Lepgold Book Prize

The Georgetown University Lepgold Book Prize honors Joseph S. Lepgold, a Georgetown University Government and School of Foreign Service professor who died in a tragic hotel fire in Paris in December 2001. The prize honors exceptional contributions to the study of international relations, with particular emphasis on the resolution of critical policy challenges, published each calendar year.

The prize awards $1,000 to the author of the best book in international relations, broadly conceived, each year. To receive the award, the winning author agrees to give a lecture on his or her scholarship at the Mortara Center.

The 2018 winner was Austin Carson, who received the prize for his book Secret Wars on covert conflict in international politics. It is the first book to systematically analyze the ways powerful states covertly participate in foreign wars, showing a recurring pattern of such behavior stretching from World War I to U.S.-occupied Iraq. Carson is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago.

The list of past winners can be found here:

2017: Fighting for Status: Hierarchy and Conflict in World Politics, by Jonathan Renshon
2016: Violence and Restraint in Civil War: Civilian Targeting in the Shadow of International Law, by Jessica A. Stanton
2015: Making and Unmaking Nations: War, Leadership and Genocide in Modern Africa, by Scott Straus
2014: Networks of Rebellion: Explaining Insurgent Cohesion and Collapse, by Paul Staniland
2013: The Company States Keep, by Julia Gray
2012: Alliance Formation in Civil Wars, by Fotini Christia
2011: Leaders and International Conflict, by Giacomo Chiozza and H. E. Goemans
2010: The Clash of Ideas in World Politics, by John Owen
2009: The Invisible Hand of Peace, by Patrick J. McDonald
2008: Targeting Civilians in War, by Alexander Downes
2007: The Nuclear Taboo, by Nina Tannenwald
2006: Dangerous Nation, by Robert Kagan
2005: The Remnants of War, by John Mueller
2004: Electing to Fight, by Edward D. Mansfield and Jack Snyder
2003: Power and Purpose: U.S. Policy Toward Russia After the Cold War, by James Goldgeier and Michael McFaul
2002: A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, by Samantha Power
2001: The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, by John J. Mearsheimer