James McPherson, Princeton's George Henry Davis 1886 Professor of American History Emeritus, has been selected to receive the first Pritzker Military Library Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing.
McPherson has published numerous volumes on the Civil War, including "Lincoln and the Second American Revolution," "Drawn With the Sword: Reflections on the American Civil War" and "For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War," which won the prestigious Lincoln Prize in 1998. He was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for his single-volume treatment of the Civil War, "Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era."
The Pritzker award includes a $100,000 honorarium, citation and medallion sponsored by the Chicago-based Tawani Foundation. It will be presented at a dinner Oct. 6 in Chicago.
"Our purpose in establishing the Pritzker Military Library Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement is to acknowledge the highest levels of scholarship and writing in a field that often does not gain appropriate recognition," said James Pritzker, the Chicago library's founder and chief executive officer. "By providing an annual award to the most thoughtful and articulate scholar writing about war and military activities, we may in turn be led to better solutions and perhaps a better life for all of us."
McPherson joined the Princeton faculty in 1962 and transferred to emeritus status in 2004.
