Center for Presidential History Book Prize

Accepting Submissions for the 2026 CPH Book Prize

We are accepting submissions for the 2026 CPH Book Prize. The CPH Book Prize is awarded annually for a distinguished first book published in English, in any aspect in the field of United States presidential history, broadly defined.

The winner of the 2026 CPH Book prize will receive a $2,500 prize and an invitation to deliver the annual CPH Book Prize Lecture at Southern Methodist University in the following academic year. The CPH will pay all author’s travel expenses and deliver the prize at the lecture.

Submissions must be postmarked by November 15, 2025 to be eligible for the 2026 CPH Book Prize.

For complete submission guidelines, click here.

Past winners of the CPH Book Prize include:

• 2025 - Susan Gaunt Stearns, Empire of Commerce: The Closing of the Mississippi and the Opening of Atlantic Trade (Virginia UP)
• 2024 - Sheyda Jahanbani, The Poverty of the World: Rediscovering the Poor at Home and Abroad, 1941-1968 (Oxford UP)
• 2023 - Fritz Bartel, The Triumph of Broken Promises: The End of the Cold War and the Rise of Neoliberalism (Harvard UP)

For questions, please contact the prize administrator at rspitz@smu.edu.