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 or Portuguese.

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 2024 award must have been published between July 1, 2022, and June 30, 2023. 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 uploading a digital copy or sending a hard copy directly to each member of the Awards Committee at their own expense or at the publisher's expense. The nomination should include a statement justifying the nomination; a copy of the nominated book (printed or digital); and the complete mailing address, telephone number, and e-mail address of the nominee. The printed books should be sent directly to individual Award Committee members and to the LASA Secretariat by September 20, 2023. Nominations for the Luciano Tomassini Latin American International Relations Book Award must be submitted electronically. Please fill out the award submission form by September 20, 2023. 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 20, 2023. By January 2024, the committee will select a winning book. It may also name an honorable mention. The award will be announced at the LASA2024 Welcome Ceremony, and the awardee will be publicly honored. In addition, the awardee will present his/her book in a special panel during the Congress. LASA membership is not a requirement to receive the award.

Members of the 2024 Committee

Aldo Marchesi (chair)
Universidad de la República

Cynthia Sanborn
Universidad del Pacífico

Christy Thornton
Johns Hopkins University

Jelke Boesten
King's College London

Award history

2024

AWARDEE: Chelsea Schields, Offshore Attachments: Oil and Intimacy in the Caribbean (University of California Press, 2023)

HONORABLE MENTION: Rebecca Herman, Cooperating with the Colossus: A Social and Political History of US Military Bases in World War II Latin America (Oxford University Press, 2022)

2023

AWARDEE: Stephen B. Kaplan, Globalizing Patient Capital: The Political Economy of Chinese Finance in the Americas (Cambridge University Press, 2021)

HONORABLE MENTION: Roberto Saba, American Mirror: The United States and Brazil in the Age of Emancipation (Princeton University Press, 2021)

2022

AWARDEE: Christy Thornton, Revolution in Development: Mexico and the Governance of the Global Economy (University of California Press, 2021)

HONORABLE MENTION: Katrina Burgess, Courting Migrants: How States Make Diasporas and Diasporas Make States (Oxford University Press, 2020)

2021

AWARDEE: Jessica Graham, Shifting the Meaning of Democracy: Race, Politics, and Culture in the United States and Brazil (University of California Press, 2019)

HONORABLE MENTION: Carol Wise, Dragonomics: How Latin America is Maximizing (or Missing Out) on China’s International Development Strategy (Yale University Press, 2020)

2020

AWARDEE: Katherine M. Marino, Feminism for the Americas: The Making of an International Human Rights Movement (University of North Carolina Press, 2019)

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.