U.S. Intellectual History Blog

Dorothy Ross Prize Winner

The recipient of this year’s Dorothy Ross Prize, awarded annually for the best academic article in U.S. intellectual history published in the previous calendar year by an emerging scholar, is Eran Zelnik (California State University, Chico) for “Yankees, Doodles, Fops, and Cuckolds: Compromised Manhood and Provincialism in the Revolutionary Period, 1740-1781,” Early American Studies 16:3 (Summer 2018): 514-544.

Written in an energetic and engaging tone, Zelnik examines 18th century culture wars between town and country, elites and commoners, empire and colony all fighting to define manhood on the eve of the American Revolution. Zelnik connects personal identity with nascent national identity, while linking the fields of intellectual, gender, class, and political history.

Ross Prize Committee: Lilian Calles Barger, Guy Emerson Mount, Bryn Upton (Chair).