Submissions for this prize open on August 15, 2022. The World History Association awards the annual WHA Dissertation Prize for the best doctoral dissertation in world, global, or transnational history—that is, one that examines any historical issue with global implications, including but not limited to the exchange and interchange of cultures, the comparison of two or more civilizations or cultures, or the study in a macrohistorical manner of a phenomenon that had a global impact. To be eligible for the 2022 prize, the dissertation must have been defended as part of Ph.D. or equivalent degree between the dates of 31 August 2020 and 21 August 2022. Eligible candidates are allowed to submit once, not multiple years.
The prize, which consists of a $500 award, a certificate, and a one-year membership to the WHA, will be formally awarded at the WHA’s 2023 Pittsburgh conference if the awardee is in attendance. Deadline date for submissions is October 1, 2022.
Submissions should include a cover letter or contact information sheet, abstract, and a PDF file of the full dissertation. All dissertation submissions must be in the English language. The cover or sheet should include the following: name, professional or home address, email, telephone and name of PhD granting institution. E-mail all materials to the WHA <info@thewha.org> with the subject line “WHA Dissertation Prize.”
Entries must be submitted by 1 October 2022. Late entries and submissions that do not adhere to these guidelines will be disqualified.
The Dissertation Prize Committee, chaired by Ruth Mostern, associate professor of history at University of Pittsburgh, will determine the winner of the prize. In the event that the committee considers that the quality of the entries does not warrant the awarding of any prize, it shall have the right to make no award.
Contact the WHA with any questions regarding the prize or its guidelines.
Past Winners
2021
- Kristyl Obispado: “The Pacific Sailors: Global workers at and on the edge of the Spanish empire (1580s – 1640s)”
Honorable mentions
- Jake Richards: “Liberated Africans and Law in the South Atlantic, c. 1839 – 1871”
- Nicholas Roberts: “A Sea of Wealth: Sayyid Sa’id bin Sultan, His Omani Empire, and the Making of An Oceanic Marketplace”
2020
- Erik Glowark: “The Christianization of Kyushu: A World-Historical Interpretation of the Jesuit Mission to Japan, 1549-1650”
2019
- Kristen Alff: “The Business of Property: Levantine Joint-stock Companies, Land, Law, and Capitalist Development Around the Mediterranean, 1850-1925”
2018
- Vladimir Hamed-Troyansky: “Imperial Refuge: Resettlement of Muslims from Russia in the Ottoman Empire, 1860-1914”
2017
- Sara Silverstein: “Doctors as Diplomats: The Origins of Universal Healthcare in International Society”
2016
- Barry McCarron: “The Global Irish and Chinese: Migration, Exclusion, and Foreign Relations among Empires, 1784–1904”
Honorable mentions
- Kathryn Hain: “The Slave Trade of European Women to the Middle East and Asia from Antiquity to the Ninth Century”
- Isaiah Wilner: “Raven Cried for Me: Narratives of Transformation on the Northwest Coast of America”
2015
- Patrick Kelly: “Sovereignty and Salvation: Transnational Human Rights Activism in the Americas in the Long 1970s”
Honorable mention
- Phillip Guingona: “Crafted Links and Accidental Connections of Empire: A History of Early Twentieth-Century Sino-Philippine Interaction
2014
- Bryce Beemer: “The Creole City in Southeast Asia: Slave Gathering Warfare and Culture Exchange in Burma, Thailand, and Manipur, 1752–1885”