February 8, 2023
ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN PUBLISHERS ANNOUNCES FINALISTS AND CATEGORY WINNERS FOR 2023 PROSE AWARDS


Washington, DC – The Association of American Publishers (AAP) today unveiled the 105 finalists and 40 Category Winners for the 47th Annual PROSE Awards honoring scholarly works published in 2022.
“The 2023 PROSE Award entries considered by our judges illustrate the wide breadth of excellence, diversity, and merit in scholarly works published today, in all areas of academic study,” commented Emily Bokelman, Manager, Member Programs, AAP. “Our 25-judge panel evaluated this year’s entries to select 105 titles as finalists, further naming 40 exceptional titles to be honored as Category Winners.”
Dr. Nigel Fletcher-Jones, Chief Judge of the PROSE Awards, added, “This year’s entries continued the trend of raising the bar for finalists and category winners, leading to hard decisions for judges in choosing this year’s Awards for Excellence nominees and R.R. Hawkins Award winner, which will be announced shortly.
The 40 Category Winners will now be eligible for the next level of PROSE honors – the Awards for Excellence winners, which will be announced in the coming weeks.
The Awards for Excellence winners comprise the following four awards:
- The 2023 PROSE Award for Excellence in Biological and Life Sciences
- The 2023 PROSE Award for Excellence in Humanities
- The 2023 PROSE Award for Excellence in Physical Sciences and Mathematics
- The 2023 PROSE Award for Excellence in Social Sciences
Of these four Awards for Excellence winners, one will receive the PROSE Awards highest honor, the prestigious R.R. Hawkins Award.
Finalists are listed below according to their category, with finalists chosen as Category Winners highlighted in blue.
The 2023 PROSE Awards
Finalists and Category Winners
BIOLOGICAL AND LIFE SCIENCES
Biological Sciences
Category Winner
The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human, Siddhartha Mukherjee, Scribner
Finalists
The Guests of Ants: How Myrmecophiles Interact with Their Hosts, Bert Hölldobler, Christina L. Kwapich, Harvard University Press
The Mind of a Bee, Lars Chittka, Princeton University Press
Biomedicine and Neuroscience
Category Winner
Cellular Senescence in Disease, Manuel Serrano, Daniel Munoz-Espin, Elsevier
Finalist
Arrestins: Structure and Function in Vision and Beyond, Vsevolod Gurevich, Elsevier
Clinical Medicine
Category Winner
The Infertility Trap: Why Life Choices Impact your Fertility and Why We Must Act Now, R. John Aitken, Cambridge University Press
Finalists
Me vs. Us: A Health Divided, Michael Stein, Oxford University Press
The Vasculome: From Many, One, Zorina Galis, Elsevier
Clinical Psychology and Psychiatry
Category Winner
The Neurocognitive Theory of Dreaming: The Where, How, When, What, and Why of Dreams, G. William Domhoff, The MIT Press
Nursing and Allied Health
Category Winner
Transcultural Artificial Intelligence and Robotics in Health and Social Care, Irena Papadopoulos, Christina Koulouglioti, Chris Papadopoulous, Antonio Sgorbissa, Elsevier
Finalists
Breastfeeding Doesn’t Need to Suck, Kathleen Kendall-Tackett, American Psychological Association
Clinical Herbalism, Rachel Lord, BA, RN, Elsevier
HUMANITIES
Art Exhibitions
Category Winner
Persia: Ancient Iran and the Classical World, Edited by Jeffrey Spier, Timothy Potts, and Sara E. Cole, Getty Publications
Finalists
Traitor, Survivor, Icon, Edited by Victoria I. Lyall and Terezita Romo, Yale University Press
We Are Made of Stories: Self-Taught Artists in the Robson Family Collection, Leslie Umberger, Princeton University Press
Art History and Criticism
Category Winner
The Villa Farnesina: Palace of Venus in Renaissance Rome, James Grantham Turner, Cambridge University Press
Finalist
Chinese Art and Dynastic Time, Wu Hung, Princeton University Press
