The Phi Beta Kappa Book Awards are given annually to outstanding scholarly books published in the United States. Winning works, which are drawn from the fields of the humanities, the social sciences, the natural sciences and mathematics, must be of broad interest and accessible to the general reader. Each award carries a $10,000 prize, and the winners are selected by panels of experts who reviewed five short-listed titles in each of the three award categories:


The Christian Gauss Award for literary scholarship went to Leah Price for the book What We Talk About When We Talk About Books: The History and Future of Reading;


The Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science has been awarded to Sarah Parcak for the book Archaeology From Space: How the Future Shapes Our Past; and


The Ralph Waldo Emerson Award for "interpretations of the intellectual and cultural conditions of humanity" has been given to Sarah Seo for the book Policing the Open Road: How Cars Transformed American Freedom.


This Book Awards livestream event gave Phi Beta Kappa members an opportunity to hear remarks by these winning authors and listen to them participate in a panel discussion with Phi Beta Kappa Secretary/CEO Frederick M. Lawrence. To learn more about the Phi Beta Kappa Book Awards, or for more information on the winning books, please visit https://www.pbk.org/2020BookWinners