• News Release

  

  

  Council’s 2006 Arthur Ross Book Award Shortlist Announced

  March 3, 2006
  Council on Foreign Relations

  Five Authors to Compete for Most Significant International Affairs Book Award

  March 2, 2006—The Council has announced the fifth annual Arthur Ross Book Award shortlist nominees for the best book published in the last two years on international affairs.

  • Tony Judt for Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 (Penguin Press). An insightful and animated chronicle of Europe since the fall of Berlin. Judt covers the broad strokes as well as the fine details of the years 1945–2005 and treats the entire continent as a whole, providing equal coverage of social changes, economic forces, and cultural shifts in western and eastern Europe.
  • George Packer for The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). In a powerful retelling of how the United States set about changing the history of the Middle East and became ensnared in a guerilla war in Iraq, Packer brings to life the people and ideas that created the Bush administration’s war policy.
  • Robert A. Pape for Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism (Random House). In the first comprehensive database of every suicide terrorist attack since 1980, Pape clearly and precisely debunks the misconceptions about the nature of suicide terrorism and through groundbreaking evidence explains the strategic, social, and individual factors responsible for this growing threat.
  • Olivier Roy for Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah (Columbia University Press). In a brilliant exegesis of the movement of Islam beyond traditional borders and its unwitting westernization, Roy argues that the Islamic revival results from the efforts of westernized Muslims to assert their identity in a non-Muslim context.
  • Stephen M. Walt for Taming American Power: The Global Response to U.S. Primacy (W.W. Norton). In an elegant and provocative book, Walt analyzes the different strategies employed by other states to counter U.S. power or harness it for their needs, and shows how these responses threaten America’s ability to achieve its foreign policy goals and may eventually undermine its dominant position.

  The Council’s Arthur Ross Book Award is the most significant award for a book on international affairs. It was endowed by Arthur Ross in 2001 to honor nonfiction works, in English or translation, that merit special attention for: bringing forth new information that changes our understanding of events or problems; developing analytical approaches that allow new and different insights into critical issues; or providing new ideas that help resolve foreign policy problems.

  The award consists of a $25,000 first prize, a $10,000 second prize, and a $5,000 honorable mention.

  The winners will be announced in early May and will be honored at a dinner in June at the Council in New York.

  ARTHUR ROSS BOOK AWARD JURY

  Lael Brainard

  Senior Fellow, Economic and Foreign Policy Studies

  The Brookings Institution

  Rose Gottemoeller

  Director of Carnegie Moscow Center

  Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

  Stanley Hoffmann

  Paul & Catherine Buttenwieser University Professor

  Harvard University

  James F. Hoge, Jr. (Chairman)

  Peter G. Peterson Chair & Editor

  Foreign Affairs

  Robert W. Kagan

  Senior Associate

  Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

  Miles Kahler

  Rohr Professor of International Relations

  University of California, San Diego

  Michael A. McFaul

  Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow

  Hoover Institution

  Arthur Ross*

  Vice Chairman

  United Nations Association of the U.S.A.

  *ex officio

• Publications Information

  To order Task Force reports, Council Special Reports, and Critical Policy Choices, please call, fax, or order online from our distributor, the Brookings Institution Press: phone +1.800.537.5487, fax +1.410.516.6998.

  For information on other reports that are not for sale, or for general publications information, please call +1.212.434.9516 or email publications@cfr.org.

  New Books

  Start-Up Nation addresses the trillion-dollar question: How is it that Israel—a country of 7.1 million, only sixty years old, surrounded by enemies— produces more start-up companies than large, peaceful, and stable nations like Japan, China, India, Korea, Canada, and the UK? With the insights of geopolitical experts and investors, the authors examine this nation’s adversity-driven culture to answer this question and offer prescriptions for a global economy on the rebound.

  

  In Forces of Fortune, Vali Nasr presents a paradigm-changing revelation that will transform the understanding of the Muslim world at large. He reveals that there is a vital but unseen rising force in the Islamic world—a new business-minded middle class—that is building a vibrant new Muslim world economy and that holds the key to winning the cold war against Iran and extremists.

  In Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know, Julia E. Sweig presents a remarkably accessible portrait of Cuba's unique place on the world stage over the past fifty years, including its internal politics, its often fraught relationship with the United States, and its shifting relationship with the global community.

  Complete list of CFR Books

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