Past Winners of the David J. Langum Sr. Prizes

2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001

For the year 2009

Langum Prize for American Historical Fiction:

To Edward Rutherfurd for his New York: The Novel, published by Doubleday. This massive, well-written novel traces the history of New York City, and, through that perspective, American history generally, from the 17th century to the present. The history unfolds through the lives and experiences of various families, free, slave, high class, low class, but primarily through the Masters, early a mercantile and later a banking family. Although sometimes the transitions between generations are jerky and the time shifts very rapid, when either the historical importance or the drama of the characters increase, the pace slows down appropriately. The frequent dramatic vignettes of family crises are fascinating. Even though little lectures of history are sometimes inserted into dialogue, in the main it reads smoothly and quickly. Readers should not be daunted by its size. Rutherfurd’s book completely fulfills the purpose of the prize in making the rich history of America accessible to the educated general public. – DJL, Sr.

Director’s Historical Fiction Mention:

This is a category for a book or two that, while not qualifying for the Langum Prize in American Historical Fiction or even coming close enough so as to qualify for the Honorable Mention, nevertheless caught the Director’s eye and ought to be mentioned.

Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman for In the Lion’s Den: A Novel of the Civil War, iUniverse, Inc., does not qualify because self-published. It centers on Charles Adams and his associates’ diplomatic efforts in London to keep the British from recognizing the Confederacy and otherwise giving it aid. A parallel love story is quite predictable and interesting only for its vivid description of the United States prisoner of war camps. The treatment of Adams’s diplomacy is essentially fictionalized history rather than historical fiction. However, it is very well-written and a pleasure to read, and presents an aspect of the Civil War saga that is out of the ordinary. – DJL, Sr.

Jamie Ford for Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, Random House, is a heart-warming narrative with themes of a love story coupled with tangled conflicts and misunderstandings between fathers and sons, set against the American government’s eviction of Japanese-Americans from Seattle and their imprisonment during World War II. The author made some serious historical errors in the preliminary version, most but not all of which were corrected in the final book. Additionally, he sometimes resorts to commonplace images and metaphors. Nonetheless, the narrative is appealingly straightforward and proceeds with honesty and great dignity. This is an author who must be encouraged. – DJL, S

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For the Year 2008

Langum Prize for Historical Fiction:

The winner of the 2008 of the David J. Langum, Sr. Prize in American Historical Fiction is Kathleen Kent for The Heretic’s Daughter: A Novel, published by Little, Brown.

This vivid novel brings to life the familiar history of the Salem Witch Trials in a compelling narrative that is at once authentic, believable, and surprising. Through vivid sensory imagery and authentic detail, Kent transports the reader to a seventeenth-century common room or a dank New England jail cell. She renders the horrific details of the trials and subsequent executions of ordinary men and women, the mundane details of everyday life, and the wrenching tale of a family in conflict through a child’s voice that is rich with the flavor and rhythm of early-American speech, yet wonderfully accessible. The Heretic’s Daughter is historical fiction of the highest order: well-researched, compelling, illuminating, and beautifully done. -- RA

2008 Historical Fiction Honorable Mention:

Honorable mention is made to Elisabeth Payne Rosen for Hallam’s War, published by Unbridled Books.

This well-researched and beautifully-written novel focuses on Hugh Hallam and his family, small plantation owners in antebellum Tennessee. Hallam is a progressive, in farming methods and attitudes toward slavery. He treats his slaves with decency and respect, even offering gradual emancipation. When the War comes, Hallam fights for his region as a Confederate officer. Yet the title is ironic, since Hallam fights another war within himself. He is knowledgeable about the North, and even before the fighting erupts he knows the South will lose. Hallam ultimately comes to believe that slavery itself is evil, but even with those conflicts inside him, he soldiers on. -- DJL, Sr.

Director’s Historical Fiction Mention:

Another 2008 book published by Unbridled Books deserves a special mention. Jack Fuller’s Abbeville is a split time work, in which nearly half of the novel is in the very near present, and therefore questionable historical fiction. A young man returns to a fictional tiny, northern Illinois town to try to discover why his grandfather, who prospered and fell there, lived such a happy and contented life. I am utterly biased because I grew up in a small northern Illinois town, larger than Abbeville but still surrounded by cornfields. So much here rings true. But that is not why I liked the book. What impressed me is the spiritual theme, developed but never pushed on the reader. It is written with a deft touch. -- DJL, Sr.

