Albert Hourani Book Award
The Albert Hourani Book Award is an award honoring scholarly non-fiction books, given by the Middle East Studies Association of North America to "recognize outstanding publishing in Middle East studies" and to honor work "that exemplifies scholarly excellence and clarity of presentation in the tradition of Albert Hourani", the distinguished scholar of Arab and Islamic history. On occasion two authors have shared the year's award; in some years, the society has given honorable mention distinctions. MESA first gave the award in 1991.
Award winners
- 1991: Abraham Marcus, The Middle East on the Eve of Modernity: Aleppo in the Eighteenth Century ; Honorable Mention: Steven Caton, "Peaks of Yemen I Summon": Poetry as Cultural Practice in a North Yemeni Tribe
- 1993: Brinkley Messick, The Calligraphic State: Textual Domination and History in a Muslim Society ; Honorable Mentions: Sabra J. Webber, Romancing the Real: Folklore and Ethnographic Representation in North Africa ; R.D. McChesney, Waqf in Central Asia: Four Hundred Years in the History of a Muslim Shrine ; and Kenneth Cuno, The Pasha's Peasants: Land, Society, and Economy in Lower Egypt, 1740-1858
- 1994: Co-Winners: Chibli Mallat, The Renewal of Islamic Law and Richard M. Eaton, The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier, 1204–1760 ; Honorable Mention: Tarif Khalidi, Arabic Historical Thought in the Classical Period
- 1995: Devin DeWeese, Islamization and Native Religion in the Golden Horde: Baba Tukles and Conversion to Islam in Historical and Epic Tradition ; Honorable Mention: Julia Clancy Smith, Rebel and Saint: Muslim Notables, Populist Protest, Colonial Encounters
- 1996: Gülru Necipoğlu, The Topkapi Scroll—Geometry and Ornament in Islamic Architecture ; Honorable Mention: Michael Gilsenan, Lords of the Lebanese Marches: Violence and Narrative in Arab Society
- 1997: Co-Winners: Andrew Shryock, Nationalism and Genealogical Imagination: Oral History and Textual Authority in Tribal Jordan and Rashid I. Khalidi, Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness
- 1998: Marsha Pripstein Posusney, Labor and the State in Egypt:Workers, Unions, and Economic Restructuring
- 1998: Co-Winners: Kiren Aziz Chaudhry, The Price of Wealth: Economies and Institutions in the Middle East and Marsha Pripstein Posusney, Labor and the State in Egypt: Workers, Unions, and Economic Restructuring ; Honorable Mention: Marianna Shreve Simpson, Sultan Ibrahim Mirza's Haft Awrang: A Princely Manuscript from Sixteenth-Century Iran
- 1999: Susan Slyomovics, The Object of Memory: Arab and Jew Narrate the Palestinian Village ; Honorable Mention: Mohammed A. Bamyeh, The Social Origins of Islam: Mind, Economy, Discourse
- 2000: Eugene Rogan, Frontiers of the State in the Late Ottoman Empire: Transjordan, 1850–1921 ; Honorable Mentions: Tayeb El-Hibri, Reinterpreting Islamic Historiography: Harun al-Rashid and the Narrative of the Abbasid Caliphate ; Carole Hillenbrand, The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives ; Meron Benvenisti, Sacred Landscape: The Buried History of the Holy Land since 1948
- 2001: Michael Cook, Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought
- 2002: Gershon Shafir and Yoav Peled, Being Israeli: The Dynamics of Multiple Citizenship
- 2002: Co-Winners: Nadia Abu El-Haj, ' and Gershon Shafir & Yoav Peleg, Being Israeli: The Dynamics of Multiple Citizenship ; Honorable Mention: Jonathan Bloom, Paper before Print: The History and Impact of Paper in the Islamic World
- 2003: Jonathan P. Berkey, The Formation of Islam: Religion and Society in the Near East, 600-1800 ; Honorable Mentions: Heather J. Sharkey, Living with Colonialism: Nationalism and Culture in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and Farha Ghannam, Remaking the Modern: Space, Relocation, and the Politics of Identity in a Global Cairo
- 2004: Leslie Peirce, Morality Tales: Law and Gender in the Ottoman Court of Aintab, Honorable Mentions: Maya Rosenfeld, Confronting the Occupation: Work, Education, & Political Activism of Palestinian Families in a Refugee Camp and Rashid I. Khalidi, Resurrecting Empire: Western Footprints and America's Perilous Path in the Middle East
- 2005: Robert R. Bianchi, Guests of God: Pilgrimage and Politics in the Islamic World ; Honorable Mention, Gülru Necipoglu, The Age of Sinan: Architectural Culture in the Ottoman Empire ; and Honorable Mention, Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject
- 2006: Rudi Matthee, The Pursuit of Pleasure: Drugs and Stimulants in Iranian History, 1500-1900
- 2007: Jessica Winegar, Creative Reckonings: The Politics of Art and Culture in Contemporary Egypt
- 2007: Leor Halevi, Muhammad's Grave: Death Rites and the Making of Islamic Society
- 2008: Ussama Makdisi, Artillery of Heaven: American Missionaries and the Failed Conversion of the Middle East
- 2008: Marc David Baer, Honored by the Glory of Islam: Conversion and Conquest in Ottoman Europe
- 2009: Sophia Vasalou, Moral Agents and Their Deserts: The Character of Mu'tazilite Ethics
- 2010: Benjamin Claude Brower, A Desert Named Peace: The Violence of France's Empire in the Algerian Sahara, 1844-1902
- 2011: Co-winners: Nile Green, Bombay Islam: The Religious Economy of the West Indian Ocean, 1840-1915 and Rochelle Davis, Palestinian Village Histories: Geographies of the Displaced
- 2012: Sam White, The Climate of Rebellion in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire
- 2013 Co-winners: Patricia Crone, Nativist Prophets of Early Islamic Iran: Rural Revolt and Local Zoroastrianism and Taner Akçam, '
- 2014: Brian Catlos, Muslims of Medieval Latin Christendom, c. 1050-1614
- 2015: Kenneth M. Cuno, Modernizing Marriage: Family, Ideology and Law in Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century Egypt
- 2016: Nükhet Varlık, Plague and Empire in the Early Modern Mediterranean World: The Ottoman Experience, 1347-1600 ; Honorable Mention, Seema Alavi, Muslim Cosmopolitanism in the Age of Empire
- 2017: Noah Salomon, For Love of the Prophet: An Ethnography of Sudan's Islamic State
- 2018: Alireza Doostdar, The Iranian Metaphysicals: Explorations in Science, Islam, and the Uncanny ; Honorable Mention, J.R. Osborn, Letters of Light: Arabic Script in Calligraphy, Print, and Digital Design