow Campaign, 1915
By Richard L. DiNardo
Praeger, 2010

2009

Bloody Victory: The Sacrifice on the Somme and the Making of the Twentieth Century
By William James Philpott
Little Brown, 2009

2008

The Second Battle of the Marne
By Michael Neiberg
University of Indiana Press, 2008

2007

To Conquer Hell: The Meuse-Argonne, 1918
By Edward Lengel
Henry Holt & Company, 2008

2006

Pyrrhic Victory: French Strategy and Operations in the Great War
By Brigadier General Robert A. Doughty, USA (Ret.)
Harvard University Press, 2005

2005

Fighting Different Wars: Experience, Memory and the First World War in Britain
By Janet S. K. Watson
Cambridge University Press, 2004

2004

A Fraternity of Arms: America and France in the Great War
By Robert B. Bruce
University Press of Kansas, 2003

2003

France and The Great War, 1914-1918
By Leonard V. Smith, Stephane Audoin-Rouzeau & Annette Becker
Cambridge University Press, 2002

2002

German Atrocities, 1914: A History of Denial
By John Horne & Alan Kramer,
Yale University Press

2001

The First World War Volume I: To Arms
By Hew Strachan,
Oxford University Press, 2001

2000

Sir John Fisher’s Naval Revolution
By Nicholas A. Lambert
University of South Carolina Press, 1999

1999

The First World War: Germany and Austria-Hungary, 1914-1918
By Holger H. Herwig
Edward Arnold Publishing, 1997
A second edition was published by Bloomsbury in 2014 with new material on the domestic front and internal political and ethnic fissures.

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