“Speculation Nation” by Michael Blaakman, Associate Professor of History, has been nominated for the George Washington Prize. The prize is given annually by George Washington’s Mount Vernon, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, and Washington College. It is one of America's most prestigious literary awards, recognizing the finest works focused on the early American history.

The five finalists for 2024 are:

• Michael A. Blaakman, “Speculation Nation: Land Mania in the Revolutionary American Republic” (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2023)
• Ned Blackhawk, “The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History” (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2023)
• Cassandra A. Good, “First Family: George Washington’s Heirs and the Making of America” (Toronto, ON: Hanover Square Press, 2023)
• Cynthia A. Kierner, “The Tory’s Wife: A Woman and Her Family in Revolutionary America” (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2023)
• David Waldstreicher, “The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley: A Poet’s Journeys through American Slavery and Independence” (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2023)