American Historical Association Book Awards for Two Duke Historians

Books by two Duke History professors recently were honored by the American Historical Association (AHA). Anna Krylova and Philip Stern received the Herbert Bazter Adams Prize and the Morris D. Forkosch Prize, respectively.

Anna Krylova's prize-winning publication, "Soviet Women in Combat: A History of Violence on the Eastern Front," explores the  historical phenomenon of Soviet young women's en masse volunteering for World War II combat by narrating the stories of Soviet young women who came to think of themselves as "women soldiers" in Stalinist Russia in the 1930s and who shared modern combat. Several rose to command positions on the Eastern front between 1941 and 1945.

The Adams Prize is awarded for a distinguished first book by a young scholar in the field of European history. The prize was established in 1905 in memory of the first secretary of the Association, Herbert Baxter Adams of Johns Hopkins University, who was also one of the AHA founders.

Stern's book, "The Company-State: Corporate Sovereignty and the Early Modern Foundation of the British Empire in India," was awared the Morris D. Forkosch Prize. Stern writes the history of the early English East India Company with an emphasis on colonial governance, demonstrating how company leadership wrestled with typical early modern problems of political authority.

The Morris D. Forkosch Prize is offered in recognition of the best book in English in the field of British, British Imperial, or British Commonwealth history.

Stern is also co-director of the new Franklin Humanities Institute's Humanities Lab on "Border Work(s)."

Both Stern and Krylova were previously recipients of the FHI's Mellon Faculty Book Manuscript Workshop awards.