Peace History Society

Elise M. Boulding Prize in Peace History

The Peace History Society awards the Elise M. Boulding Prize biannually for an outstanding English-language nonfiction book by a single author that has a substantial bearing on the field of peace history. First books and dissertations are not eligible.

The winner for 2023-2024: Marc-William Palen, Pax Economica: Left-Wing Visions of a Free Trade World (Princeton, 2024).

Marc-William Palen’s powerful book explores the role of free trade ideology in shaping pacifist thought and practice prior to the Cold War. This intellectual and economic history excavates the central role that free trade played in visions of a world without imperialism and war. A loose coalition of liberals, feminists, pacifists, and socialists argued for the end of a nationalist imperial order through a form of economic cosmopolitanism that transcended borders. This discourse has been largely overlooked by historians who focus on the cold war era and offers a new and timely perspective in Peace Studies.

Honorable Mention: Michelle M. Nickerson, Spiritual Criminals: How the Camden 28 Put the Vietnam War on Trial (University of Chicago Press, 2024).

Michelle M. Nickerson offers a powerful history of the Camden 28 trials and the wider Catholic resistance movement during the Vietnam era. Deeply researched and thoughtfully written she places the Catholic Left at the center of Peace movement histories beyond the more familiar narratives of the Berrigan Brothers and Dorothy Day. Nickerson also delves into the personalist religious beliefs of movement activists and is attentive to divisions within the movement, particularly along lines of gender.