Jacques Barzun Prize in Cultural History
Spring General Meeting
April 26, 2007
 

Jacob Soll

Jacob Soll, recipient, with presenter Richard Dunn

The American Philosophical Society's Jacques Barzun Prize in Cultural History is awarded to Jacob Soll for his book, Publishing The Prince: History, Reading, and the Birth of Political Criticism, published by University of Michigan Press in 2005. It is a superb example of contemporary book history, printing history and influence. In this book Jacob Soll follows the typographical fortunes and receptions of the French translation of Machiavelli's Prince and its various and changing meanings into the Enlightenment. In the course of his researches, especially on erudite textual criticism, he makes valuable contributions both to the history of reading as a social and political practice and as a modern medium of subversive as well as absolutist political thought.

Jacob Soll received his Diplôme d'Études Approfondies from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in 1993. He began his doctoral research in Paris, but eventually moved to Magdalene College, Cambridge University, where he finished his Ph.D. in 1998. In 1997, while completing his doctorate, he began lecturing in the history department at Princeton University. He moved to Rutgers University in 1999, where he is currently an associate professor of history.

The Jacques Barzun Prize in Cultural History is awarded annually to the author or authors whose book exhibits distinguished work in American or European cultural history. The prize is for books in English by U.S. citizens or permanent residents in this country, published in the United States. Books must be single-authored volumes, not collections of articles or edited texts.

The prize honors historian and cultural critic Jacques Barzun, University Professor Emeritus of Columbia University and a member of the American Philosophical Society since 1984. It was established by a gift from Roger Williams, Distinguished Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Wyoming, a former student of Professor Barzun.

The selection committee consisted of chairman Donald R. Kelley, James Westfall Thompson Professor of History Emeritus at Rutgers University, Glen W. Bowersock, Professor of Ancient History at the Institute for Advanced Study, and Michael Wood, Charles Barnwell Straut Professor of English at Princeton University.