Franz Steiner Prize

The Franz Steiner Verlag and the German Historical Institute Washington (GHI) award the Franz Steiner Prize in Transatlantic History every two years to an outstanding work of historical scholarship in the field of North American studies or transatlantic relations from the early modern period to the present. The €2,500 monetary prize will next be awarded in 2027.

The prize-winning manuscript must be published in the series Transatlantic Historical Studies (THS), which the GHI has published in collaboration with the Franz Steiner Verlag since 1992. The prize will not be awarded to a manuscript that is already under contract with a publisher or is set to appear in another book series. The winning manuscript will be professionally edited, with the GHI assuming the costs of publication at the Gold Open Access level. This means that the book will be available in print and immediately accessible as a free download upon publication.

Completed book manuscripts in German and English at the doctoral or higher level are eligible for consideration. Current staff of GHI Washington, including researchers with signed contracts for future appointments, are not eligible for the prize. The prize committee will make a decision on the basis of reviews by American and German scholars. The prize will be presented at the annual historians’ meeting of the German Association for American Studies in spring 2027.

To have your manuscript considered for the Franz Steiner Prize, please submit your manuscript, a one-page abstract, your CV, and an evaluation of your manuscript—for example, by your doctoral adviser or a member of a review committee—via our online portal.

For the 2027 award, the deadline for submissions is September 15, 2026. Questions may be directed to the THS series lead editor Axel Jansen.