Joseph Levenson Book Prize

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Joseph Levenson Book Prize is awarded each year in memory of Joseph R. Levenson by the Association for Asian Studies to two English-language books, one whose main focus is on China before 1900 and the other for works on post-1900 China. According to the association, the prize criterion is whether the book is "the greatest contribution to increasing understanding of the history, culture, society, politics, or economy of China." While the association does not limit the discipline or period of the work, it won't consider anthologies, edited works, and pamphlets. Based on the scholarly interests of Levenson, the association gives special consideration to books that "promote the relevance of scholarship on China to the wider world of intellectual discourse." [1]

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Other prizes awarded by the AAS include the John Whitney Hall Book Prize for works on Japan or Korea, the James B. Palais Book Prize for works on Korea, and the E. Gene Smith Inner Asia Book Prize, offered biennially, honors outstanding and innovative scholarship across discipline and country of specialization for a book on Inner Asia.

Other prizes for books on China proper, Vietnam, Chinese Central Asia, Mongolia, Manchuria, Korea, or Japan, substantially after 1800 include John K. Fairbank Prize given by the American Historical Association.

List of awards

YearCategoryRecipientTitlePublisher
1987Pre-1900 Frederic Wakeman Jr. The Great Enterprise: The Manchu Reconstruction of Imperial Order in Seventeenth Century ChinaUniversity of California Press 1985
Post-1900 Andrew J. Nathan Chinese DemocracyAlfred A. Knopf, 1985
1988Pre-1900 Robert P. Hymes Statesmen and Gentlemen : the Elite of Fu-chou, Chiang-hsi, in Northern and Southern SungCambridge University Press 1986
Post-1900 Andrew G. Walder Communist Neo-traditionalism: Work and Authority in Chinese IndustryUniversity of California Press 1986
1989Pre-1900 Andrew H. Plaks The Four Masterworks of the Ming Novel = Ssu Ta Ch'i-shuPrinceton University Press 1987
Pre-1900, Honorable Mention R. Kent Guy The Emperor's Four Treasuries: Scholars and the State in the Late Ch'ien-lung EraHarvard University Press 1987
Post-1900 Joseph W. Esherick The Origins of the Boxer UprisingUniversity of California Press 1987
1990Pre-1900 Patrick Hanan The Invention of Li yuHarvard University Press 1988
Pre-1900, Honorable Mention Jerry Norman ChineseCambridge University Press 1988
Post-1900 Prasenjit Duara Culture, Power, and the State: Rural North China, 1900-1942Stanford University Press 1988
1991Pre-1900 Wu Hung The Wu Liang Shrine: the Ideology of Early Chinese Pictorial ArtStanford University Press 1989
Post-1900 David Strand Rickshaw Beijing: City People and Politics in the 1920sUniversity of California Press 1989
Post-1900, Honorable Mention Melvyn C. Goldstein A History of Modern Tibet, Volume 1: 1913-1951: The Demise of the Lamaist StateUniversity of California Press 1989
1992Pre-1900 Philip A. Kuhn Soulstealers: the Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768Harvard University Press 1990
Post-1900 Philip C. Huang The Peasant Family and Rural Development in the Yangzi Delta, 1350-1988Stanford University Press 1990
1993Pre-1900 Martin J. Powers Art & Political Expression in Early ChinaYale University Press 1991
Post-1900 Edward Friedman, Paul G. Pickowicz, Mark Selden Chinese Village, Socialist StateYale University Press 1991
1994Pre-1900 Jing Wang The Story of Stone: Intertextuality, Ancient Chinese Stone Lore, and the Stone Symbolism in Dream of the Red Chamber, Water Margin, and the Journey to the WestDuke University Press 1992
