For Immediate Release

CAMDEN The American Philosophical Society has awarded its top honor in history, the prestigious Jacques Barzun Prize in Cultural History, to a history scholar at Rutgers UniversityCamden.

Jacob Soll, an associate professor of history at Rutgers-Camden, has received the respected award for his first book, Publishing the Prince: History, Reading, and the Birth of Political Criticism (University of Michigan Press, 2005).

The prize honors historian and cultural critic Jacques Barzun, University Professor Emeritus of Columbia University, and is awarded annually to the author or authors whose book exhibits distinguished work in American or European cultural history. Former recipients of the Jacques Barzun prize include world-renowned historian J.G.A. Pocock.

Drafted over the course of 10 years in five countries, Publishing the Prince argues that Machiavellis landmark work The Prince was ultimately read not as a primer on how to be a good ruler, but rather as a text that revealed the shadowy methods of monarchs.

I spent years working on this project in both America and Europe, with scholars from a number of countries and institutional backgrounds, so the book benefited from the combined wisdom of some stellar brains, says the Rutgers-Camden scholar, who will receive the award in April at an American Philosophical Society meeting in Philadelphia.

The timeliness of Solls book, which argues for the need of political criticism to sustain democracy, has garnered critical attention throughout the world.

Machiavelli would say that voters need to read history and develop expertise to become able critics and citizens. How many of us are doing in-depth readings on Middle Eastern, military, and colonial history? asks Soll.

The Rutgers-Camden historian received a 2005 National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship to research his next book, The Information Master: The Rise and Fall of Jean-Baptiste Colberts Secret Library, which will be published by the University of Michigan Press. A Cambridge University graduate, Soll teaches Medieval society, Renaissance humanism, and Western civilizations at Rutgers-Camden. He resides in Philadelphia.

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