A book award for the best book published by a member during the previous year was awarded by the Executive Council for the first time to Cecil B. Currey in 1997 for Victory at Any Cost: The Genius of Viet Nam’s Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap. Because of Currey’s generous pledge to fund the award for future recipients, the Executive Council named the award in his honor. The winner of the award will receive a plaque and a monetary prize at the annual conference. The award is only open to members of the association. To be considered for the award, please send a cover letter and three copies of the book to the committee chair as soon as possible, but no later than 1 June of the year following the book’s publication. Because of the pandemic, books published in 2019 and 2020 will be considered for the 2021 award. Books considered for the 2021 award must be sent to the committee chair by 1 June 2021.
Award Committee (2021 – 2026)
Committee Chair: Ryan Alexander –tba
Committee Member: Sura Rath
Committee Member: Paul Rodell
Previous Award Winners
1998 – John Mukum Mbaku, Institutions and Reform in Africa: The Public Choice Perspective
1999 – Robert Olson, The Kurdish Question and Turkish-Iranian Relations
2000 – Paul J. Magnarella, Justice in Africa: Rwanda’s Genocide, its Courts, and the UN Criminal Tribunal
2001 – Olufemi O. Vanghan, Nigerian Chiefs: Traditional Power in Modern Politics, 1890s-1990s
2002 – Paul Rodell, Culture and Customs of Philippines
2003 – William Head, War from Above the Clouds: B-52 Operations During the Second IndoChina War and the Effects of the Air War on Theory and Doctrine
2005 – Toyin Falola, Economic Reforms and Modernization in Nigeria, 1945-1965
2006 – Hanchao Lu, Street Criers: A Cultural History of Chinese Beggars
2007 – Farhad Nomani and Sohrab Behdad, Class and Labor in Iran: Did the Revolution Matter?
2008 – Elizabeth F. Drexler, Aceh, Indonesia: Securing the Insecure State
2009 – Huaiyin Li, Village China under Socialism and Reform: A Micro-History, 1948-2008
2010 – Bryan Tilt, The Struggle for Sustainability in Rural China: Environmental Values and Civil Society
2011– Anja Jetschke, Human Rights and State Security: Indonesia and the Philippines
2012 – Abdul Karim Bangura, African Mathematics: From Bones to Computers
2013 – Michael Arndt, India’s Foreign Policy and Multilateralism and Toyin Falola, Ibaden: Foundation, Growth, and Economic Change, 1830-1860
2014 — Michael Hathaway, Environmental Winds: Making the Global in Southwest China
2015 – J. Patrice McSherry, Chilean New Song: The Political Power of Music, 1960s-1973
2016 — David A. Pietz, The Yellow River: The Problem of Water in Modern China
2017 — Philip C. Aka, Human Rights in Nigeria’s External Relations: Building the Record of a Moral Superpower
2018 — not awarded
2019 — not awarded
2020 — not awarded
2021 – not awarded
2022- Sandya Hewamanne, Restitching Identities in Rural Sri Lanka: Gender, Neoliberalism, and the Politics of Contentment
2023- Salvador S.F. Regilme, Jr. for this book, Aid Imperium: United States Foreign Policy and Human Rights in Post-Cold War Southeast Asia, University of Michigan Press.