The North American Society for Sport History (NASSH) presents two book awards each year to promote and honor outstanding research and writing in the field of sport history. Awards are made for distinguished books written in English on any subject of sport history, without chronological or geographical restriction.
NASSH offers awards in to sport history book categories:
- Monograph: biographies, monographs, and works of synthesis and Interpretation;
- Edited Collection: edited collections of scholarly papers.
Eligibility: To be eligible, books must be scholarly, focus on an aspect of sport history, be published in the calendar year in which the award is being offered (imprint date) and be written in English. There is no chronological or geographic restriction.
Prize: The Award shall be a cash prize of $750 for the edited collection and $1,000 for the monograph.
The publisher will also be notified of the award.
To enter, please complete the Book Award nomination form (available as a PDF) and email it to Chris Bolsmann, chris.bolsmann@csun.edu.. You will receive a response that provides a list of mailing addresses for members of the committee. You, or your publisher, are required to mail one copy of the nominated book to each member of the committee including the chair. All entries must be postmarked by January 15 of the award year.
2024 DEADLINE: January 15, 2024
For questions, contact Chris Bolsmann, chris.bolsmann@csun.edu
Monograph Award Winners
2023
Karen Eva Carr, Shifting Currents: A World History of Swimming (Reaktion Books)
2022
Jason Winders, The Short Life of Boxing’s First Black World Champion, 1870-1908 (University of Arkansas Press)
2021
Janice Forsyth, Reclaiming Tom Longboat: Indigenous Self-Determination in Canadian Sport (University of Regina Press)
2020
Kathleen Bachynski, No Game for Boys to Play: The History of Youth Football and the Origins of a Public Health Crisis (University of North Carolina Press)
2019
Sean Dinces, Bulls Markets: Chicago’s Basketball Business and the New Inequality (Chicago University Press)
2018
Lane Demas, Game of Privilege: An African American History of Golf (The University of North Carolina Press)
2017
Randy Roberts and Johnny Smith, Blood Brothers: The Fatal Friendship Between Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X (Basic Books Publishing)
2016
Rita Liberti & Maureen M. Smith, (Re)Presenting Wilma Rudolph (Syracuse University Press)
2015
Katherine C. Mooney, Race Horse Men: How Slavery and Freedom Were Made at the Racetrack (Harvard University Press)
2014
Gwyneth A. Thayer, Going to the Dogs: Greyhound Racing, Animal Activism, and American Popular Culture (University Press of Kansas)
2013
Brian M. Ingrassia, The Rise of Gridiron University: Higher Education’s Uneasy Alliance with Big-Time Football (University Press of Kansas)
2012
Mary Louise Adams, Artistic Impressions: Figure Skating, Masculinity, and the Limits of Sport (University of Toronto Press)
2011
Kay Schiller and Christopher Young, The 1972 Munich Olympics and the Making of Modern Germany (University of California Press)
2010
Robert Edleman, Spartak Moscow: A History of The People’s Team in the Workers’ State (Cornell University Press)
2009
Kevin B. Witherspoon, Before the Eyes of the World: Mexico and the 1968 Olympic Games (Northern Illinois University Press)
2008
Donald G. Kyle, Sport and Spectacle in the Ancient World (Blackwell)
2007
Barbara Keys, Globalizing Sport: National Rivalry and International Community in the 1930s (Harvard University Press)
2006
David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It: A Search for the Roots of the Game (University of Nebraska Press)
Douglas Booth, The Field: Truth and Fiction in Sport History (Routledge)
2005
Allen Guttmann, Sports: The First Five Millennia (University of Massachusetts Press)
2004
