Gary J. Bass Wins the 2024 Arthur Ross Book Award for “Judgment at Tokyo” 

Gary J. Bass has won the 2024 Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) Arthur Ross Book Award for Judgment at Tokyo: World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia (Knopf), an examination of the trial of Japan’s leaders as war criminals following the end of World War II. Bass, the William P. Boswell professor of world politics of peace and war at Princeton University, was awarded the Gold Medal.  

“Gary Bass’s Judgment at Tokyo is an extraordinary accomplishment. It brings the lesser-known Pacific theater war trials back to the top of the historical agenda, showing how—flawed as they were—they nevertheless shaped the postwar era,” said Gideon Rose, CFR adjunct senior fellow and chair of the award jury. “With great insight, great writing, and great heart, Bass explores epic questions of war, peace, and morality that remain as crucial today as they were in the 1940s.” 

The jury awarded the Silver Medal to Kal Raustiala for The Absolutely Indispensable Man: Ralph Bunche, the United Nations, and the Fight to End Empire (Oxford University Press). Raustiala is the Promise Institute distinguished professor of comparative and international law and the director of the Ronald W. Burkle Center for International Relations at the University of California, Los Angeles. 

The Bronze Medal was awarded to Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman for Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy (Henry Holt and Co./Penguin). Farrell is the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Agora Institute professor of international affairs at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. Newman is a professor in the School of Foreign Service and government department and the director of the BMW Center for German and European Studies at Georgetown University. 

Additional shortlist nominees include:  

• Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP Senior Associate Sean A. Mirski for We May Dominate the World: Ambition, Anxiety, and the Rise of the American Colossus (PublicAffairs) 

• The Brookings Institution Stephen and Barbara Friedman Senior Fellow with the Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology in the foreign policy program and contributing writer for The Atlantic Robert Kagan for The Ghost at the Feast: America and the Collapse of the World Order, 1900-1941 (Knopf) 

• Mykhailo S. Hrushevs’kyi Professor of Ukrainian History and Director of the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University Serhii Plokhii for The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History (W. W. Norton & Company) 

• Academic Dean, Professor of international politics, and Director of the Center for Strategic Studies at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy Monica Toft, and Assistant Professor of political science and Co-Coordinator for the democratic governance and leadership program at Bridgewater State University Sidita Kushi for Dying by the Sword: The Militarization of U.S. Foreign Policy (Oxford University Press) 

• Professor of international relations and Director of the Phelan U.S. Centre at the London School of Economics and Associate Fellow at Chatham House, Royal Institute of International Affairs Peter Trubowitz, and Professor of political economy in the department of political science and Co-Director of the Amsterdam Centre for European Studies at the University of Amsterdam Brian Burgoon for Geopolitics and Democracy: The Western Liberal Order From Foundation to Fracture (Oxford University Press) 

Endowed by the late Arthur Ross in 2001, this award recognizes nonfiction books that make an outstanding contribution to the understanding of international relations; it is among the most prestigious prizes for books related to international and foreign policy issues. 

Past winners include:  

• Christopher R. Miller’s Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology 

• Carter Malkasian’s The American War in Afghanistan: A History 

• Zachary D. Carter’s The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes 

• Patrick Radden Keefe’s Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland 

View a list of previous winners. 

This year’s awardees will be honored at a CFR event in December 2024.