Book Award

The North Caroliniana Society established the North Caroliniana Book Award in 2003 to recognize annually “the book that captures the essence of North Carolina by contributing powerfully to an understanding of the state.” Authors are eligible regardless of residency. However, neither authors nor publishers submit books; instead, a committee privately surveys all books published during the year and chooses the volume that it believes “makes a positive contribution and appears to have the best chance of standing the test of time as a classic volume of North Caroliniana.”

Current Recipient

2023

A Man of Bad Reputation:
The Murder of John Stephens and the Contested Landscape of North Carolina Reconstruction

by Drew A. Swanson

Previous Recipients

2003
Catherine W. Bishir and Michael T. Southern for A Guide to the Historic Architecture of Piedmont North Carolina (University of North Carolina Press).

2004
Timothy B. Tyson for Blood Done Sign My Name: A True Story (Crown Publishers).

2005
Joe Mobley for “War Governor of the South”: North Carolina’s Zeb Vance in the Confederacy (University Press of Florida).

2006
William S. Powell for Encyclopedia of North Carolina (University of North Carolina Press).

2007
Karl E. Campbell for Senator Sam: Last of the Founding Fathers (University of North Carolina Press).

2008
Anna Ragland Hayes for Without Precedent: The Life of Susie Marshall Sharp (University of North Carolina Press).

2009
Mark L. Bradley for Bluecoats and Tar Heels: Soldiers and Civilians in Reconstruction North Carolina (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2009).

2010
Robert R. Korstad and James L. Leloudis for To Right These Wrongs: The North Carolina Fund and the Battle to End Poverty and Inequality in 1960s America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010).

2011
David Silkenat for Moments of Despair: Suicide, Divorce, & Debt in Civil War Era North Carolina (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011).

2012
David S. Cecelski for The Fire of Freedom: Abraham Galloway & the Slaves’ Civil War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012).

2013
Sarah Caroline Thuesen for Greater than Equal: African American Struggles for Schools and Citizenship in North Carolina, 1919-1965 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013).

2014
Jeffrey Reaser and Walt Wolfram for Talkin’ Tar Heel: How Our Voices Tell the Story of North Carolina (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014).

2015
Jessica Bandel, Michael Hill, and Mark Anderson Moore for The Old North State at War: The North Carolina Civil War Atlas (Raleigh: North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, 2015).

2016
David Silkenat for Driven From Home: North Carolina’s Civil War Refugee Crisis (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2016)

2017
Larry E. Tise and Jeffrey J. Crow for New Voyages to Carolina: Reinterpreting North Carolina History (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017)

2018
Ansley Herring Wegner and Jeff Miles for This Day In North Carolina designed by Sheilah Barrett Carroll (Raleigh: North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, 2018)

2019
Howard Covington for Fire and Stone: The Making of The University of North Carolina under Presidents Edward Kidder Graham and Harry Woodburn Chase (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library, 2019)

2020
David Menconi for Step It Up & Go: The Story of North Carolina Popular Music, from Blind Boy Fuller and Doc Watson to Nina Simone and Superchunk (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2020)

2021
Bland Simpson for North Carolina: Land of Water, Land of Sky (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2021)

2022
Lindley S. Butler for A History of North Carolina in the Proprietary Era, 1629-1729 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2022)