For Immediate Release: March 25, 2013 (Toronto and Washington)Patricia Rubin, President of the Lionel Gelber Prize Board and niece of Lionel Gelber, announced
today that Chrystia Freeland (New York City, USA) has won the 2013 Prize for Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else, published by Doubleday Canada and The Penguin Press.
"This year's shortlist offered a wealth of opportunity to the jury,” said Jury Chair William Thorsell: “These are immensely erudite and creative books about where the world has been, and how it is becoming. Anyone who is curious about the world in play should read each one of these Lionel Gelber Prize finalists. Plutocrats took the prize for its immediacy and authority about the future —the world that we must comprehend and hope to manage in radically new circumstances. We are proud to announce that the winner of the 2013 Lionel Gelber Prize is Chrystia Freeland.”
Chrystia Freeland is the Managing Director and Editor of Consumer News at Thomson Reuters, following years of service at the Financial Timesin New York, London, Moscow and Kiev. She was the deputy editor of The Globe and Mail and has written for the Financial Times, The Economist, The Washington Post, The New Yorker and The Atlantic. Freeland’s last book wasSale of the Century: Russia’s Wild Ride from Communism to Capitalism. She was born in Peace River, Alberta, Canada and lives in New York City, USA.
Free Public Lecture: Chrystia Freeland will be in Toronto to deliver the annual Lionel Gelber Prize free public lecture on Monday, April 15, 2013, at the Vivian and David Campbell Conference Facility in the Munk School of Global Affairs, at the University of Toronto.
Interview Podcast: Robert Steiner, Director of the Fellowships in Global Journalism at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, interviewed Chrystia Freeland for the Lionel Gelber Prize Longlist Podcast Series on iTunes. Listen here.
Jurors William Thorsell (Chair), Daniel W. Drezner, Gaynor Lilian Johnson, Walter Russell Meade, and Margaret Wente wrote the following citation about Plutocrats for the longlist announcement:
“In Plutocrats, Chrystia Freeland describes the evolution of a new global elite of unprecedented economic, social and political power. This mobile, denaturalized community affects the lives of billions as its wealth and values distance it from even the wealthiest of societies. Freeland explores consequent issues of equity and accountability with fluency and intimacy, capturing the human dimension of a powerful and disturbing phenomenon.” They chose the winning book from their previous five-book shortlist and twelve-book longlist.
About the Lionel Gelber Prize: The Lionel Gelber Prize is a literary award for the world’s best non-fiction book in English on foreign affairs that seeks to deepen public debate on significant international issues. It was founded in 1989 in the memory of Canadian diplomat Lionel Gelber (1907 – 1989). A prize of $15,000 is awarded to the winner. The award is presented annually by the Lionel Gelber Foundation, in partnership withForeign Policy Magazine and the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto.
About the Jurors for the 2013 Lionel Gelber Prize:
William Thorsell, Jury Chair, is currently Associate Senior Fellow, Massey College, University of Toronto, and Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto. After more than 10 years as editor-in-chief of The Globe and Mail in Toronto, Mr. Thorsell was appointed Director and CEO of the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto in August, 2000. He was invested into the Order of Ontario in January of 2008 and also invested as Chevalier, Order of Arts and Letters, in France in 2010.
Daniel W. Drezner, is professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, and a contributing editor at Foreign Policy. Prior to Fletcher, he taught at the University of Chicago and the University of Colorado at Boulder. He has previously held positions with Civic Education Project, the RAND Corporation and the U.S. Department of the Treasury. He is an editorial board member ofPerspectives on Politics.
Gaynor Lilian Johnson, Ph D. is currently Reader in International History and Member of the University of Salford’s European Security Research Centre. A specialist in the history of the British Foreign Office, she is a member of the editorial board of Diplomacy and Statecraft and book reviews editor of The International History Review.
Walter Russell Mead is professor of Foreign Affairs and the Humanities at Bard College, the Henry A. Kissinger senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), and one of the country’s leading students of American foreign policy. His book, Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World, was widely hailed as an important study that will change the way Americans and others think about American foreign policy. Special Providence was awarded the Lionel Gelber Prize in 2002. Mr. Mead writes regularly on international affairs for the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, International Herald Tribune, Washington Post, Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, New Yorker, Atlantic, Harper’s and Esquire.
Margaret Wente is among the best-read columnists in Canada. She writes on a range of subjects, from social policy to politics, the changing roles of men and women, the future of higher education, and the evolution of the post-welfare state. Prior to becoming a full-time columnist with The Globe and Mail in 1999, she was the editor of several leading business publications, including the Globe's Report on Business. She has won a variety of journalism awards, and is the author of two books, An Accidental Canadian and You Can't Say That in Canada. She has a BA in English from the University of Michigan, and an MA from the University of Toronto. She is a deep admirer and frequent critic of both countries.