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The 2017 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in History

Finalist: Brothers at Arms: American Independence and the Men of France and Spain Who Saved It, by Larrie D. Ferreiro (Alfred A. Knopf)

For a book that, with flair and insight, casts the American Revolution in the fresh light of its proper context in international history.

Nominated Work

Brothers at Arms: American Independence and the Men of France and Spain Who Saved It

By

Larrie D. Ferreiro

The remarkable untold story of how the American Revolution’s success depended on substantial military assistance provided by France and Spain, and places the Revolution in the context of the global strategic interests of those nations in their fight against England. 

In this groundbreaking, revisionist history, Larrie Ferreiro shows that at the time the first shots were fired at Lexington and Concord the colonists had little chance, if any, of militarily defeating the British. The nascent American nation had no navy, little in the way of artillery, and a militia bereft even of gunpowder. In his detailed accounts Ferreiro shows that without the extensive military and financial support of the French and Spanish, the American cause would never have succeeded. France and Spain provided close to the equivalent of $30 billion and 90 percent of all guns used by the Americans, and they sent soldiers and sailors by the thousands to fight and die alongside the Americans, as well as around the world.  

Ferreiro adds to the historical records the names of French and Spanish diplomats, merchants, soldiers, and sailors whose contribution is at last given recognition. Instead of viewing the American Revolution in isolation, Brothers at Arms reveals the birth of the American nation as the centerpiece of an international coalition fighting against a common enemy.

-- from the publisher

 

Biography

Larrie D. Ferreiro received his PhD in the History of Science and Technology from Imperial College London. He teaches history and engineering at George Mason University in Virginia and the Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey. He has served for over thirty-five years in the US Navy, US Coast Guard and Department of Defense, and was an exchange engineer in the French Navy. He is the author of Measure of the Earth: The Enlightenment Expedition That Reshaped Our World and Ships and Science: The Birth of Naval Architecture in the Scientific Revolution, 1600-1800. He lives with his wife and their sons in Virginia.

Winners

Prize Winner in History in 2017:

Heather Ann Thompson

For a narrative history that sets high standards for scholarly judgment and tenacity of inquiry in seeking the truth about the 1971 Attica prison riots. History

Finalists

Nominated as finalists in History in 2017:

Wendy Warren

For a groundbreaking study that alters our view of history by showing how deeply embedded slavery became in 17th-century northern colonies.

The Jury

David M. Kennedy(Chair)*

Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History, Emeritus

Jacqueline Jones*

Chair of the History Dept. and Walter Prescott Webb Chair in History and Ideas/Mastin Gentry White Professor of Southern History

Daryl Michael Scott

Chair and Professor of History

Winners in History

2016

T.J. Stiles

A rich and surprising new telling of the journey of the iconic American soldier whose death turns out not to have been the main point of his life. (Moved by the Board from the Biography category.)
2015

Elizabeth A. Fenn

An engrossing, original narrative showing the Mandans, a Native American tribe in the Dakotas, as a people with a history.
2014

Alan Taylor

A meticulous and insightful account of why runaway slaves in the colonial era were drawn to the British side as potential liberators.
2013

Fredrik Logevall

A balanced, deeply researched history of how, as French colonial rule faltered, a succession of American leaders moved step by step down a road toward full-blown war.
See All History

2017 Prize Winners

Feature Writing

C. J. Chivers

For showing, through an artful accumulation of fact and detail, that a Marine’s postwar descent into violence reflected neither the actions of a simple criminal nor a stereotypical case of PTSD.
Commentary

Peggy Noonan

For rising to the moment with beautifully rendered columns that connected readers to the shared virtues of Americans during one of the nation’s most divisive political campaigns.
Criticism

Hilton Als

For bold and original reviews that strove to put stage dramas within a real-world cultural context, particularly the shifting landscape of gender, sexuality and race.
Editorial Writing

Art Cullen

For editorials fueled by tenacious reporting, impressive expertise and engaging writing that successfully challenged powerful corporate agricultural interests in Iowa.
See All 2017 Winners