Pre-1900, Honorable Mention Zhang Longxi The Tao and the Logos: Literary Hermeneutics, East and WestDuke University Press 1992
Post-1900 Gregor Benton Mountain Fires: the Red Army's Three-year War in South China, 1934-1938University of California Press 1992
1995Pre-1900 Patricia Buckley Ebrey The Inner Quarters: Marriage and the Lives of Chinese Women in the Sung PeriodUniversity of California Press 1993
Post-1900 Vaclav Smil China's Environmental Crisis: an Inquiry into the Limits of National DevelopmentM. E. Sharpe, 1993
1996Pre-1900 Stephen F. Teiser Scripture on the Ten Kings and the Making of Purgatory in Medieval Chinese BuddhismUniversity of Hawaii Press 1994
Post-1900 Julia Frances Andrews Painters and Politics in the People's Republic of China, 1949-1979University of California Press 1994
1997Pre-1900 James L. Hevia Cherishing Men from Afar: Qing Guest Ritual and the Macartney Embassy of 1793Duke University Press 1995
Post-1900 R. Keith Schoppa Blood Road: the Mystery of Shen Dingyi in Revolutionary ChinaUniversity of California Press 1995
1998Pre-1900 Maggie Bickford Ink Plum: the Making of a Chinese Scholar-painting GenreCambridge University Press 1996
Post-1900 John Fitzgerald Awakening China: Politics, Culture, and Class in the Nationalist RevolutionStanford University Press 1996
1999Pre-1900 Susan L. Mann Precious Records: Women in China's Long Eighteenth CenturyStanford University Press 1997
Post-1900 Roderick MacFarquhar The Origins of the Cultural Revolution 3: the Coming of the Cataclysm 1961-1966Columbia University Press 1997
2000Pre-1900 Timothy Brook The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China University of California Press 1998
Post-1900 Lynn T. White, III Unstately Power, Vol. II: Local Causes of China's Intellectual, Legal, and Governmental ReformsM. E. Sharpe, 1998
2001Pre-1900 Pamela Kyle Crossley A Translucent Mirror: History and Identity in Qing Imperial IdeologyUniversity of California Press 1999
Post-1900 Dorothy J. Solinger Contesting Citizenship in Urban China: Peasant Migrants, the State, and the Logic of the MarketUniversity of California Press 1999
2002Pre-1900 Lothar Ledderose Ten Thousand Things: Module and Mass Production in Chinese ArtPrinceton University Press 2000
Post-1900 Edward J. M. Rhoads Manchus & Han: Ethnic Relations and Political Power in Late Qing and Early Republican China, 1861-1928 University of Washington Press 2000
2003Pre-1900 David Schaberg A Patterned Past: Form and Thought in Early Chinese HistoriographyHarvard University Asia Center 2001
Post-1900 Lucien Bianco Peasants Without the Party: Grass-root Movements in 20th-century ChinaM.E. Sharpe, 2001
2004Pre-1900 Robert P. Hymes Way and Byway: Taoism, Local Religion, and Models of Divinity in Sung and Modern ChinaUniversity of California Press 2002
Post-1900 Geremie Barmé An Artistic Exile: a Life of Feng Zikai (1898-1975)University of California Press 2002
2005Pre-1900 John Makeham Transmitters and Creators: Chinese Commentators and Commentaries on the AnalectsHarvard University Asia Center 2003
Post-1900 Yunxiang Yan Private Life under Socialism: Love, Intimacy, and Family Change in a Chinese Village, 1949-1999Stanford University Press 2003
2006Pre-1900 Antonia Finnane Speaking of Yangzhou: a Chinese City, 1550-1850Harvard University Asia Center 2004
Post-1900 Ruth Rogaski Hygienic Modernity: Meanings of Health and Disease in Treaty-port ChinaUniversity of California Press 2004
2007Pre-1900 Peter C. Perdue China Marches West: the Qing Conquest of Central EurasiaHarvard University Press 2005
