Bernard Schwartz Book Award
The Bernard Schwartz Book Award was an international award recognizing nonfiction books that provide outstanding contributions to the understanding of contemporary Asia and/or U.S.-Asia relations. The award was designed to advance public awareness of the changes taking place in Asia and the implications for the wider world, and to raise the profile of authors making a meaningful contribution to this dialogue.
Asia Society established the Bernard Schwartz Book Award in 2009. The inaugural winner was Duncan McCargo, author of Tearing Apart the Land: Islam and Legitimacy in Southern Thailand(Cornell University Press). Each year, an independent jury composed of experts in the fields of policy, media, academia, cultural affairs, and business selected the winner. The winning author received a $20,000 prize and is honored at a special event at Asia Society. Two honorable mentions were also selected and each received a $2,000 prize.
The award program came to an end in 2015. See the past winners below.
Previous Winners
The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide by Gary Bass (2014 Winner)
Restless Empire: China and the World Since 1750 by Odd Arne Westad (2013 Winner)
Water: Asia’s New Battlegroundby by Brahma Chellaney (2012 Winner)
The Party: The Secret World of China's Communist Rulers by Richard McGregor (2011 Winner)
The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia by James C. Scott (2010 Winner)
Tearing Apart the Land: Islam and Legitimacy in Southern Thailand by Duncan McCargo (2009 Winner)
Related Content: Prior Awards
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Gary Bass will be honored and presented with a $20,000 prize at a special event to be held at Asia Society’s headquarters on December 9, 2014.
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Prof. Odd Arne Westad, author of 'Restless Empire,' talks about how studying the past 250 years of Chinese history brought him to a new understanding of how China relates to the outside world, and what its long-term prospects look like.
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"I don't think the problems of Asia today can be posed, let alone solved, through an East-versus-West binary," says the winner of an honorable mention in Asia Society's 2013 Bernard Schwartz Book Award.
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“I was inspired to write [Restless Empire] because I thought we needed more of a China-centered history of Chinese international affairs,” said Westad.
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Water, says the winner of the 2012 Bernard Schwartz Book Award, is likely to be the source of both "wealth and conflict" in the 21st century.
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The 2011 Bernard Schwartz Book Award Winner discusses the upcoming leadership transition in China.