The Herskovits Awards: A Profile and a Modest Assessment

Abstract

The Studies Association has presented its Herskovits Award for outstanding study on Africa published during the previous academic year since 1965. Although 1983 does not, therefore, mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of this award or even the twenty-fifth winner (due to several multiple awards, a total of twenty-two have been given), it seems, nevertheless, like an appropriate moment to look back over the previous awards and take stock of their character and significance. What follows will not provide a major critical evaluation of either the individual books which have received the Herskovits Award nor of the process by which they were chosen. Such an effort would require more serious reading of these books and other works published in the same fields and years than has been undertaken here. Moreover, it would require some investigation of the scholars who served on the various Herskovits Award committees and possibly an inquiry into the substance of their proceedings. If the likely results of such a study were worth the labor demanded, it is not clear that this Review, and particularly an issue celebrating a major date in the history of its parent organization, is the appropriate forum. However, for some future editors of African Studies Revised or whatever reincarnation of the late 1960s may eventually strike us, this account of the Herskovits Awards should at least provide a base of useful information.