The George Washington Prize is a $50,000 award co-sponsored by Washington College, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, and George Washington’s Mount Vernon.
Founded in 2005, the prize recognizes the year’s best works on the nation’s founding era, especially those that have the potential to advance broad public understanding of American history.
Image: George Washington Prize medallion
The 2025 winner is Tyson Reeder for Serpent in Eden: Foreign Meddling and Partisan Politics in James Madison’s America (Oxford University Press). He was honored on October 8, 2025, at a ceremony held at the Union Club in New York City. The event also honored the four other finalists for the award: Jane E. Calvert, Francis D. Cogliano, Michael D. Hattem, and Cara Rogers Stevens.
The 2025 Finalists:
Jane E. Calvert for Penman of the Founding: A Biography of John Dickinson (Oxford University Press)
Francis D. Cogliano for A Revolutionary Friendship: Washington, Jefferson, and the American Republic (Harvard University Press)
Michael D. Hattem for The Memory of ’76: The Revolution in American History (Yale University Press)
Tyson Reeder for Serpent in Eden: Foreign Meddling and Partisan Politics in James Madison's America (Oxford University Press) ⭐Winner
Cara Rogers Stevens for Thomas Jefferson and the Fight Against Slavery by (University Press of Kansas)
Submissions for the 2026 George Washington Prize must have a date of first publication between January 1, 2025, and December 31, 2025.
Deadline for submission is December 31, 2025.
Please submit five copies of the book plus the author and editor contact information to:
George Washington Prize
Fred W. Smith National Library
George Washington’s Mount Vernon
3600 Mount Vernon Memorial Highway
Mount Vernon, VA 22121
For more information on the George Washington Prize, contact:
Stephen McLeod, Director of Library Programs
smcleod@mountvernon.org
(703) 799-8686
| Year | Author | Title |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 | David Waldstreicher | The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley: A Poet’s Journeys through American Slavery and Independence (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) |
| 2023 | Maurizio Valsania | First Among Men: George Washington and the Myth of American Masculinity (Johns Hopkins University Press) |
| 2022 | Bruce A. Ragsdale | Washington at the Plow: The Founding Farmer and the Question of Slavery (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press) |
| 2021 | Mary Beth Norton | 1774: The Long Year of Revolution (Knopf) |
| 2020 | Rick Atkinson | The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775–1777 (Henry Holt) |
| 2019 | Colin G. Calloway | The Indian World of George Washington (Oxford University Press) |
| 2018 | Kevin J. Hayes | George Washington: A Life in Books (Oxford University Press) |
| 2017 | Nathaniel Philbrick | Valiant Ambition: George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and the Fate of the American Revolution (Viking) |
| 2016 | Flora Fraser | The Washingtons: George and Martha, “Join’d by Friendship, Crown’d by Love” (Knopf) |
| 2015 | Nick Bunker | An Empire on the Edge: How Britain Came to Fight America (Knopf) |
| Special Achievement Award | Lin-Manuel Miranda | Hamilton: An American Musical |
| 2014 | Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy | The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire (Yale University Press) |
| 2013 | Stephen Brumwell | George Washington: Gentleman Warrior (Quercus) |
| 2012 | Maya Jasanoff | Liberty’s Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World (Knopf) |
| 2011 | Pauline Maier | Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787–1788 (Simon & Schuster) |
| 2010 | Richard Beeman | Plain, Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution (Random House) |
| 2009 | Annette Gordon-Reed | The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family (W.W. Norton) |
| 2008 | Marcus Rediker | The Slave Ship: A Human History (Viking) |
| 2007 | Charles Rappleye | Sons of Providence: The Brown Brothers, the Slave Trade, and the American Revolution (Simon & Schuster) |
| 2006 | Stacy Schiff | A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America (Henry Holt and Company) |
| 2005 | Ron Chernow | Alexander Hamilton (Penguin Press) |
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