Langum Prize for Legal History:

The winner of the 2008 David J. Langum, Sr. Prize in American Legal History is Ernest Freeberg for Democracy’s Prisoner: Eugene V. Debs, the Great War, and the Right to Dissent, published by the Harvard University Press.

During American participation in World War I, the Wilson administration prosecuted and jailed war critics on the specious ground that their dissent tended to interfere with recruitment of soldiers. The federal government spied on groups thought to be critical, harassed individual dissidents, and caused them to lose their jobs. The government encouraged private vigilance groups to harass, abduct and even torture American citizens because of their failure to support Wilson’s ludicrous notion of a war to end all wars.

As leader of the Socialist Party, Eugene V. Debs became a primary target of these persecutions, and Freeberg focuses most of this well-written book on Deb’s specific story, even while relating the more general history of the repression. Debs became one of the few imprisoned dissidents whom Wilson refused to release after the war was completed, and a large-scale campaign clamored for his pardon, ultimately granted by President Harding. In this campaign, Freeberg tells us, Debs the specific became the general story, since the amnesty effort did much to engender the more expansive notions of free speech that we enjoy today.

This book has important lessons for today, when we are now concluding another war, in Iraq, that many people and groups opposed. Again the federal government spied on Americans and practiced torture. Before surrendering to utter discouragement, we might reflect on either the refusal or inability of President Bush to simply imprison those who strongly criticized his war, as predecessor Wilson had done. The sacrifices of Debs and the dissidents of that generation may have worked a permanent change in the rights of dissent and free speech during wartime. For that, and this fine account, we should be thankful. – DJL, Sr.

2008 Legal History Honorable Mention:

Honorable mention is made to Peter Charles Hoffer for the book, The Treason Trials of Aaron Burr, published by the University Press of Kansas.

This fine work vividly portrays Aaron Burr’s strange intrigues in the West and provides an illuminating account of the political and legal aspects of trials that helped to establish the principle that courts will not permit the President or Congress to manipulate the law of treason for the purpose of stifling dissent. Hoffer also demonstrates how the trials made fundamental contributions to the law of evidence and criminal procedure.

Hoffer provides fresh insights into the interactions among Burr, Thomas Jefferson, and John Marshall, and his book is an important addition to the on-going re-evaluation of Burr’s reputation. -- WGR

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For the Year 2007

Langum Prize for Historical Fiction:

The David J. Langum, Sr. Prize in American Historical Fiction for 2007 is awarded to Kurt Andersen for his Heyday, a novel (New York: Random House, 2007). Andersen’s Heyday well-fits the purposes of the prize. Set in 1848, the novel begins in New York City and explores the relationship of a traveling Englishman and an American actress and clandestine prostitute, their friends and relations. As misunderstandings develop between the principal protagonists, the woman flees westward, the man pursues her, and in a sub-plot a would-be assassin chases the man. They all end up in California at the beginning of the Gold Rush.

In this engaging novel, Andersen immerses the reader in rich quotidian details of life in New York City and California. The chase across the entire continent allows Andersen to portray the middle of the country, its history and prospects as of 1848, an area often neglected by historical fiction. The Midwestern utopian communities of the mid-nineteenth century are particularly well-described. Meditations on American inventiveness run throughout the book.

The reader acquires much social history from this 1848 setting. Where appropriate to the plot, the characters ruminate about political events or are in contact with actual actors on the political, economic, or cultural stage, thereby giving the reader political and economic history, especially relating to technology, in the context of the mid-nineteenth century.

In short, Heyday, a novel is both excellent fiction and lavishly excellent history. - DJL, Sr.

Langum Prize for Legal History:

The David J. Langum, Sr. Prize in American Legal History or Biography for 2007 is awarded to Bruce J. Dierenfield for his book The Battle over School Prayer: How Engel v. Vitale Changed America (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2007). A major issue roiling the American public since the 1960s has been the appropriateness and constitutionality of organized prayers in the American public schools. In Engel v. Vitale [1962] the United States Supreme Court struck down a bland prayer without explicit Christian reference that New York State law permitted and a local school district required students recite as a part of the daily opening exercises. In Engel, its first entry into the school prayer issue, the Court held that even with opt-out provisions that permitted individual students to remain silent or leave the room, the prayer violated the interpretation of the First Amendment that had created a “wall of separation” between church and state. The decision caused great consternation. Adherents of public prayers bemoaned their withdrawal in schools as fostering juvenile delinquency, even communism, and destroying the traditional understanding and privileged place of the Christian religion in the nation. Some with such views denounced the ACLU, atheists, Jews, and others they thought were fomenting trouble by bringing lawsuits based on the First Amendment to challenge prayer in schools.

