George Washington Prize Awarded to Tyson Reeder for Serpent in Eden

Washington College, George Washington’s Mount Vernon, and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History present one of the nation's largest literary prizes.

Author Tyson Reeder was named the 2025 winner of the George Washington Prize at a gala dinner held in New York City on October 8. Washington College joins George Washington’s Mount Vernon and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History in presenting this $50,000 award, one of the nation's largest and most prestigious book prizes. Reeder’s winning book, Serpent in Eden: Foreign Meddling and Partisan Politics in James Madison’s America (Oxford Academic, 2024), explores episodes of foreign meddling and the sometimes-bumbling American responses to them during the Revolution through the early years of the new republic. At the award ceremony, the judges noted the work is “a blend of wonderful storytelling and intriguing characters along with perceptive historical analysis. . . . This important contribution stands out as an incredibly timely and relevant book for how we can use the past to understand the present.”

The award, which was created in 2005, recognizes the past year’s best new works on the nation’s founding era, especially those that have the potential to advance a broad public understanding of early American history. Each year, an independent jury evaluates between 50 and 100 books published on the American founding era. Past winners have included Lin-Manuel Miranda, Annette Gordon-Reed, and Nathaniel Philbrick.

Reeder’s book vividly demonstrates just how shaky and fragile the early United States was as internal divisions and foreign intrigue combined to threaten the federal and republican experiment. At the center of it all was James Madison, whose experiences shaped his input into the Constitution, his advice and direction as secretary of state, and his policies and politics as president as he sought to protect the constitutional system from both foreign interference and domestic polarization.

“For the past two decades, Washington College has been proud to cosponsor this nationally prestigious award. By conferring this award, we honor both our founding namesake and some of the most eminent contemporary historians of America’s founding era,” said Adam Goodheart, Hodson Trust-Griswold Director of the Washington College Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience. "We are especially grateful to the London-Scott Family — direct descendants of another Washington College founding donor, Dr. John Scott — for generously supporting our participation. The family’s 243-year philanthropic legacy here also funds the London-Scott Family Washington Prize Scholarships, which rewards some of our most outstanding undergraduate students.”

James G. Basker, president and CEO of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, observed, “Serpent in Eden offers students a compelling exploration of American foreign policy through the lens of the Filibuster War, making complex historical dynamics both accessible and engaging. For teachers, it serves as a rich, well-researched resource that encourages critical discussion about U.S. expansionism and imperial ambition in the nineteenth century.”

Lindsay Chervinsky, executive director of the George Washington Presidential Library, said, "Tyson Reeder's work is a wonderful example of the type of history the George Washington Prize was founded to celebrate. He increases our knowledge of the Founding Era, while demonstrating in a colorful and compelling fashion why it matters today."

Reeder is an assistant professor of history at Brigham Young University. His research focuses on early American transnational and international history. He was formerly an assistant professor at the University of Virginia, where he worked as an editor of The Papers of James Madison.

The books named as finalists for the 2025 George Washington Prize are outstanding examples of robust and thought-provoking explorations of America’s unique history and include (in alphabetical order by author):

• Jane E. Calvert, Penman of the Founding: A Biography of John Dickinson (Oxford University Press, 2024)
• Francis D. Cogliano, A Revolutionary Friendship: Washington, Jefferson, and the American Republic (Harvard University Press, 2024)
• Michael D. Hattem, The Memory of ’76: The Revolution in American History (Yale University Press, 2024)
• Cara Rogers Stevens, Thomas Jefferson and the Fight Against Slavery (University Press of Kansas, 2024)

More information about the George Washington Prize is available at https://www.mountvernon.org/library/george-washington-prize.

 

- Dominique Ellis Falcon