Author Charles King won the Francis Parkman Prize for historical writing for his book Gods of the Upper Air, the Society of American Historians (SAH) at Columbia University announced.
King’s book about the birth of cultural anthropology in the early 20th century was a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle Award and winner of a 2020 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. A reviewer for Kirkus called the book “rich in ideas” and “superb.”
“With this elegant and wide-ranging study, King has turned a story of ideas into a true narrative, with vivid, important characters in whom those ideas live and develop,” the SAH said in a news release.
The Francis Parkman Prize has been awarded annually since 1957. Previous winners have included David McCullough for Truman, Louis Menand for The Metaphysical Club, and Blake Bailey for Cheever: A Life.
The SAH also awarded a new prize this year, named after the late journalist Tony Horwitz. The inaugural Tony Horwitz Prize, which “honors an author whose work in American history holds wide appeal and enduring public significance,” went to Frances FitzGerald, whose books include Fire in the Lake and The Evangelicals.
The group’s Allan Nevins Prize, which is given to a doctoral dissertation on American history, went to Robert Colby for “The Continuance of an Unholy Traffic: Slave Trading in the Civil War South.”
Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
