The Society: Watson Davis and Helen Miles Davis Prize
The Watson Davis and Helen Miles Davis Prize, named in honor of the long time director of Science Service and his wife, was established in 1985 through a long-term pledge from Miles and Audrey Davis. The prize consists of $1000 and a certificate.
The prize honors books in the history of science directed to a wide public (including undergraduate instruction). The book must be published in English during a period of three calendar years immediately preceding the year of competition (books eligible for 2007 were published in 2004, 2005, or 2006).They should be introductory in assuming no previous knowledge of the subject and in being directed to audiences of beginning students and general readers. They should introduce an entire field, a chronological period, a national tradition, or the work of a noteworthy individual. Multi-authored or edited books are eligible, whereas unrevised reprints of previously published works are not. The prize may not be split between two books. Deadline is 1 April of each year.
Should the prize committee wish to review a nominated title, the History or Science Society Executive Office will request that a copy of be sent to each member of the committee.
Prize Committee Members:
- Robert Smith, (chair) 2011-2013
- Laura Walls, 2012-2014
- Lissa Roberts, 2013-2015
Submit a Nomination for this Prize
Past Winners of the Watson Davis and Helen Miles Davis Prize
1986 |
Daniel J. Boorstin, The Discoverers: A History of Man's Search to Know His World and Himself (New York: Random House, 1983). |
1987 |
Thomas L. Hankins, Science in the Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985). |
1988 |
John L. Heilbron, The Dilemmas of an Upright Man: Max Planck as Spokesman for German Science (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986). |
1989 |
Joan Mark, A Stranger in Her Native Land: Alice Fletcher and the American Indians (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1988). |
1990 |
Robert W. Smith, The Space Telescope: A Study of NASA Science, Technology, and Policy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989). |
1991 |
Nancy G. Siraisi, Medieval and Early Modern Medicine: An Introduction to Knowledge and Practice (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990). |
1992 |
John Hedley Brooke, Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). |
1993 |
James Moore and Adrian Desmond, Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist (London: Michael Joseph, 1991). |
1994 |
David C. Lindberg, The Beginnings of Western Science: The European Scientific Tradition in Philosophical, Religious, and Institutional Context, 600 B.C. to A.D. 1450 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992). |
1995 |
Victor J. Katz, History of Mathematics: An Introduction (New York: Harper Collins, 1993). |
1996 |
Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs and Margaret C. Jacob, Newton and the Culture of Newtonianism (Humanities Press, 1995). |
1997 |
Richard Rhodes, Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb (Simon & Schuster, 1995). |
1998 |
Ruth Lewin Sime, Lise Meitner: A Life in Physics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996). |
1999 |
Daniel J. Kevles, The Baltimore Case: A Trial of Politics, Science and Character (W.W. Norton & Company, 1998). |
2000 |
Gregg Mitman, Reel Nature: America's Romance with Wildlife on Film (Harvard University Press, 1999) |
2001 |
Nancy Tomes, The Gospel of Germs: Men, Women, and the Microbe in American Life (Harvard University Press, 2000) |
2002 |
Peter Dear, Revolutionizing the Sciences: European Knowledge and Its Ambitions, 1500-1700 (Princeton University Press, 2001) |
2003 |
Ken Alder, The Measure of All Things: The Seven Year Odyssey and Hidden Error that Transformed the World (The Free Press, 2002) |
2004 |
Jeff Hughes, The Manhattan Project: Big Science and the Atomic Bomb (Columbia University Press/Icon Books, 2003) |
2005 |
Alan M. Kraut, Goldberger's War: The Life and Work of a Public Health Crusader |
2006 |
Robin Marantz Henig, Pandora's Baby: How the First Test Tube Babies Sparked the Reproductive Revolution (Houghton Mifflin Press, 2004) |
2007 |
Matt Ridley, Francis Crick: Discoverer of the Genetic Code (Atlas Books, Harper Collins Publishers, 2006) |
2008 |
Helen Rozwadowski, Fathoming the Ocean: The Discovery and Exploration of the Deep Sea (Belknap Press, 2005) |
2009 |
Charles Seife, Sun in a Bottle: The Strange History of Fusion and the Science of Wishful Thinking (Viking Adult, 2008) |
2010 |
Marcia Bartusiak, The Day We Found the Universe (Pantheon Books, 2009) |
2011 |
Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway, Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming (Bloomsbury Press, 2010) |
2012 |
Mark Barrow, Nature’s Ghosts: Confronting Extinction from the Age of Jefferson to the Age of Ecology (University of Chicago Press, 2009) |