Princeton professor Beth Lew-Williams won the Cundill History Prize for her book on anti-Chinese discrimination in 19th-century America.
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Princeton professor Beth Lew-Williams has won this year’s Cundill History Prize for her book, “John Doe Chinaman: A Forgotten History of Chinese Life under American Racial Law.”
Lew-Williams received the US$75,000 award during a ceremony in Montreal on Friday, with the book examining the laws that constrained the lives of Chinese immigrants in the 19th-century American West.
According to a Cundill press release, the work draws on court records, immigration files and personal accounts to show the extent of anti-Chinese discrimination and to “restore individuality and humanity to lives once obscured by prejudice.”
The prize, run by McGill University, recognizes history writing in English. Its runners-up, who each receive US$10,000, were Jonathan Cheng for “Korean Messiah: Kim II Sung and the Christian Roots of North Korea’s Personality Cult” and Alexander Lee for “The First Ghetto: Venice and the Jews.”
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