Biography and Autobiography
Category Winner
But I Live: Three Stories of Child Survivors of the Holocaust, Miriam Libicki and David Schaffer; Gilad Seliktar and Nico and Rolf Kamp; Barbara Yelin and Emmie Arbel; Charlotte Schallié (ed.), New Jewish Press
Finalists
Last Call at the Hotel Imperial, Deborah Cohen, Penguin Random House
Love, Activism, and the Respectable Life of Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Tara Green, Bloomsbury
Biological Anthropology, Archaeology, and Ancient History
Category Winner
The Five-Million-Year Odyssey: The Human Journey from Ape to Agriculture, Peter Bellwood, Princeton University Press
Finalist
Weavers, Scribes, and Kings: A New History of the Ancient Near East, Amanda H. Podany, Oxford University Press
Classics
Category Winner
Untangling Blackness in Greek Antiquity, Sarah F. Derbew, Cambridge University Press
Finalist
Conquering the Ocean: The Roman Invasion of Britain, Richard Hingley, Oxford University Press
European History
Category Winner
Who’s Black and Why? A Hidden Chapter from the Eighteenth-Century Invention of Race, Edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. & Andrew S. Curran, Harvard University Press
Finalists
The World the Plague Made: The Black Death and the Rise of Europe, James Belich, Princeton University Press
Postcards from Absurdistan: Prague at the End of History, Derek Sayer, Princeton University Press
Language and Linguistics
Category Winner
Language vs. Reality: Why Language Is Good for Lawyers and Bad for Scientists, N. J. Enfield, The MIT Press
Finalist
Semantics as Science, Richard K. Larson, The MIT Press
Literature
Category Winner
Lorca After Life, Noël Valis, Yale University Press
Media and Cultural Studies
Finalists
How to Be a Woman Online: Surviving Abuse and Harassment, and How to Fight Back, Nina Jankowicz, Bloomsbury
The Destruction and Creation of Michael Jackson, Ellis Cashmore, Bloomsbury
Broken: The Failed Promise of Muslim Inclusion, Evelyn Alsultany, New York University Press
Music and Performing Arts
Category Winner
Black Ephemera: The Crisis and Challenge of the Musical Archive, Mark Anthony Neal, New York University Press
Finalist
Live Music in America: A History from Jenny Lind to Beyoncé, Steve Waksman, Oxford University Press
Nonfiction Graphic Novels
Category Winner
But I Live: Three Stories of Child Survivors of the Holocaust, Miriam Libicki and David Schaffer; Gilad Seliktar and Nico and Rolf Kamp; Barbara Yelin and Emmie Arbel; Charlotte Schallié (ed.), New Jewish Press
North American and U.S. History
Category Winner
Necropolis: Disease, Power, and Capitalism in the Cotton Kingdom, Kathryn Olivarius, Harvard University Press
Finalists
A Place at the Nayarit: How a Mexican Restaurant Nourished a Community, Natalia Molina, University of California Press
Refugee Lifeworlds: The Afterlife of The Cold War in Cambodia, Y-Dang Troeung, Temple University Press
Outstanding Work by a Trade Publisher
Category Winner
Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology, Chris Miller, Scribner
Finalists
The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams, Stacy Schiff, Little, Brown, & Company
Indigenous Continent: The Epic Contest for North America, Pekka Hämäläinen, W.W. Norton
The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human, Siddhartha Mukherjee, Scribner
Philosophy
Category Winner
When Animals Dream: The Hidden World of Animal Consciousness, David M. Peña-Guzmán, Princeton University Press
Finalists
Not Thinking like a Liberal, Raymond Geuss, Harvard University Press
A Logical Foundation for Potentialist Set Theory, Sharon Berry, Cambridge University Press
Theology and Religious Studies
Category Winner
Hermetic Spirituality and the Historical Imagination: Altered States of Knowledge in Late Antiquity, Wouter J. Hanegraaff, Cambridge University Press
Finalists
