PHILADELPHIA -- Steven Hahn, professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania, has won the Bancroft Prize for 2004 for his book "A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South From Slavery to the Great Migration."  

One of the most coveted honors in the field of history, the Bancroft Prize is awarded annually by the Trustees of Columbia University to authors of exceptional books in the fields of American history, biography and diplomacy.  The 2004 awards recognize books published in 2003.

An unusually high number of books --180 -- were nominated for consideration by the Bancroft jury this year.  The jurors described "A Nation Under Our Feet" as "a work of breathtaking ambition and scope [in which] Hahn traces the tortuous route followed by African-Americans as they emerged from slavery and traveled through Reconstruction to Jim Crow and beyond."

The other winners are Edward L. Ayers, author of "In the Presence of Mine Enemies: War in the Heart of America, 1859-1863," and George M. Marsden, author of "Jonathan Edwards: A Life."   

The awards, which have a monetary prize of $10,000, will be presented April 21.  The Bancroft Prizes were established at Columbia in 1948 with a bequest from Frederic Bancroft to provide steady development of library resources, support instruction and research in American history and diplomacy and to recognize exceptional books in the field.