The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History has announced Craig L. Symonds has been awarded the eleventh annual Gilder Lehrman Military History Prize for Nimitz at War: Command Leadership from Pearl Harbor to Tokyo Bay (Oxford University Press, 2022).
The $50,000 prize is bestowed in recognition of the best eligible English-language book in the field of American military history, distinguished by its scholarship, its contribution to the literature, and its appeal to the broadest possible general reading public.
Only days after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt tapped Chester W. Nimitz to assume command of the Pacific Fleet. Nimitz was not the most senior candidate available, and some, including his new boss, U.S. Navy Admiral Ernest J. King, considered him a “desk admiral,” more suited to running a bureaucracy than a theater of war.
Yet FDR’s selection proved nothing less than inspired. From the precarious early months of the war after December 7th, 1941 to the surrender ceremony in Tokyo Bay nearly four years later, Nimitz transformed the devastated and dispirited Pacific fleet into the most powerful and commanding naval force in history.
From the start, the pressures on Nimitz were crushing. Facing demands from Washington to mount an early offensive, he had first to revive the depressed morale of the thousands of sailors, soldiers, and Marines who served under him. He had to corral independent-minded subordinates ― including Admiral Bill “Bull” Halsey and General Holland “Howlin’ Mad” Smith ― and keep them focused on shared objectives.
He had to maintain a sometimes-fraught relationship with his Army counterpart Douglas MacArthur, and cope with his superiors, including the formidably prickly King and the inscrutable FDR. He had to navigate the expectations of a nation impatient for revenge and eventual victory.
And of course, he also confronted a formidable and implacable enemy in the Imperial Japanese Navy, which, until the Battle of Midway, had the run of the Pacific.
Craig Symonds’ Nimitz at War reveals how the quiet man from the Hill Country of Texas eventually surmounted all of these challenges. Using Nimitz’s headquarters ― the eye of the hurricane ― as his vantage point, Symonds covers all the major campaigns in the Pacific from Guadalcanal to Okinawa.
He captures Nimitz’s composure, discipline, homespun wisdom, and most of all his uncanny sense of when to assert authority and when to pull back. In retrospect it is difficult to imagine anyone else accomplishing what Nimitz did.
As Symonds’ portrait reveals, it required qualities of leadership exhibited by few other commanders in history.
An event celebrating the Gilder Lehrman Military History Prize winner and the two shortlisted authors will take place on Wednesday, December 4, hosted by The New York Historical. Tickets to attend this free program — in person or via livestream — are available online.
Finalists for this year’s prize were chosen by a three-member jury chaired by Lorien Foote, the Patricia & Bookman Peters Professor of History at Texas A&M University and the author of four books on military history. She was joined by Colonel (Retired) Kevin J. Weddle, PhD, Distinguished Fellow, United States Army War College, and Michael S. Neiberg, Professor of History and Chair of War Studies at the United States Army War College.
The final choice was made by the prize board: James G. Basker, President and CEO of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History; Lieutenant General (Retired) Michelle D. Johnson; Robert H. Niehaus; and Griff Norquist.
Craig L. Symonds is professor emeritus at the United States Naval Academy, where he taught naval history for thirty years, including four years as History Department chair. He also taught at Britannia Royal Naval College in Dartmouth, England. From 2017 to 2020 he was the Ernest J. King Distinguished Professor of Maritime History at the U.S. Naval War College.
He is the author of seventeen books, including Lincoln and His Admirals: Abraham Lincoln, the U.S. Navy, and the Civil War, for which he was awarded the 2009 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize. He has also received the Roosevelt Prize and the Dudley Knox Medal for Lifetime Achievement.
The purpose of the Gilder Lehrman Military History Prize is to draw public attention to military history not only as an important staple of education in the areas of international relations, diplomacy, and conflict studies, but also as a subject in which any educated citizen should be interested.
There were 102 books submitted for consideration by publishers in the United States and the United Kingdom for the eleventh annual Gilder Lehrman Military History Prize.
Three finalists were chosen from this pool, including Brooke L. Blower for Americans in a World at War: Intimate Histories from the Crash of Pan Am’s Yankee Clipper (Oxford University Press) and Kevin M. Hymel for Patton’s War: An American General’s Combat Leadership, Volume 2: August–December 1944 (University of Missouri Press).
Funding for the prize is provided by Lewis E. Lehrman, co-founder of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, author, and champion of studies in American political and military history.
The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History (GLI) was founded in 1994 by Lewis E. Lehrman and the late Richard Gilder, visionaries and lifelong supporters of American history education. The Institute is dedicated to K–12 history education while also serving the general public. Its mission is to promote the knowledge and understanding of American history through educational programs and resources.
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