Bancroft Prize Awarded to Two Historians

The Bancroft Prize, one of the most prestigious annual honors for historians, has been awarded to two scholars for books published last year.

John Fabian Witt’s “Lincoln’s Code: The Laws of War in American History” (Free Press) was cited as “a persuasively argued history of the idea that conflict among nations can be regulated by law.” W. Jeffrey Bolster’s study “The Mortal Sea: Fishing the Atlantic in the Age of Sail” (Belknap Press/Harvard University Press) was praised as “a gripping and eloquent history ofthe human impact on the ocean.”

The prize, established in 1948 by the trustees of Columbia University with a bequest from the historian Frederic Bancroft, includes an award of $10,000.