Dierenfield has done a wonderful job of lucidly describing this controversy and the resulting litigation. Although the heart of the book is the Engel case, he also traces the entire history of the American church and state relationship, with particular reference to religious activity in schools, including Bible reading, student-led prayer, moments of silence, student pre and post-school religious activities within the school grounds, as well as organized prayers and Constitutional amendments designed to restore them.

The book is calm in tone and presents all sides to the controversies. Dierenfield conducted numerous interviews with the Engel parties, lawyers, judge, students, teachers, and school officials, as well as the participants of other court battles over school prayer. As a result of these interviews he is able to describe the impact of the litigation on the individuals directly involved. These were generally vicious taunts and reprisals heaped on the plaintiffs and their families by the advocates of public Christian prayer.

As is true with all of the other books in the Kansas series, Landmark Law Cases and American Society, Dierenfield’s Battle over School Prayer, is not footnoted. However, the thorough scholarship is clearly evident, and the book has an excellent bibliographic essay and a good, useable index. – DJL, Sr.

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For the Year 2006

Langum Prize for Historical Fiction:

The David J. Langum, Sr. Prize in American Historical Fiction is awarded to Sheldon Russell for his Dreams to Dust: A Tale of the Oklahoma Land Rush (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2006). In this exciting book, Sheldon Russell vividly portrays the Oklahoma land rush of 1889, with special attention to the brief and intense boom-to-bust town of Guthrie. To some extent a roman a clef, many of the novel’s characters are patterned after actual persons and events in early Oklahoma. The treatment of these characters in Russell’s hands is what makes the book rise above the average fast-paced novel. The inner character of the protagonist and many of the primary figures are touched by the spirit of greed and acquisition accompanying the land rush and they engage in conduct with questionable ethical standards. The book is a good correction to the generality of work about great booms, in that it shows their less attractive consequences as well as their glitter. - DJL, Sr.

Langum Prize for Legal History:

The David J. Langum, Sr. Prize in American Legal History or Biography goes to Saul Cornell for his A Well-Regulated Militia: The Founding Fathers and the Origins of Gun Control in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006). Cornell argues that the Founding Fathers’ intention for the Second Amendment was to permit Americans to fulfill their civic obligation to assemble for the militia, in contrast with standard modern interpretations, that the Second Amendment gives rights to individuals to bear arms or, alternatively, that it gives only collective rights to the states. While reasonable minds might differ as to this constitutional reading, the primary value of this book is not its view of the Constitution, but rather its history of how Americans over time, from the early republic to the present, have done this reading. Somewhat of an intellectual history as well as a legal history, Cornell shows us how interpretations of the Second Amendment and views of the role of the militia have varied over time and among different sets of Americans. There has been much serious scholarly study of the interpretation of the Second Amendment, with less concerned with its history over the lifetime of the country. However, almost none of either category is directed toward the educated general public. Saul Cornell’s book well fills a need in an area of great public interest. - DJL, Sr.

2006 Honorable Mention:

Honorary mention is given to Carolyn N. Long for her Mapp v. Ohio: Guarding against Unreasonable Searches and Seizures (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2006).

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For the Year 2005

Langum Prize for Historical Fiction:

For American historical fiction: Madison House: A Novel by Peter Donahue (Hawthorne Books, 2005).

One reviewer has written that Peter Donahue seems to have a map of turn-of-the-century Seattle in his head. Indeed, his vivid detail, not only of geography but also the means and implements of living, gives this novel great verisimilitude as an historical work. The two principal figures and their unusual love affair, together with the vivid characters who surround them, play out against the dramatic transformation of Seattle from frontier settlement to booming metropolis. Beyond the fascinating characters and strong story line, the work is also a meditation on the human cost of expansion and enterprise, insisting that pain and suffering to individual human beings
can accompany conventional progress. - DJL, Sr.