America’s Book: The Rise and Decline of a Bible Civilization, 1794-1911, Mark A. Noll, Oxford University Press
Jacob’s Younger Brother: Christian-Jewish Relations after Vatican II, Karma Ben-Johanan, Harvard University Press
World History
Category Winner
The New Atlantic Order: The Transformation of International Politics, 1860–1933, Patrick O. Cohrs, Cambridge University Press
Finalists
A Cultural History of Ideas, Sophia Rosenfeld and Peter T. Struck, Bloomsbury
Eleven Winters of Discontent: The Siberian Internment and the Making of a New Japan, Sherzod Muminov, Harvard University Press
PHYSICAL SCIENCES AND MATHEMATICS
Chemistry, Physics, Astronomy, and Cosmology
Category Winner
Cosmology, Daniel Baumann, Cambridge University Press
Finalists
Hayabusa 2 Asteroid Sample Return Mission, Masatoshi Hirabayashi, Yuichi Tsuda, Elsevier
Mathematical Methods and Physical Insights: An Integrated Approach, Alec J. Schramm, Cambridge University Press
Computing and Information Sciences
Category Winner
Human-Centered AI, Ben Shneiderman, Oxford University Press
Earth Science
Category Winner
Remnants of Ancient Life: The New Science of Old Fossils, Dale Greenwalt, Princeton University Press
Finalist
Earth’s Fury: The Science of Natural Disasters, Alexander Gates, John Wiley & Sons
Engineering and Technology
Category Winner
The Nexus: Augmented Thinking for a Complex World, Julio Mario Ottino, The MIT Press
Environmental Science
Category Winner
The World Atlas of Trees and Forests: Exploring Earth’s Forest Ecosystems, Herman Shugart, Peter White, Sassan Saatchi, and Jérôme Chave, Princeton University Press
Finalist
The Changing Flow of Energy Through the Climate System, Kevin E. Trenberth, Cambridge University Press
History of Science, Medicine, and Technology
Category Winner
Rules: A Short History of What We Live By, Lorraine Daston, Princeton University Press
Finalists
The Mirror and the Mind: A History of Self-Recognition in the Human Sciences, Katja Guenther, Princeton University Press
A New History of Vaccines for Infectious Diseases: Immunization – Chance and Necessity, Anthony Rees, Elsevier
Mathematics and Statistics
Category Winner
Elements of Infinity-Category Theory, Emily Riehl, Dominic Verity, Cambridge University Press
Finalists
Statistical Hypothesis Testing in Context: Reproducibility, Inference, and Science, Michael P. Fay, Erica H. Brittain, Cambridge University Press
What Is a Quantum Field Theory? Michel Talagrand, Cambridge University Press
Popular Science and Mathematics
Category Winner
Quantum Steampunk: The Physics of Yesterday’s Tomorrow, Nicole Yunger Halpern, John’s Hopkins University Press
Finalists
Taxi from Another Planet: Conversations with Drivers about Life in the Universe, Charles S. Cockell, Harvard University Press
The Sounds of Life: How Digital Technology Is Bringing Us Closer to the Worlds of Animals and Plants, Karen Bakker, Princeton University Press
SOCIAL SCIENCES
Architecture and Urban Planning
Category Winner
Co-Cities: Innovative Transitions toward Just and Self-Sustaining Communities, Sheila R. Foster and Christian Iaione, THE MIT Press
Finalist
Blue Architecture: Water, Design, and Environmental Futures, Brook Muller, University of Texas Press
Business, Finance, and Management
Category Winner
Spiderweb Capitalism: How Global Elites Exploit Frontier Markets, Kimberly Kay Hoang, Princeton University Press
Finalists
Cloud Empires: How Digital Platforms Are Overtaking the State and How We Can Regain Control, Vili Lehdonvirta, The MIT Press
Getting to Diversity: What Works and What Doesn’t, Frank Dobbin and Alexandra Kalev, Harvard University Press
Cultural Anthropology and Sociology
Category Winner
Reclaiming Two-Spirits: Sexuality, Spiritual Renewal & Sovereignty in Native America, Gregory D. Smithers, Beacon Press
Finalists
Staple Security: Bread and Wheat in Egypt, Jessica Barnes, Duke University Press