Daniel A. Nathan, Saying It’s So: A Cultural History of the Black Sox Scandal (University of Illinois Press)
2003
Robert K. Barney, Stephen R. Wenn, and Scott G. Martyn, Selling the Five Rings: The International Olympic Committee and the Rise of Olympic Commercialism (University of Utah Press)
2002
Pamela Grundy, Learning to Win: Sports, Education, and Social Change in Twentieth-Century North Carolina (University of North Carolina Press)
2001
Mike Huggins, Flat Racing and British Society, 1790-1914 (Frank Cass)
2000
John M. Carroll, Red Grange and the Rise of Modern Football (University of Illinois Press)
1999
Douglas Booth, The Race Game: Sport and Politics in South Africa (Frank Cass)
1998
No Award Given
1997
Bruce Kidd, The Struggle for Canadian Sport (University of Toronto Press)
1996
Robin Lester, Stagg’s University: The Rise, Decline, and Fall of Big-Time Football at Chicago (University of Illinois Press)
1995
Susan K. Cahn, Coming on Strong: Gender and Sexuality in Twentieth Century Women’s Sport (Free Press)
1994
Robert Edelman, Serious Fun: A History of Spectator Sports in the U.S.S.R. (Oxford University Press)
1993
Peter Levine, Ellis Island to Ebbets Field: Sport and the American Jewish Experience (Oxford University Press)
1992
Allen Guttmann, Women’s Sports: A History (Columbia University Press)
1991
Harold Seymour, The People’s Game (Oxford University Press)
1990
Warren Goldstein, Playing for Keeps: A History of Early Baseball (Cornell University Press)
1989
Wray Vamplew, Pay Up and Play the Game: Professional Sport in Britain, 1875-1914 (Cambridge University Press)
Anthology Award Winners
2023
Sonja Dümpelmann (ed), Landscapes for Sport: Histories of Physical Exercise, Sport, and Health (Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection).
2022
Chris Bolsmann & George Kioussis (eds.), Soccer Frontiers: The Global Game in the United States, 1863-1913 (University of Tennessee Press)
2021
Robert Edelman & Christopher Young (eds.), The Whole World Was Watching: Sport in the Cold War (Stanford University Press)
2020
Barbara Keys (ed), The Ideals of Global Sport: From Peace to Human Rights (University of Pennsylvania Press)
2019
Toby Rider & Kevin Witherspoon (eds.), Defending the American Way of Life: Sport, Culture and the Cold War (University of Arkansas Press)
2018
Rita Liberti and Maureen M. Smith (eds.), San Francisco Bay Area Sports: Golden Gate Athletics, Recreation, and Community (University of Arkansas Press)
2017
David K. Wiggins and Ryan A. Swanson (eds.), Separate Games: African American Sport behind the Walls of Segregation (University of Arkansas Press)
2016
Chris Elzey & David K. Wiggins (eds.), DC Sports: The Nation’s Capital at Play (University of Arkansas Press)
2015
Steven A. Riess, A Companion to American Sport History (Wiley Blackwell)
2014
Janice Forsyth and Audrey R. Giles (eds.), Aboriginal Peoples and Sport in Canada: Historical Foundations and Contemporary Issues (Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia Press)
Daniel A. Nathan (ed.), Rooting for the Home Team, Sport, Community, and Identity (Urbana: University of Illinois Press).
2013
Murray G. Phillips, ed., Representing the Sporting Past in Museums and Halls of Fame (Routledge)
2012
Leonard Cassuto and Stephen Partridge (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Baseball (Cambridge University Press)
2011
No Award Given
2010
Mike Cronin, William Murphy, and Paul Rouse (eds.), The Gaelic Athletic Association, 1884-2009 (Irish Academic Press)
2009
Susan Brownell (ed.), The 1904 Anthropology Days and the Olympic Games: Sport, Race, and American Imperialism (University of Nebraska Press)
2008
Jorge Iber and Samuel O. Regalado (eds.), Mexican American and Sports: A Reader on Athletics and Barrio Life (Texas A&M University Press)
2007
Murray Phillips (ed.), Deconstructing Sport History (State University of New York Press)
2006
No Award Given