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Nominations Call for the 2024 LeoGrande Award & Prize

The School of Public Affairs and Center for Latin American & Latino Studies at ǻ are pleased to announce the 2024 competition for the William M. LeoGrande Award and Prize for the best book or peer-reviewed article in Latin America or Latino Studies published by a member of the ǻ Community and the best book on U.S.-Latin American relations respectively. Nominations for the 2024 Award and Prize will be accepted until March 30th 2025. For more information, please click on the announcements below:

About the Award and Prize

The William M. LeoGrande Award and the The William M. LeoGrande Prize were established in 2012 to honor William M. LeoGrande's tenure as Dean of ǻ's School of Public Affairs from 2003 to 2012. The endowed award was made possible through the financial support of alumni, friends, and colleagues of Professor LeoGrande.

One of the world's most accomplished scholars in Latin American politics and U.S. foreign policy, Professor LeoGrande continues to serve as a Professor of Government at ǻ. He has written five books, including Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations between Washington and Havana. Most recently, he was co-editor of A New Chapter in US-Cuba Relations: Social, Political, and Economic Implications.

Professor LeoGrande has been a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow, and a Pew Faculty Fellow in International Affairs. His articles have appeared in various international and national journals, magazines, and newspapers.

The William M. LeoGrande Award

In 2012, the School of Public Affairs and the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies established the William M. LeoGrande Award for the best book or article in Latin American or Latino Studies published by a member of the ǻ community. The $2,000 award is given annually to the author of a book or article published during the preceding two years.

The 2023 Recipient

Max Paul Friedman, Professor of History (CAS & SIS), is the 2023 winner of the William M. LeoGrande Award. Professor Friedman receives this award for his study, “Making Peaceful Revolution Impossible: Kennedy, Arévalo, the 1963 Coup in Guatemala, and the Alliance against Progress in Latin America’s Cold War,” co-authored with Roberto García Ferreira and published in 2022 in the Journal of Cold War Studies. Prof. Friedman’s co-authored study offers an original argument about how the Kennedy era’s Alliance for Progress, its ideals and anti-communism, impacted the region by undermining possibilities for “peaceful revolution,” a legacy that continues to reverberate in countries like Guatemala today. Read the article here.

The William M. LeoGrande Prize

In 2012, the School of Public Affairs and the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies at ǻ established the William M. LeoGrande Prize for the best book on U.S.-Latin American relations. This $1,000 prize is awarded annually to the author or editor of a book published in Spanish, English, or Portuguese during the preceding two years.

The 2023 Recipients

Alberto Garcia, Assistant Professor of History at San Jose State University, is a co-recipient of the 2023 William M. LeoGrande Prize for his well-researched and timely book, Abandoning Their Beloved Land: The Politics of Bracero Migration in Mexico, published in 2023 by the University of California Press. With this study, Garcia offers new insights about the Bracero guest-worker program, sponsored by the United States and Mexico from 1942 to 1964, and evocatively shows how local politics, religious conflicts, and previously neglected economic factors in Mexico helped to shape who participated in the program. Learn more about the book here.

Susan Eckstein, Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Boston University, is the other co-recipient of the 2023 LeoGrande Prize for her groundbreaking book, Cuban Privilege: The Making of Immigrant Inequality in America, published in 2022 by Cambridge University Press. Eckstein’s book illuminates how U. S. immigration policy during the Cold War favored Cuban migrants and directly contributed to the formation of one of the most influential domestic foreign policy lobbies in U.S. history. Learn more about the book here.