The Huntington Library Names Winner of Inaugural Shapiro Book Prize

The winner of The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens’ inaugural Shapiro Book Prize is The Rise of the Latino Vote: A History (Harvard University Press, 2019) by Benjamin Francis-Fallon, the institution announced today. Francis-Fallon is associate professor of history at Western Carolina University.

Established in 2019 as a part of the Shapiro Center for American History and Culture at The Huntington, the Shapiro Book Prize is awarded biennially for an outstanding first scholarly monograph in American political, social, intellectual, or cultural history, with a focus on books that make exceptional use of primary source materials. A committee of preeminent scholars in the field selected Francis-Fallon’s book from among 60 submissions from a wide range of book publishers. The prize carries with it a $10,000 cash award.

Francis-Fallon will give an online talk on The Rise of the Latino Vote on Wednesday, Feb. 3, 4 p.m. PST as a Huntington Zoom webinar, at which time he will be formally presented with the prize.

“It has been an honor and a delight to facilitate the selection process for the Shapiro Prize in its inaugural year” said Steve Hindle, The Huntington’s W.M. Keck Foundation Director of Research. “We were thrilled with the response; 60 superb early-career works were nominated by publishers. My heartfelt congratulations go out to Benjamin Francis-Fallon, who has produced a deeply researched, cogently written, and profoundly topical volume, and my deepest thanks go to the prize committee, who have worked assiduously to bring us to this happy day.” More…