2009

Honorable Mention: Lewis H. Siegelbaum
TItle: Cars for Comrades: The Life of the Soviet Automobile (Cornell University Press)

This may well be the perfect subject for an historian of the Soviet Union who teaches in Michigan. Engagingly written with considerable wit and close attention to evidentiary detail, Cars for Comrades successfully combines technological, institutional, economic, social, and cultural history. Siegelbaum uses the automobile to shed considerable light on multiple facets of the Soviet experience, including urbanization, consumption, economic relations with the West, and the culture of everyday life. The book will enlighten and entertain specialists and students alike.

Winner: Elena Shulman