Serhii Plokhy wins $15,000 Lionel Gelber Prize for ‘The Last Empire’
Posted Mar 30, 2015 04:21:29 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
TORONTO – Serhii Plokhy of Arlington, Mass., has won this year’s Lionel Gelber Prize for books on foreign affairs.
Plokhy, a professor at Harvard University, won the Canadian-founded $15,000 prize for “The Last Empire: The Final Days of the Soviet Union” (Basic Books).
Jury chairman William Thorsell called it “a compelling, revelatory story about the final months of the Soviet Union and the birth of a new regional order centred on Russia.”
“Using newly available sources, Plokhy illuminates the role of the American White House in the defence of the Russian one, and the critical part played by Ukraine in defining the outcome,” Thorsell said in a statement released Monday.
“‘The Last Empire’ tells us a great deal about the dynamics at play in Russia and Ukraine today.”
Plokhy will accept his award and give a free public lecture at the University of Toronto on April 21.
This is the 25th year for the prize, which was named after a Canadian diplomat.
It honours a “non-fiction book in English on foreign affairs that seeks to deepen public debate on significant international issues.”