Prisons of Debt: The Afterlives of Incarcerated Fathers, Lynne Haney, University of California Press
Economics
Category Winner
Adam Smith’s America: How a Scottish Philosopher Became an Icon of American Capitalism, Glory M. Liu, Princeton University Press
Finalists
The Price of Time: The Real Story of Interest, Edward Chancellor, Grove Atlantic
A Monetary and Fiscal History of the United States, 1961–2021, Alan S. Blinder, Princeton University Press
Education Theory and Practice
Category Winner
Doing the Right Thing: How Colleges and Universities Can Undo Systemic Racism in Faculty Hiring, Marybeth Gasman, Princeton University Press
Finalists
Education for Sustainable Development in the Caribbean: Pedagogy, Processes and Practices, Lorna Down and Therese Ferguson, The University of the West Indies Press
Administratively Adrift: Overcoming Institutional Barriers for College Student Success, Scott A. Bass, Cambridge University Press
Government and Politics
Category Winner
Stars and Shadows: The Politics of Interracial Friendship from Jefferson to Obama, Saladin Ambar, Oxford University Press
Finalists
Sex Is as Sex Does: Governing Transgender Identity, Paisley Currah, New York University Press
Freedom Inside?: Yoga and Meditation in the Carceral State, Farah Godrej, Oxford University Press
Legal Studies and Criminology
Category Winner
Critical Race Judgments: Rewritten U.S. Court Opinions on Race and the Law, Edited by Bennett Capers, Devon W. Carbado, R. A. Lenhardt, Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Cambridge University Press
Finalist
Against Progress: Intellectual Property and Fundamental Values in the Internet Age, Jessica Silbey, Stanford University Press
Psychology and Applied Social Work
Category Winner
What Babies Know: Core Knowledge and Composition, Elizabeth S. Spelke, Oxford University Press
Finalists
Mental Health Evaluations in Immigration Court: A Guide for Mental Health and Legal Professionals, Virginia Barber-Rioja, Adeyinka M. Akinsulure-Smith, Sarah Vendzules, New York University Press
Perfectionism in Childhood and Adolescence, Gordon L. Flett, Paul L. Hewitt, American Psychological Association
PRODUCT FORMAT
eProducts
Category Winner
Shadow Plays: Virtual Realities in an Analog World, Massimo Riva, Stanford University Press
Finalist
La Princesse de Clèves by Lafayette: A New Translation and Bilingual Pedagogical Edition for the Digital Age, Edited by Hélène E. Bilis, Jean-Vincent Blanchard, David Harrison, Hélène Visentin, Lever Press
Journals
No finalists awarded
REFERENCE WORKS
Reference Works – Biological and Life Sciences
Finalists
Encyclopedia of Infection and Immunity, Nima Rezaei, Elsevier
Great American Diseases: The Effects on the Course of North American History, Ian R. Tizard, Jeffrey M.B. Musser, Elsevier
Reference Works – Humanities
Category Winner
A Cultural History of Ideas, Sophia Rosenfeld, Peter T. Struck, Bloomsbury
Finalists
A Cultural History of Plants, Annette Giesecke, David J. Mabberley, Bloomsbury
Climate Change in Human History: Prehistory to the Present, Benjamin Lieberman, Elizabeth Gordon, Bloomsbury
Reference Works – Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Finalists
Imperiled: The Encyclopedia of Conservation, Dominick DellaSala, Michael Goldstein, Elsevier
Encyclopedia of Materials: Plastics and Polymers, M.S.J. Hashmi, Elsevier
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Environmental Economics, James R. Kahn, Oxford University Press
Reference Works – Social Sciences
Category Winner
Measuring Sustainable Development Goals Performance, Sten Thore, Ruzanna Tarverdyan, Elsevier
Finalists
Healthcare Finance: Modern Financial Analysis for Accelerating Biomedical Innovation, Andrew W. Lo, Shomesh E. Chaudhuri, Princeton University Press
The Asian-American Experience, Bloomsbury/ABC-CLIO