The Society for Military History, an affiliated society of the AHA, recently announced the names of the winners and recipients of the society's many annual prizes and awards. The awards and prizes will be presented at the society's annual awards luncheon, to be held on May 11, 2012, at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City Hotel in Arlington, Virginia. A summary list is provided below. Details about the prizes and the names of the members of the various judging committees can be found at the society's web site, http://www.smh-hq.org.

The Samuel Eliot Morison Prize, which recognizes "not any one specific achievement, but a body of contributions in the field of military history, extending over time and reflecting a spectrum of scholarly activity contributing significantly to the field," was awarded to Ronald H. Spector (George Washington Univ.).

The Edwin H. Simmons Award (formerly the Victor Gondos Award) for "long, distinguished or particularly outstanding service to the Society for Military History" was awarded to Brian M. Linn (Texas A&M Univ.).
The society presents several Distinguished Book Awards to recognize the best book-length publications in English on military history, whether monograph, bibliography, guide, or other project copyrighted in the previous three calendar years. The awards under the different categories were:

United States: To John Sloan Brown for Kevlar Legions: The Transformation of the U.S. Army, 1989–2005 (U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2011). The author is a retired United States Army Brigadier General and former Chief of Military History for the U.S. Army.

Non-U.S.: To Mark Peattie, Edward Drea and Hans van de Ven, editors, The Battle for China: Essays on the Military History of the Sino-Japanese War of 1937–1945 (Stanford University Press, 2011). Mark Peattie is professor emeritus, University of Massachusetts, research fellow at the Hoover Institution and visiting scholar at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University. Hans van de Ven is professor of modern Chinese history in the Department of East Asia Studies, Cambridge University. Edward Drea is a retired U.S. Army historian and contract historian in the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joint History Office in Washington, DC.

Biography/Memoir: To Mungo Melvin for Manstein: Hitler's Greatest General (Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin's Press, 2011). The author is a retired British Army major general and president of the British Commission for Military History

Reference: To Steven E. Clay, editor. U.S. Army Order of Battle 1919–1941 (4 vols.) (Combat Studies Institute Press, 2010, 2011). The author is a U.S. Army retired lieutenant colonel and lead author of the Operations Study Team at the Combat Studies Institute.

The society annually recognizes the authors of the four best articles published in The Journal of Military History during the previous calendar year with the Moncado Prizes. The Moncado Prizes for articles published in volume 75 of the journal were:

Ilya Berkovich for "The Battle of Forbie and the Second Frankish Kingdom of Jerusalem," which appeared in the January issue. The author is a PhD candidate at Peterhouse College, University of Cambridge.

Robert T. Foley for "Learning War's Lessons: The German Army and the Battle of the Somme 1916," which appeared in the April issue. The author is senior lecturer in modern military history at the University of Liverpool.

Ian Germani for "Terror in the Army: Representatives on Mission and Military Discipline in the Armies of the French Revolution," which appeared in the July issue. Professor Germani is Head of the Department of History at the University of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada.

William M. Donnelly for "Bilko's Army: A Crisis in Command," which appeared in the October issue. The author is a senior historian at the U.S. Army Center of Military History.

The Edward M. Coffman First Manuscript Award is presented annually to an author who has not previously published a scholarly book-length manuscript. The competition is open to scholars whose work blends military history with social, political, economic, and diplomatic history and to authors of studies centering on campaigns, leaders, technology, and doctrine. The winning author receives a cash award, a plaque, and, after successful editorial review, a publication contract with the University of North Carolina Press. This year, the award went to Lien-Hang T. Nguyen (Univ. of Kentucky) for "Hanoi's War: An International History of the War for Peace in Vietnam." The other finalists for this award were: David Fitzgerald (Univ. College Cork) for "Learning to Forget?: The US Army and Counterinsurgency Doctrine and Practice from Vietnam to Iraq" and Jacqueline E. Whitt (U.S. Military Academy) for "No Crisis of Faith: American Military Chaplains and the Vietnam War."

In addition, the society also announced the ABC-CLIO Research Grants and the Russell F. Weigley Graduate Student Travel Grants. The Research Grants are given to support the work of advanced graduate students and those scholars who do not hold a doctoral degree but are employed full-time as historians. These funds may be used for travel, for research materials, photocopying, and similar expenses. The awards were given to: Michael J. Geheran (Clark Univ.); and Emily L. Swafford (Univ. of Chicago).

The travel grants support participation by promising graduate students in the society's annual meeting. These awards went to Matthew N. Bucholtz (Univ. of Calgary); W. Mikkel Dack (Univ. of Calgary); Christine Leppard (Univ. of Calgary); Thomas Daniel Sheppard (Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill); Christina C. Welsch (Princeton Univ.); Gavin J. Wiens (Univ. of Toronto).