Per Högselius wins the Shulman Book Prize

I’m back in Stockholm after a brief visit to San Antonio, Texas, which hosted this year’s annual convention of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES). This is a big conference featuring some 1,500 participants and 30 parallel sessions in its program (which is big at least compared to those with which I’m more familiar, like the Society for the History of Technology). And like all proud US-based academic associations it also awards a number of prizes in connection with its convention.

Unexpectedly, my book Red Gas: Russia and the Origins of European Energy Dependence was named the winner of this year’s Marshall D. Shulman Book Prize, which is awarded by ASEEES for the best monograph dealing with “the international relations, foreign policy, or foreign-policy decision-making of any of the states of the former Soviet Union or Eastern Europe.” I received the prize at a ceremony last Saturday evening at San Antonio’s Marriott Rivercenter Hotel. Noting that ASEEES is an “area studies” association, I view the prize as a recognition of my argument that the history of technology may contribute in a fruitful way to the study of regional and world history and international relations more generally, and that in-depth historical studies can shed new light on controversial and burning issues in current affairs.

Read more about Red Gas here!