Post-1900 Michael Dutton Policing Chinese Politics: a HistoryDuke University Press 2005
2008Pre-1900 Martin J. Powers Pattern and Person: Ornament, Society, and Self in Classical ChinaHarvard University Asia Center 2006
Post-1900 Sherman Cochran Chinese Medicine Men: Consumer Culture in China and Southeast AsiaHarvard University Press 2006
2009Pre-1900 Anthony J. Barbieri-Low Artisans in Early Imperial ChinaUniversity of Washington Press 2007
Post-1900 Haiyan Lee Revolution of the Heart: a Genealogy of Love in China, 1900-1950Stanford University Press 2007
2010Pre-1900 Robert E. Harrist The Landscape of Words: Stone Inscriptions in Early and Medieval ChinaUniversity of Washington Press 2008
Post-1900 Susan Greenhalgh Just One Child: Science and Policy in Deng's ChinaUniversity of California Press 2008
2011Pre-1900 Eugenio Menegon Ancestors, Virgins and Friars: Christianity as a Local Religion in Late Imperial ChinaHarvard University Asia Center 2009
Pre-1900, Honorable Mention Robert Ford Campany Making Transcendents: Ascetics and Social Memory in Early Medieval ChinaUniversity of Hawaii Press 2009
Post-1900 Jacob Eyferth Eating Rice from Bamboo Roots: the Social History of a Community of Artisans in Southwest China, 1920–2000Harvard University Asia Center 2009
2012Pre-1900 Christopher M. B. Nugent Manifest in Words, Written on Paper: Producing and Circulating Poetry in Tang Dynasty ChinaHarvard University Asia Center 2010
Post-1900 Yomi Braester Painting the City Red: Chinese Cinema and the Urban ContractDuke University Press 2010
2013Pre-1900 Dagmar Schäfer The Crafting of 10,000 Things: Knowledge and Technology in Seventeenth Century ChinaUniversity of Chicago Press 2011
Pre-1900, Honorable Mention K. E. Brashier Ancestral Memory in Early ChinaHarvard University Asia Center 2011
Post-1900 Vincent Goossaert and David A. Palmer The Religious Question in Modern ChinaUniversity of Chicago Press 2011
2014Pre-1900 Andrea Goldman Opera and the City: the Politics of Culture in Beijing, 1770-1900Stanford University Press 2012
Pre-1900, Honorable Mention Scott B. Cook The Bamboo Texts of Guodian: A Study and Complete Translation (2 volumes)Cornell East Asia Series 2012
Post-1900 Joseph Allen Taipei: City of DisplacementsUniversity of Washington Press 2012
2015Pre-1900 Yuming He Home and the World: Editing the “Glorious Ming” in Woodblock-Printed Books of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth CenturiesHarvard University Asia Center 2013
Pre-1900, Honorable Mention Matthais L. Richter The Embodied Text: Establishing Textual Identity in Early Chinese ManuscriptsE J Brill 2013
Post-1900 Winnie Won Yin Wong Van Gogh on Demand: China and the ReadymadeUniversity of Chicago Press 2013
2016Pre-1900 Wai-yee Li Women and National Trauma in Late Imperial Chinese LiteratureHarvard University Asia Center 2014
Pre-1900, Honorable Mention Tamara Chin Savage Exchange: Han Imperialism, Chinese Literary Style, and the Economic ImaginationHarvard University Asia Center 2014
Post-1900 Luigi Tomba The Government Next Door: Neighborhood Politics in Urban ChinaCornell University Press 2014
2017Pre-1900 Foong Ping The Efficacious Landscape: On the Authorities of Painting at the Northern Song CourtHarvard University Asia Center 2015
Pre-1900, Honorable Mention Anna Shields One Who Knows Me: Friendship and Literary Culture in Mid-Tang ChinaHarvard University Asia Center 2015
Post-1900 Christopher Rea The Age of Irreverence: A New History of Laughter in ChinaUniversity of California Press 2015
2018Pre-1900Li ChenChinese Law in Imperial Eyes: Sovereignty, Justice, and Transcultural PoliticsColumbia University Press 2016
