The John Whitney Hall Book Prize has been awarded annually since 1994 by the Association for Asian Studies (AAS).
Pioneer Japanese studies scholar John Whitney Hall is commemorated in the name of this prize.
AAS is a scholarly, non-political, non-profit professional association open to all persons interested in Asia.
The association was founded in 1941 as publisher of the Far Eastern Quarterly (now the Journal of Asian Studies).
The organization has gone through a series of reorganizations since those early days; but its continuing function serves to further an exchange of information among scholars to increase understanding about East, South, and Southeast Asia.