Luciano Tomassini Latin American International Relations Book Award

About the Award

The Luciano Tomassini Latin American International Relations Book Award is presented at each LASA International Congress to the author(s) of an outstanding book on Latin American foreign policies and international relations published in English, Spanish or Portuguese in any country.

Professor Luciano Tomassini, the remarkable thinker, political scientist and analyst devoted his talent to spread the word about the need to understand the economic and political changes coming to the world, so as to make the most of Latin America’s place within the international scene. IDB presidents came to benefit from his knowledge and understanding of international relations and public policies. His major accomplishments consisted of: a) creating the Red de Relaciones Internacionales de América Latina (RIAL), which brought together scholars to analyze the changing international scenario and Latin America’s place within it, and b) producing a volume that many consider to be his magnum opus, Rompiendo códigos: el cambio cultural de nuestro tiempo (FLACSO, 2010), which won Chile’s National Book Award.

At a time of military governments with a limited understanding of the world around them, Luciano grasped that future democratic transitions would need governments and cadres that were able to make sense of the international environment. Luciano Tomassini understood the successful internationalization of Latin America. LASA established in his honor the Luciano Tomassini Latin American International Relations Award for the best book on the region’s IR and foreign policies published in English, Spanish, Portuguese or French in the previous three years.

Call for nominations

The Luciano Tomassini Latin American International Relations Book Award is presented at each LASA International Congress to the author(s) of an outstanding book on Latin American foreign policies and international relations published in English, Spanish, or Portuguese in any country. Books eligible for the 2019 award must have been published between July 1, 2017, and June 30, 2018. Anthologies of selections by several authors are not eligible. Books will be judged on originality of research, quality of analysis and writing, and the significance of their contribution to the study of Latin America and the Caribbean. Books may be nominated by authors, LASA members, or publishers.

Persons who nominate books are responsible for confirming the publication date and for forwarding one copy directly to each member of the Award Committee, at the expense of the authors or publishers. A nomination packet should include a statement justifying the nomination; a copy of the nominated book; and the complete mailing address, telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail address of the nominee. Packets should be sent directly to individual Award Committee members and to the LASA Secretariat by September 21, 2018. Nominations for the Luciano Tomassini Latin American International Relations Book Award can be submitted electronically. Please fill out the award submission form and send it back to the LASA Secretariat at lasa.awards@pitt.edu by September 21, 2018. For international shipping, please label all books as gifts and not as samples.

All books nominated must reach each member of the Award Committee and the LASA Secretariat by September 21, 2018. By January 20, 2019, the committee will select a winning book. It may also name an honorable mention. The award will be announced at the LASA2019 Awards Ceremony, and the awardee will be publicly honored. LASA membership is not a requirement to receive the award.

Members of the 2019 committee:

Charles Call (Chair)
2122 Jones Rd., Winchester, VA 22602, USA

Gerardo Munck
615 Ocean Avenue, Apt. K, Santa Monica, CA 90402, USA

Mónica Serrano
Poussin 46-7, Mixcoac Insurgentes,
Ciudad de México CP 03720, Mexico.

Par Engstrom
Institute of the Americas, University College London, Gower Street,
London WC1E 6BT, UK

Latin American Studies Association
Attn: Luciano Tomassini Award Nominations
University of Pittsburgh
315 South Bellefield Avenue
416 Bellefield Hall
Pittsburgh PA 15260, USA

Award history

2019

AWARDEE: Tore C. Olsson, Agrarian Crossings: Reformers and the Remaking of the US and Mexican Countryside (Princeton University Press, 2017)

HONORABLE MENTION: Kathryn A. Sikkink, Evidence for Hope: Making Human Rights Work in the 21st Century (Princeton University Press, 2017)

2018

AWARDEE: Sean W Burges, Brazil in the World: The International Relations of a South American Giant (Manchester University Press, 2016)

2017

AWARDEE: Patrick Iber, Neither Peace nor Freedom: The Cultural Cold War in Latin America (Harvard University Press, 2015)

2016

AWARDEE: Christine Hatzky, Cubans in Angola: South-South Cooperation and Transfer of Knowledge, 1976-1991 (University of Wisconsin Press)

HONORABLE MENTION: Elliot Young, Alien Nation: Chinese Migration in the Americas from the Coolie Era Through World War II (University of North Carolina Press)

2015

AWARDEE: Arturo C. Sotomayor, The Myth of the Democratic Peacekeeper: Civil and Military Relations and the United Nations (Johns Hopkins University Press)

2014

AWARDEE: Gustavo Flores-Macías, After Neoliberalism? The Left and Economic Reforms on Latin America (Oxford University Press)

HONORABLE MENTION 1: Claudia Kedar, The International Monetary Fund and Latin America. The Argentine Puzzle in Context (Temple University Press)

HONORABLE MENTION 2: Gabriel Paquette, Imperial Portugal in the Age of Atlantic Revolutions: the Luso-Brazilian World, c. 1770-1850 (Cambridge University Press)

2013

AWARDEE: Tanya Harmer, Allende's Chile and the Inter-American Cold War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011)

HONORABLE MENTION: Mark Eric Williams, Understanding U.S.-Latin American Relations: Theory and History (Routledge, 2011)

2012

AWARDEE: Marisa von Bulow, Building Transnational Networks: Civil Society and the Politics of Trade in the Americas.