2025

The Kulczycki Book Prize in Polish Studies (formerly the Orbis Book Prize), established in 1996 and sponsored by the Kulczycki family, former owners of the Orbis Books Ltd. of London, England, is awarded annually for the best book in any discipline, on any aspect of Polish affairs, published in the previous calendar year. 

Honorable Mention: Agnieszka Pasieka, Living Right: Far-Right Youth Activists in Contemporary Europe (Princeton University Press, 2024) 

Agnieszka Pasieka’s Living Right is an absorbing and pathbreaking ethnography of far-right activism in Europe. It follows members of far-right groups in Poland and Italy as they establish networks, organize marches, and attend international gatherings. To understand the popular appeal of the far-right, Pasieka takes her subjects seriously, though not uncritically. She explores the moral and political imaginaries of far-right activists, showing that they see themselves as the vanguard of a global revolution. Sensitive, rigorous, and elegantly written, Living Right is attentive to the transnational networks and interpersonal connections behind ugly slogans. Pasieka’s willingness to engage those with whom she disagrees is both a challenge to the current practice of anthropology and an impetus for new kinds of scholarship. 

Winner: Karen Underhill

Prize Committee: Stanley Bill (chair), Anna Cichopek-Gajraj, and Kyrill Kunakhovich