Submission Period Now Open for George L. Mosse First Book Prize
The University of Wisconsin Press and the George L. Mosse Program in History are pleased to announce that the submission period is now open for this year’s Mosse First Book Prize.
The prize was established in 2020 to honor Mosse’s commitment to scholarship and to mentoring new generations of historians. Winning books are published as part of the George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas, and the recipient receives a $5,000 prize, payable in two installments. An honorable mention winner may also be selected to receive a $1,000 prize and publication.
“George L. Mosse was a prolific and innovative scholar who significantly enriched our understanding of multiple aspects of European history: cultural symbolism and intellectual history, fascism and gender, Jewish and LGBTQ+ history. He was also a legendary mentor to aspiring scholars,” says series advisor David Sorkin. “This prize perpetuates George’s dual legacy of scholarship and mentorship by rewarding the next generation of historians with the opportunity to publish an outstanding monograph with the University of Wisconsin Press.”
The inaugural winner of the Mosse First Book Prize, awarded in 2022, is Kathryn L. Brackney; her book, Surreal Geographies: A New History of Holocaust Consciousness, was published in 2024. Paula A. Oppermann’s Thunder Cross: Fascist Antisemitism in Twentieth-Century Latvia won the prize in 2023 and will be published later this year. The latest winner is Rebecca Carter-Chand, director of the Programs on Ethics, Religion, and the Holocaust at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, whose book Christian Internationalism and German Belonging: The Salvation Army from Imperial Germany to Nazism is scheduled for publication this fall.
Carter-Chand’s groundbreaking work examines the unlikely acceptance in German society of the Salvation Army, a British Protestant social service organization with a self-consciously internationalist outlook. In the first decades of the twentieth century, the Salvation Army carefully cultivated its reputation in Germany as a patriotic and useful provider of social services, drawing on its national and international identities in order to navigate extreme nationalism, war, and occupation. Despite its widespread support of Nazism and its official participation in the National Socialist People’s Welfare (NSV), the German branch of the Salvation Army emerged from World War II with its reputation intact, avoiding any acknowledgment of complicity.
The 2025 George L. Moose First Book Prize is open to original, previously unpublished monographs of historical scholarship in English (whether written in English or translated) and aims to support and engage early-career scholars writing on topics related to the history of European culture, sexuality, or ideas.
Proposals will be accepted through August 1, 2025; all submissions will be reviewed by UW Press and series advisors. A short list of finalists will be chosen in October 2025, and those manuscripts will be read by a jury of expert readers, who will select the winning project.
Entrants should begin by sending a proposal to UW Press editor in chief Dan Crissman at dcrissman@wisc.edu. The subject line should contain “Mosse First Book Prize” as well as the author’s last name and a keyword. Please do not send the complete manuscript until requested to do so. Proposals should follow the guidelines detailed on the UW Press Submissions page and should include the following elements:
- the scope and rationale for the book and its main contributions
- how the work fits with the Mosse Series
- the audience and market for the book
- the manuscript’s word count
- an annotated table of contents
- two sample chapters (ideally an introductory chapter and one interior chapter)
- a curriculum vitae
Please note whether the book is under consideration elsewhere at the time of prize submission; work submitted for consideration must not be under contract elsewhere and should be complete at the time of submission.
About the University of Wisconsin Press
The University of Wisconsin Press is a not-for-profit publisher of books and journals. With more than 1,500 titles and more than 8,000 peer-reviewed articles in print, its mission embodies the Wisconsin Idea by publishing work of distinction that serves the people of Wisconsin and the world.
About the George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas
The Mosse series promotes the vibrant international collaboration and community that historian George L. Mosse created during his lifetime by publishing major innovative works by outstanding scholars in European cultural and intellectual history.
About George L. Mosse
A legendary scholar, teacher, and mentor, Mosse (1918–1999) joined the Department of History at UW–Madison in 1955. He was an early leader in the study of modern European culture, fascism, and the history of sexuality and masculinity. In 1965 Mosse was honored for his exceptional teaching by being named UW’s first John C. Bascom Professor. He remained famous among students and colleagues for his popular and engaging lectures, which were often standing-room only. A Jewish refugee from prewar Germany, Mosse was appointed a visiting professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1969 and spent the final decades of his career traveling frequently between Madison and Jerusalem.