Post-1900 Sigrid Schmalzer Red Revolution, Green Revolution: Scientific Farming in Socialist ChinaUniversity of Chicago Press 2016
2019Pre-1900 Jonathan Schlesinger A World Trimmed with Fur: Wild Things, Pristine Places, and the Natural Fringes of Qing RuleStanford University Press 2017
Pre-1900, Honorable Mention Craig Clunas Chinese Painting and Its AudiencesPrinceton University Press 2017
Post-1900 Ching Kwan Lee The Specter of Global China: Politics, Labor, and Foreign Investment in AfricaUniversity of Chicago Press 2017
Post-1900, Honorable Mention Thomas Mullaney The Chinese Typewriter: A HistoryMIT Press 2017
2020Pre-1900 Lara Blanchard Song Dynasty Figures of Longing and Desire: Gender and Interiority in Chinese Painting and PoetryE J Brill 2018
Pre-1900, Honorable Mention Ori Sela China's Philological Turn: Scholars, Textualism, and the Dao in the 18th CenturyColumbia University Press 2018
Pre-1900, Honorable MentionWen-shing ChouMount Wutai: Visions of a Sacred Buddhist MountainPrinceton University Press 2018
Post-1900 Sasha Welland Experimental Beijing: Gender and Globalization in Chinese Contemporary ArtDuke University Press 2018
Post-1900, Honorable MentionGao Hua
(trans. by Stacy Mosher and Guo Jian)
How the Red Sun Rose: The Origin and Development of the Yan'an Rectification Movement, 1930–1945 The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press 2018
2021Pre-1900 Stephen Owen Just a Song: Chinese Lyrics from the Eleventh and Early Twelfth CenturiesHarvard University Asia Center 2019
Pre-1900, Honorable Mention Macabe Keliher The Board of Rites and the Making of Qing ChinaUniversity of California Press 2019
Pre-1900, Honorable Mention Charles Sanft Literate Community in Early Imperial China: The Northwestern Frontier in Han TimesState University of New York Press 2019
Post-1900 Joel Andreas Disenfranchised: The Rise and Fall of Industrial Citizenship in ChinaOxford University Press 2019
Post-1900, Honorable MentionYurou ZhongChinese Grammatology: Script Revolution and Literary Modernity, 1916–1958Columbia University Press 2019
2022Pre-1900 Robert Ford Campany The Chinese Dreamscape 300BCE-800CEHarvard University Asia Center 2020
Pre-1900, Honorable Mention He Bian Know Your Remedies: Pharmacy and Culture in Early Modern ChinaPrinceton University Press 2020
Post-1900 Silvia M. Lindtner Prototype Nation: China and the Contested Promise of InnovationPrinceton University Press 2020
2023Pre-1900 Ruth Mostern The Yellow River: A Natural and Unnatural HistoryYale University Press 2021
Pre-1900, Honorable Mention Tao Jiang Origins of Moral-Political Philosophy in Early ChinaOxford University Press 2021
Post-1900 Joshua Goldstein Remains of the Everyday: A Century of Recycling in BeijingUniversity of California Press 2021
Post-1900, Honorable Mention Nicole Willock Lineages of the LiteraryColumbia University Press 2021
2024Pre-1900 Susan Naquin Gods of Mount Tai: Familiarity and the Material Culture of North China, 1000-2000Princeton University Press 2022
Pre-1900, Honorable MentionChristian de PeeUrban Life and Intellectual Crisis in Middle-Period China, 800–1100Amsterdam University Press 2022
Pre-1900, Honorable MentionLawrence ZhangPower for a Price: The Purchase of Official Appointments in Qing ChinaHarvard University Asia Center 2022
Post-1900 Ho-fung Hung City on the Edge: Hong Kong Under Chinese RuleCambridge University Press
Post-1900, Honorable MentionJoseph EsherickAccidental Holy Land: The Communist Revolution in Northwest ChinaUniversity of California Press

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