Alumni Work Named Choice Outstanding Academic Titles of 2013

In its January 2014 issue, Choice published its list of outstanding academic titles for 2013. Included among those works were five books written by Wilson Center scholars, two of which were published by the Wilson Center Press and three of which were projects that the scholars worked on while at the Center. 

The books and authors are detailed below: 

Economics

Sharing the Prize: the Economics of the Civil Rights Revolution in the American South (Belknap/Harvard, 2013) was authored by Gavin Wright, a Wilson Center Fellow from 2010-2011. At the Center, Wright focused on the economic history of the Civil Rights Movement, and his book details the strides that African-Americans were able to make from the 1960s onwards, which he argues was a non-zero sum game that was to the advantage of both blacks and whites. 

History, Geography & Area Studies

Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters (Oxford, 2013) provides an account of the first two cities to produce plutonium, Richland, Washington and Ozersk, Russia, and how these idealistic communities helped conceal the fallout from the nuclear programs. In 2007, author Kate Brown was a 2007 Kennan Institute Research Scholar who studied the production of space as a means of power in the Soviet Union and in the United States.  

Africa
Battleground Africa: Cold War in the Congo, 1960-1965 (Woodrow Wilson Center/Stanford, 2013) was written by Lise Namikas, a 2004 Kennan Institute Research Scholar. During her time at the Center, Namikas examined how the Cold War played out in the Republic of the Congo. Her book discusses the Congo Crisis and the militarization of US-Soviet tensions in Africa. 

Central & Eastern Europe
The Great Game, 1857-1907: Russo-British relations in Central and East Asia (Woodrow Wilson Center/Johns Hopkins, 2013) analyzes the power struggle between the British and Russians in Asia during the latter half of the 19th century. Author Evgeny Sergeev argues that the Great Game was not a forerunner to the Cold War. Sergeev was a 2006 Kennan Institute Scholar and studied Russian military intelligence at the turn of the 20th century at the Wilson Center. 

Political Science
 

Comparative Politics
Democracy Prevention: the Politics of the U.S.-Egyptian Alliance (Cambridge, 2012) was written by Jason Brownlee, a Middle East Program Fellow from 2010-2011. The book looks at authoritarianism in Egypt and why the US has supported anti-democratic leaders despite calling for political reform. At the Center, Brownlee examined US-Egyptian relations following the Camp David Accords.