Bancroft Prize 2023

On Thursday, April 20th, Columbia University Libraries, in partnership with the Department of History and The Forum, presented the Bancroft Prizes in American History and Diplomacy to three acclaimed works: G-Man by Beverly Gage; Bad Mexicans by Kelly Lytle Hernández; and The Sewing Girl’s Tale by John Wood Sweet.  

The Bancroft Prize has arranged for Signed Copies of the winners' books to be available for purchase through Book Culture. Book can be purchased for pickup or shipped using the "Add to Cart" feature below, or by calling Book Culture on 112th at (212) 865-1588

Congratulations to this years winners! 


Beverly Gage is a professor of U.S. history at Yale University. Her book, G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century, a biography of former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, was named a Best Book of 2022 by the Washington Post (Ten Best Books), The Atlantic (Ten Best Books), Publishers Weekly (Ten Best Books), The New Yorker (24 Essential Reads), The New York Times (100 Notable Books), and Smithsonian (Ten Best History Books). She is the author of The Day Wall Street Exploded: A Story of America in its First Age of Terror, which examined the history of terrorism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, focusing on the 1920 Wall Street bombing. In addition to her teaching and research, Professor Gage writes for numerous journals and magazines, including the New Yorker, the New York Times, and Washington Post. She is a graduate of Yale University (1994, B.A., American Studies, Magna Cum Laude) and Columbia University (2004, Ph.D., History).

Kelly Lytle Hernández is a professor of history, African American studies, and urban planning at UCLA, where she holds the Thomas E. Lifka Endowed Chair in History and directs the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies. One of the nation’s leading experts on race, immigration, and mass incarceration, she is the author of Migra! A History of the U.S. Border Patrol (University of California Press, 2010), City of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles (University of North Carolina Press, 2017), and Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands (W.W. Norton & Company, 2022). She also leads Million Dollar Hoods, a big data research initiative documenting the fiscal and human cost of mass incarceration in Los Angeles. For her historical and contemporary work, Professor Lytle Hernández was named a 2019 MacArthur “Genius” Fellow. She is also an elected member of the Society of American Historiansthe American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Pulitzer Prize Board.

John Wood Sweet is a professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the former director of UNC’s Program in Sexuality Studies. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Mellon Foundation, the National Humanities Center, the Institute for the Arts and Humanities at UNC, and the Gilder Lehrman Center at Yale, among others. His first book, Bodies Politic: Negotiating Race in the American North, 1730–1830, was a finalist for the Frederick Douglass Prize. He was named a Top Young Historian by the History News Network and has served as an Organization of American Historians Distinguished Lecturer. He lives in Chapel Hill with his husband, son, and daughter.

The Sewing Girl's Tale: A Story of Crime and Consequences in Revolutionary America By John Wood Sweet Cover Image
$29.99
ISBN: 9781250761965
Availability: On hand at one or more locations, see product page for details
Published: Henry Holt and Co. - July 19th, 2022

G-Man (Pulitzer Prize Winner): J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century By Beverly Gage Cover Image
$45.00
Not Available
ISBN: 9780670025374
Published: Viking - November 22nd, 2022

Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands By Kelly Lytle Hernández Cover Image
$19.95
ISBN: 9781324064411
Availability: On hand at one or more locations, see product page for details
Published: W. W. Norton & Company - May 9th, 2023