Langum Prize for Legal History:

For American legal history and legal biography: To the Flag: The Unlikely History of the Pledge of Allegiance by Richard J. Ellis (University Press of Kansas, 2005).

To the Flag is a lively and engaging book that traces the origins of the Pledge of Allegiance to the American flag and provides a fascinating history of the legal and cultural controversies that this simple thirty-one word ritual has generated for more than a century. Professor Ellis demonstrates how the Pledge has reflected deep anxieties about national unity, tensions between materialism and spirituality, and fears about excessive individualism and political radicalism. This meticulously researched book brings fresh insights into the Supreme Court's decisions concerning conscientious objection to the recitation ritual and recent legal challenges to the inclusion of the words "under God" in the Pledge. It also illuminates many largely forgotten episodes involving public and private efforts to stimulate various versions of patriotism. Although Ellis demonstrates that the Pledge's succinct expression of the nation's aspirations has fostered national unity, he explains that the Pledge "also has been used to coerce and intimidate, to compel conformity, and to silence dissent." Ellis raises timely questions about the meaning of Americanism in an increasingly pluralistic society. - WGR

2005 Honorable Mention:

Griswold v. Connecticut: Birth Control and the Constitutional Right of Privacy, by John W. Johnson (Kansas University Press, 2005).

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For the Year 2004

Langum Prize for Historical Fiction:

Linda Busby Parker for her Seven Laurels: A Novel (Southeast Missouri State University Press, 2004).

Linda Parker’s book well meets the prize requirements of “both excellent fiction and excellent history.” Set in a small town in South Alabama, Seven Laurels traces the struggles from the 1950s through the early 1990s of an artisan, a black man named Brewster McAtee, to advance in life and enter the American mainstream. There are any number of excellent books on the coming of integration in the southern cities, but Seven Laurels provides relatively uncommon insights into the fading of segregation in the rural South. The descriptions are vivid and the characters sharply drawn. Not far into the book the reader begins to really care about McAtee and his family, and is drawn compulsively into their story. The McAtees’ progress is hardly linear; there are steep downs as well as ups. Seven Laurels is at times heart warming, at other times heart wrenching, but is always filled with marvelous writing. - DJL, Sr.

2004 Honorable Mention:

Sanora Babb, for Whose Names Are Unknown: A Novel (University of Oklahoma Press, 2004)

Langum Prize for Legal History:

John M. Ferren for his Salt of the Earth, Conscience of the Court: The Story of Justice Wiley Rutledge (University of North Carolina Press, 2004).
Many readers regard judicial biography as a suspect category. Often written in a ponderous academic style, judicial biographies also tend to concentrate excessively on judicial opinions and chamber procedures, largely because judges generally lead quiet personal lives off the bench. However, John Ferren’s biography of Supreme Court Justice Wiley Rutledge is of a different order. This is a truly satisfying biography, not mere arcane discussion, and by the end of the book the reader feels that he truly understands Rutledge, both the man and his work. Ferren gives us a richly textured description and nuanced evaluation of Rutledge’s entire life, his personal life and career as a legal academic, as well as his judicial years.

The richness of the available manuscript materials, especially the Rutledge Papers in the Library of Congress, facilitated this. However, Ferren added extensively to the existing archival wealth by conducting personal interviews with Rutledge’s former students, law clerks, family, and friends. The bibliography lists 115 oral interviews, plus an additional 52 comments by letter. Of course, in reading of Rutledge’s life the reader does become informed of Supreme Court politics, procedures, and opinions. However, the educated general reader will be borne along through these seemingly arcane matters by Ferren’s wonderfully lucid and accessible writing. - DJL, Sr.

2004 Honorable Mention:

Fries's Rebellion: The Enduring Struggle for the American Revolution by Paul Douglas Newman (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004).

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For the Year 2003

Langum Prize for Historical Fiction:

Robert J. Begiebing for his Rebecca Wentworth’s Distraction: A Novel (University Press of New England, 2003).

Rebecca Wentworth’s Distraction’s protagonist is a young male artist, supporting himself in colonial Portsmouth, New Hampshire by painting portraits of wealthy families. On one level the book is an account of the love affair between himself and a young woman of the upper class, herself a far more profound artist than her lover. On yet another level, it teaches us about the American art world of the eighteenth century. At a much deeper level, and by indirection, the novel informs the reader of the nature of class in colonial America, and of the limitations of freedom of action experienced by women, even women of the upper class. At the end of the book, a “reading guide” offers some very thoughtful questions for discussion and an interview with the author that sets forth explicitly his historical research and his use of historical material alongside the fictional. The book is engaging and readable. - DJL, Sr.

