The Rodel Institute is delighted to announce the longlist finalists for its 2026 Edwards Book Award. The Edwards Book Award is an annual prize recognizing books that make an outstanding contribution to the understanding and practice of democracy and American politics. The prize carries an honorarium of $10,000. The winning book is chosen by a committee that includes past Rodel Fellows, external academic advisors, and Rodel Institute staff. This year’s award committee is comprised of returning Rodel Fellows Ginger Nelson (former Mayor of Amarillo, TX), and Warwick Sabin (former AR State Representative), and this year they are joined by Bill Gates (former Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chairman, AZ), and Nellie Gorbea (former Secretary of State, RI). The committee’s academic advisors are Ian Solomon, Dean of UVA’s Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, and Jennifer Siegel, the Bruce R. Kuniholm Distinguished Professor of History and Public Policy at Duke University. Additionally, Rodel staff members John Kroger, Lizzy McCourt Noonan, and Breanna Kerr serve as members of the award committee.

The award is named in honor of former Congressman Mickey Edwards. Mickey has inspired generations of American public servants and students as a member of Congress; faculty member at Harvard, Princeton, and American Universities; author of highly respected books on the American political process; and founding executive director of the Rodel Fellowship, the nation’s premier bipartisan leadership development program for elected leaders.

The Rodel Institute received a large volume of excellent book nominations. The following nonfiction books published in 2025 were selected as longlist finalists. The shortlist will be released in June, and the winner will be announced in September. The University of Virginia’s Frank Batten School of Leadership & Public Policy will host this year’s award ceremony featuring the winner as a keynote speaker. James Davison Hunter, the LaBrosse-Levinson Distinguished Professor of Religion, Culture, and Social Theory at UVA, received the 2025 Edwards Book Award  for Democracy and Solidarity: On the Cultural Roots of America’s Political Crisis.