Davis Center Book Prize in Political and Social Studies

2008

Honorable Mentions

Honorable Mention: Zsuzsa Gille
Title: From the Cult of Waste to the Trash Heap of History (Indiana University Press)

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.

Honorable Mention: Catherine Wanner
Title: Communities of the Converted: Ukrainians and Global Evangelism (Cornell University Press)

An anthropologist, Wanner provides an expertly crafted and elegantly written study of the resurgence of evangelical Protestantism in Ukraine. Based on exemplary multi-sited ethnographic research in both the US and Ukraine, the book combines thoughtful and thorough historical contextualization with extended forays into the evangelical worlds and shows the processes through which international movements were able to establish a presence in disenfranchised communities as well as what they contributed to those communities.

Winner: Phillip G. Roeder