Join Us for the Gilder Lehrman Prize for Military History Ceremony on November 2

On Wednesday, November 2, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History will celebrate Kevin J. Weddle, winner of the ninth annual Gilder Lehrman Prize for Military History for The Compleat Victory: Saratoga and the American Revolution (Oxford University Press) with an award ceremony and moderated discussion.

The event featuring the winner and the shortlisted authors will take place on Wednesday, November 2, from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. ET, hosted by the New-York Historical Society in the Robert H. Smith Auditorium at 170 Central Park West in New York City.

Andrew Roberts, chair of the 2021 judging committee for the Gilder Lehrman Prize for Military History and Distinguished Lehrman Fellow at the New-York Historical Society, will moderate the discussion with Kevin J. Weddle.

Tickets to attend this free program—in person or via livestream—are available online here.

Kevin J. Weddle is professor of military theory and strategy and Elihu Root Chair of Military Studies at the US Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. His first book, Lincoln’s Tragic Admiral: The Life of Samuel Francis Du Pont (University of Virginia Press, 2005), won the 2006 William E. Colby Award. In addition to the Gilder Lehrman Prize for Military History, his second book, The Compleat Victory: Saratoga and the American Revolution, was awarded the Fraunces Tavern Museum Book Award and the Society of the Cincinnati Prize.

Of his prize-winning book, Weddle said, “There are many good studies out there about the American Revolution’s pivotal Saratoga campaign, but I wanted to write a book that covered the entire complex five-month campaign, all eleven battles and engagements, and one that placed the campaign in political and strategic context. I am particularly interested in military strategy and leadership, and those are the two main threads that weave themselves throughout the book. My goal is for the reader to understand how the fatally flawed British military strategy for 1777, combined with superior American leadership from General George Washington on down, determined the outcome of the campaign that helped ensure American independence.”

Ninety-six books were submitted for consideration by publishers in the United States and the United Kingdom for the Gilder Lehrman Prize for Military History. The other finalists for this year’s prize are Stephen Conway for The British Army, 1714–1783: An Institutional History (Pen & Sword), Thomas A. Guglielmo for Divisions: A New History of Racism and Resistance in America’s World War II Military (Oxford University Press), Nicholas A. Lambert for The War Lords and the Gallipoli Disaster: How Globalized Trade Led Britain to Its Worst Defeat of the First World War (Oxford University Press), Sean McMeekin for Stalin’s War: A New History of World War II (Basic Books), and Richard Overy for Blood and Ruins: The Last Imperial War, 1931–1945 (Allen Lane).

The $50,000 Gilder Lehrman Prize for Military History is bestowed in recognition of the best book in the field of military history published in English during the previous calendar year. Funding for the prize is provided by Lewis E. Lehrman, co-founder of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, author, and champion of studies in American political and military history.

Read the complete press release about this year’s prize here.