2008 Laney, Castel, and Harwell Prizes

This is a updated reworking of an earlier post dealing with Civil War book award announcements.

Nelson Lankford's book Cry Havoc! The Crooked Road to Civil War, 1861 (Viking, 2007) is the winner of the 2008 Dan and Marilyn Laney Prize (a $2000 cash prize administered by the Austin Civil War Round Table to "the book that best advances the knowledge of the Civil War's military or political events and the Americans who took part in those events").

I've been informed that the winner of the 2008 Albert Castel Book Award (presented by the Kalamazoo Civil War Round Table biennially to the "author of the best recent book on the Civil War in the Western Theater") is Steven Mayeux for Earthen Walls, Iron Men: Fort DeRussy, Louisiana, and the Defense of Red River (Univ. of Tennessee Press, 2007). So far, I've been unable to discover a webpage devoted to this prize. Readers may remember Mayeux as the recipient of the 2007 A.M. Pate Award (also for Earthen Walls).

The Richard B. Harwell Book Award for the "the best book on a Civil War subject published in the preceding year" (CWRT of Atlanta) went to Elizabeth Brown Pryor for Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee Through His Private Letters (Viking, 2007).

Looks like it was a good year for big press Viking on the Civil War book award circuit.