Deadline: 31 December, yearly

The Jackson Prize was established to encourage and reward American geographers who write books about the United States which convey the insights of professional geography in language that is interesting and attractive to a lay audience. The prize, which carries an award of $1,000 to the author, is administered by the Association of American Geographers.

Eligibility: J.B. Jackson and his friends established the prize to recognize American geographers who write serious but popular books about the human geography of the contemporary United States. The prize is restricted to books written by geographers, with preference given to those by U.S. citizens or permanent residents. Textbooks, dissertations, and articles are ineligible. Special consideration will be given to books that are carefully designed, appropriately illustrated, and physically appealing. The Selection Committee reserves the right to make no award in a particular year. Awards are announced in conjunction with the Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers.

Submissions::Publishers are invited to submit entries for the Jackson Prize competition (authors may not submit their book directly and should consult their publishers, with whom the decision to submit rests). Publishers should forward one copy of the published book before December 31, to each of the four committee members:

• Michael P. Conzen (chair), Committee on Geographical Studies, University of Chicago, 5828 S. University Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637–1583;
• Karl B. Raitz, Department of Geography, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506–0027;
• Richard Francaviglia, Center for Southwest Studies, Box 19497–Central Library, University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX 76019–0497; and
• Susan Hardwick, Department of Geography, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403–1251.

Inquiries: For more information about the Jackson Prize, contact Michael P. Conzen (chair), at 773-702-8308 or m-conzen@uchicago.edu.

Concerning the Jackson Prize: J. B. Jackson founded the magazine Landscape in 1951 and remained its owner and editor until 1968. After he retired as Editor he spent more than a decade writing about landscape and teaching celebrated courses in the history of vernacular landscapes at Berkeley and Harvard. The Jackson Prize of the AAG is dedicated to encouraging the kind of thinking and writing to which J. B. Jackson devoted much of his life: to encourage Americans to look thoughtfully at the human geography of their own country; to try to understand how that geography came to be and what it signifies; and to convey that understanding to the public at large.

Previous Winners of the J. B. Jackson Prize:

2006
Arthur J. Krim for Route 66: Iconography of an American Highway. George Thompson Publishers.

2005
Craig Colten for An Unnatural Metropolis: Wresting New Orleans from Nature. Louisiana State University Press.

2004
Donald W. Meinig for Global America, 1915-2000. volume four of The Shaping of America: A Geographical Perspective on 500 Years of History. Yale University Press.

2003
Peirce F. Lewis for New Orleans: The Making of an Urban Landscape. Center for American Places in association with University of Virginia Press.

2002
Daniel D. Arreola for Tejano South Texas: A Mexican American Cultural Province. University of Texas Press.

2001
John A. Jakle for City Lights: Illuminating the American Night. Johns Hopkins University Press.

2000
David B. Lowenthal for George Perkins Marsh: Prophet of Conservation. University of Washington Press.

1999
Blake Gumprecht for The Los Angeles River: Its Life, Death, and Possible Rebirth. Johns Hopkins University Press.

1998
Charles S. Aiken for The Cotton Plantation South Since the Civil War. Johns Hopkins University Press.

1997
Kenneth E. Foote for Shadowed Ground: America's Landscapes of Violence and Tragedy. University of Texas Press.

1996
Richard Francaviglia for Main Street Revisited: Time, Space, and Image-Building in Small Town America. University of Iowa Press.

1995
David J. Wishart for An Unspeakable Sadness: The Dispossession of the Nebraska Indians. University of Nebraska Press.

1994
Paul Groth for Living Downtown: The History of Residential Hotels in The United States. University of California Press.

1993
John B. Wright for Rocky Mountain Divide: Selling and Saving the West. University of Texas Press.

1992
Wilbur Zelinsky for Cultural Geography of the United States (Revised & Enlarged Edition). Prentice-Hall Publishers.