2008 Davis Center Book Prize in Political and Social Studies Winner
The AAASS Davis Center Book Prize in Political and Social Studies, established in 2008, and sponsored by the Kathryn W. and Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University, will be awarded annually for an outstanding monograph published on Russia, Eurasia, or Eastern Europe in anthropology, political science, sociology, or geography in the previous calendar year.
The 2008 AAASS Davis Center Book Prize in Political and Social Studies was presented to Philip G. Roeder for Where Nation-States Come From? Institutional Change in the Age of Nationalism, published by Princeton University Press.
The prize committee also decided to present two honorable mentions:
- Zsuzsa Gille received an honorable mention for From the Cult of Waste to the Trash Heap of History, published by Indiana University Press
- Catherine Wanner received an honorable mention for Communities of the Converted: Ukrainians and Global Evangelism, published by Cornell University Press
(Please click on the name of the winner to see the citation for the award, to connect to the publisher's web page with more information about the book, please click on the title)
From the Cult of Waste to the Trash Heap of History, by Zsuzsa Gille
A sociologist, Gille employs “thick description” to explain changing rationalizations, ideologies, and unintended consequences of industrial waste under state socialism and capitalism in Hungary. The book provides an original analysis and compelling case study, which poses intriguing questions about social conceptions of industrial practice and economic value.
