Bandelier/Lavrin Book Prize in Colonial Latin American History
Named to honor two pioneers in the history of the Spanish American empire—the first an early leader in the field, and the second a trailblazer in colonial history and a role model for women in the profession—this prize recognizes an outstanding book on colonial Latin American history published by an association member during the previous calendar year. Due to global shipping challenges, RMCLAS will accept book nominations in either physical or e-book formats. If both are available, our readers would appreciate access to both.
Deadline: TBD
Please send copies of the nominated work to:
TBD
Previous Award Winners:
2026, Martin Austin Nesvig, The Women Who Threw Corn: Witchcraft and Inquisition in Sixteenth-Century Mexico. Cambridge University Press, 2025.
Honorable Mention – Marc Eagle, The Audiencia of Santo Domingo in the Seventeenth Century: Justice and Royal Authority in the Spanish Caribbean. University of Nebraska Press, 2025.
Honorable Mention – Santiago Muñoz-Arbeláez, The New Kingdom of Granada: The Making and Unmaking of Spain’s Atlantic Empire. Duke University Press, 2025.
2025, Christoph Rosenmüller. Viceroy Güemes’s Mexico: Rituals, Religion, and Revenue. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2024.
2024, Max Deardorff, University of Florida, A Tale of Two Granadas: Custom, Community, and Citizenship in the Spanish Empire, 1568-1660. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2023.
Honorable Mention, Joseph M.H. Clark, University of Kentucky, Veracruz and the Caribbean in the Seventeenth Century. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2023.
2023, Christina Ramos, Washington University, St. Louis, Bedlam in the New World: A Mexican Madhouse in the Age of Enlightenment, University of North Carolina Press
2022, Richard Conway, Montclair State University, Islands in the Lake: Environment and Ethnohistory in Xochimilco, New Spain, Cambridge University Press
2021, Shawn Michael Austin, University of Arkansas, Colonial Kinship: Guaraní, Spaniards and Africans in Paraguay, Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2020.
2020, Kris Lane, Tulane University, Potosí: The Silver City that Changed the World, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2019.
Honorable Mention: Christoph Rosenmüller, Corruption and Justice in Colonial Mexico, 1650-1755, Cambridge University Press
2019, Jesse Cromwell, The Smuggler’s World: Illicit Trade and Atlantic Communities in
Eighteenth-Century Venezuela, Chapel HIll, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2018.
Honorable Mention: Martin Nesvig, Promiscuous Power: An Unorthodox History of
New Spain, Austin: University of Texas Press
2017, Bianca Primo, Florida International University
2016, Ann Twinam, University of Texas at Austin
Purchasing Whiteness: Pardos, Mulattos, and the Quest for Social Mobility in the Spanish Indies
Honorable Mention: Martha Few, University of Arizona
For All of Humanity: Mesoamerican and Colonial Medicine in Enlightenment Guatemala