NORTH AMERICAN CONFERENCE
ON BRITISH STUDIES
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| The official publication of the North American Conference on British Studies (NACBS), the Journal of British Studies, has positioned itself as the critical resource for scholars of British culture from the Middle Ages through the present. Drawing on both established and emerging approaches, JBS presents scholarly articles and books reviews from renowned international authors who share their ideas on British society, politics, law, economics, and the arts. In 2005 (Vol. 44), the journal merged with the NACBS publication Albion, creating one journal for NACBS membership. |
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Albion Book Prize |
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The Albion Book Prize of $500 is awarded annually by the North American Conference on British Studies for the best book published anywhere by a North American scholar on any aspect of British studies since 1800. The author must be a citizen or permanent resident of the United States or Canada and be living in either country at the time of the award. Nominations may be made by the author or by the publisher of the book. A publisher may nominate more than one title each year but should use discretion and not overburden the Prize Committee. The 2010 competition covers books published in 2009. Separate copies of the letter of nomination and of the book nominated should be sent by April 1, 2010 to each member of the Prize Committee (only books sent to every committee member can be considered). For prompt attention, mark packages "NACBS Prize Committee." Send all relevant materials to: Professor Jeffrey Auerbach Professor Joy Dixon Professor Oz Frankel, Chair, Albion Book Prize Committee
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RECENT AWARD WINNERS
Albion Prize (2009)
Richard Price (Maryland), Making Empire: Colonial Encounters and the Creation of Imperial Rule in Nineteenth-Century Africa
Based on extensive and sophisticated archival research, and lucidly written, Richard Price’s Making Empire: Colonial Encounters and the Creation of Imperial Rule in Nineteenth-Century Africa examines the way in which the British imperial experience in the eastern Cape unfolded as a string of failures that spiraled into great brutality. In so doing, he demonstrates that there was nothing inevitable and pre-conceived about the introduction of racism to colonial discourse. Its appeal for local European actors emanated first and foremost from the failure of different civilizing missionary projects, whose utopian and fragile nature Price makes clear. It is surely no accident that Price has chosen to give his book a title that echoes E. P. Thompson’s, Making of the English Working Class since another accomplishment of his book is its nuanced account of the making of colonial subjects. Price’s detailed and insightful descriptions of individuals--on both sides of the encounter--seeks to understand what drove the people that initiated and executed them and how colonial settings shaped their behavior and views. Making Empire also proposes a different (and much strained) relationship between knowledge and the imperial project, especially in comparison with the Foucauldian and the Saidian approaches. This—and possibly other—imperial episodes were marked by persistent mis-recognition, by a profound inability to know, to recognize the colonial other. Price’s focus on the frontier and the tremendous violence that was at the heart of the colonial encounter between the British and the Xhosa makes clear the gap between empire as understood at home and as a lived experience.
PREVIOUS AWARD WINNERS
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
1999
1998
1997
