Cardiff University historian receives award and multiple nominations
12 June 2026
A senior lecturer and historian at Cardiff University awarded distinguished historical prize.
Dr David Stefan Doddington, an expert in North American history, has won the Social History Society’s (SHS) Book Prize 2026. The SHS represents the interests of social and cultural history and historians both within higher education and in the wider community, and is a world-leading historical organisation.
His book, Old Age and American Slavery, has been recognised for 6 awards in total, receiving recognition and nominations across a variety of renowned institutions.
Reflecting on receiving the award and nominations, Dr Doddington said, “It means the world to me.
“The Social History Society is an academic force for good. It promotes exceptional scholarship, supports academics and students at all career-stages, and celebrates the value of historical research in and outside of Universities.
To receive this recognition from the organization, and from a panel made up of some of my academic idols, is just beyond amazing.
“Overall, I still can’t quite believe the book has been so well received. I feel absolutely honored and thankful that colleagues and peers from a range of scholarly organizations have taken the time to engage so closely with the work, and to consider it alongside books that have been foundational across so many fields.
“I need to thank my family, whose love and support means everything to me.
“Mark Smith, Peter Coclanis, and Cecelia Cancellaro from Cambridge University Press are a dream team.
“The Leverhulme Trust supported me with a Research Fellowship in 2018-19, and without this support the project couldn’t have gotten off the ground.
“Tracey Loughran, formerly of Cardiff University and now at the University of Essex, is a mentor, colleague, and friend, and her feedback made the book so much stronger.”
After also receiving the Frank and Harriet L. Owsley Award in 2025, Old Age and American Slavery has been recognised for the Summersell Deep South Book Prize, the SlaveryArchive Book Prize, and the Paul E. Lovejoy prize, reaching finalist stage for each award.
The book also received an Honourable Mention for the British Association for American Studies’ Book Prize.
About his work’s intentions, Dr Doddington said, “I sought to reveal how antebellum southerners – Black and white – adapted to, resisted, or failed to overcome changes associated with age, both real and imagined, and how these struggles intersected with wider concerns over control, exploitation, and survival in a slave society.
“The project underlines that proslavery narratives of leisurely ‘retirement’ for enslaved elders were far removed from reality, and shows instead the violence and exploitation that was inherent to slavery, from cradle-to-grave.
“I wanted to push scholars, too, to rethink static hierarchies among Black and white southerners, and to show how age shaped slavery, both as a system of economic exploitation, and as a contested site of personal domination, in crucial ways.”
Dr Doddington’s next project Age, Generations, and Power in the American South, also supported by the Leverhulme Trust, will tackle how generational shifts were experienced and articulated in the aftermath of slavery.
He is also co-editing The Oxford Handbook of the History of Age and Aging with Tracey Loughran.
Dr Doddington added, “Lastly, I want to emphasise how far this book developed in conversation with historians and students working at Cardiff University, and to celebrate the vital work we do together in the Arts and Humanities.
“None of our successes come in isolation; good historical work takes time, and it requires critical feedback and collaboration.
“I’m enormously grateful to be able to work with such supportive and generous colleagues and this work only came to life through our collective strength.”
Find out more about Dr Doddington and his book Old Age and American Slavery.