Langum Prize for Legal History:

Robert J. Cottrol, Raymond T. Diamond, and Leland B. Ware for their Brown v. Board of Education: Caste, Culture, and the Constitution (University Press of Kansas, 2003).

It needs no explanation that the critical school desegregation case of Brown v. Board of Education is among the most important decisions of the United States Supreme Court in the twentieth century. However, this book describes far more than just the lawsuit of its title. In addition to a thorough coverage of Brown, this work traces a panoramic background of the discriminatory treatment of blacks from the mid-nineteenth century to the famous lawsuit and beyond. It does this looking through the prism of law and culture, but with a discussion of legal decisions and principles that is clear and could hardly be more lucidly written. Particularly skillful is the authors’ description of the synergetic relationship of general American cultural attitudes towards blacks and their treatment in law. Which is to say that cultural change is an important element in legal change. Particularly courageous is the asking of some hard questions at the end of the book about Brown’s legacy. Although not central to the theme of the book, the authors do raise the serious issues posed by the re-segregation of most urban schools through a combination of economics and white flight, and also the rejection of many inner-city black youths of hard work at school as “acting white” and thereby a rejection of their own racial identity. - DJL, Sr.

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For the Year 2002

No award for historical fiction was made for 2002.

Langum Prize for Legal History:

Two books each won the 2002 prize.

Stuart Banner for his The Death Penalty: An American History (Harvard University Press, 2002).

Stuart Banner has succeed in writing a book I would have thought impossible: a scrupulously dispassionate history of executions in America, from the early colonial period right through the June 2002 execution of Timothy McVeigh. Far more than a mere chronicle of politics and law, Banner details the changing cultural, religious, and even technological contexts of the death penalty. Neutrality of presentation does not preclude critique or analysis, and Banner is quick to criticize specious arguments on both sides of the death penalty debate. Written in an engaging manner, it is a fair prediction that this masterful and thorough study will challenge the views of all readers, no matter what their prior positions. - DJL, Sr.

Lawrence M. Friedman for his American Law in the 20th Century (Yale University Press, 2002).

Lawrence M. Friedman in many books has proved himself to be the master of direct exposition combined with vivid verbs and nicely turned phrases. In several of his works he has also demonstrated remarkable skills in synthesizing massive amounts of materials into single volume treatments of extremely broad topics. He has combined his literary skills and ability at synthesis in this masterful study. Friedman approaches law as an integral part of American society, not as a kingdom unto itself, and finds that changes in the economic and social history of America are most responsible for changes in the law. His major themes are the rise of the welfare-regulatory state, the shift of power and authority to the national government, and the explosion in the size and scale of the legal system. He explores those themes through the examination of topics such as the Roosevelt revolution, race relations and civil rights, and the liability explosion. This book offers the educated general reader delightfully readable access to the broad history of American law in the twentieth century, or such smaller slices as may be desired. -DJL, Sr.

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For the Year 2001

No award for historical fiction was made for 2001.

Langum Prize for Legal History:

Elizabeth Urban Alexander for her Notorious Woman: The Celebrated Case of Myra Clark Gaines (Louisiana State University Press, 2001).

Elizabeth Urban Alexander has succeeded in imposing order on a truly massive amount of materials that document more than fifty years of litigation over Myra Gaines’s New Orleans inheritance. The difficulty of creating a short, coherent account out of such a mass of court records, correspondence, and newspaper accounts is enormous; her research and scholarship is impressive.

Not only has Professor Alexander made sense out of this Louisiana version of Bleak House, she has also created a well-written, direct, and fascinating narrative. What really sets the book apart are the numerous succinct and deftly-crafted historical summaries. Through these, the reader learns about a variety of topics, such as: women’s changing roles in the nineteenth century in the legal system, on the public platform, and in sentimental fiction; and the rich political, social, and economic history of New Orleans. Never didactic in tone, the author skillfully seduces the reader into these vignettes of descriptive and analytical history through excellent writing and their real relationship with the strong narrative story of the litigation. - DJL, Sr.

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