Finalists have been named for the $50,000 2019 George Washington Prize, which recognizes the "best written works on the nation's founding era, especially those that have the potential to advance broad public understanding of early American history." Co-sponsors are the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, George Washington's Mount Vernon, and Washington College. The finalists are:
Colin Calloway for The Indian World of George Washington: The First President, the First Americans, and the Birth of the Nation (Oxford University Press)
Stephen Fried for Rush: Revolution, Madness, and Benjamin Rush, the Visionary Doctor Who Became a Founding Father (Crown)
Catherine Kerrison for Jefferson's Daughters: Three Sisters, White and Black, in a Young America (Ballantine Books)
Joyce Lee Malcom for The Tragedy of Benedict Arnold: An American Life (Pegasus Books)
Nathaniel Philbrick for Into the Hurricane's Eye: The Genius of George Washington and the Victory at Yorktown (Viking)
Russell Shorto for Revolution Song: A Story of American Freedom (Norton)
Peter Stark for Young Washington: How Wilderness and War Forged America's Founding Father (HarperCollins)
