This spring the Press received four major prizes for new books.
The Organization of American Historians awarded the Avery O. Craven Award to Edward Rugemer for The Problem of Emancipation: The Caribbean Roots of the American Civil War. This prestigious award honors the most original book on the coming of the Civil War/Reconstruction era.
Robert Brinkmeyer will receive the Warren-Brooks Award for Outstanding Literary Criticism from the Robert Penn Warren Center for The Fourth Ghost: White Southern Writers and European Fascism, 1930-1950. Jurist Charlotte H. Beck wrote, “Among the 23 books submitted for this year’s contest, Brinkmeyer’s book is clearly superior in scholarship, breadth of content and authoritative style. . . . We feel confident that The Fourth Ghost will contribute mightily to the already auspicious canon of Southern literary scholarship.”
Frontiersman: Daniel Boone and the Making of America, by Meredith Mason Brown, won the Spur Award for Nonfiction-Biography. Since 1953, the nonprofit Western Writers of America has promoted and honored the best in Western literature with their annual award to works whose inspirations, image and literary excellence best represent the reality and spirit of the American West.
The 2008 ASPCA® Henry Bergh Children’s Book Award in the Nonfiction Humane Heroes category will be awarded to Pam Kaster for Molly the Pony: A True Story at the American Library Association’s annual meeting in Chicago. Winners of the ASPCA (American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) awards are selected for their outstanding ability to teach young readers a new way to care for the animals and natural resources that we all share. Molly the Pony tells the inspiring tale of a plucky pony who survived abandonment after Hurricane Katrina and the loss of her front leg after a dog attack to become one of the first ponies to walk with a prosthetic limb. Molly has been featured on NPR, MSNBC, and in newspapers and magazines around the world.
Louisiana’s premier academic publisher, LSU Press has established itself as one of the nation’s outstanding scholarly presses. An integral part of LSU, the Press shares the university’s goal of the dissemination of knowledge and culture. LSU Press is proud of its role in preserving and promoting the history and achievements of Louisiana, and strives to publish books that make a difference, both for us and for future generations. A nonprofit institution, LSU Press publishes a list that is mission-driven, not profit-driven. That mission is to publish high-caliber, significant works, regardless of sales potential, thereby enriching our world by advancing scholarship. With its award-winning reputation and fervent efforts to promote the beauty and history of its home state, LSU Press is Louisiana on paper.