“Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland” Wins Arthur Ross Book Award

Patrick Radden Keefe has won the nineteenth annual Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) Arthur Ross Book Award for Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland (Doubleday), a captivating historical account of the bitter conflict in Northern Ireland. Keefe, a staff writer at the New Yorker, will be awarded the Gold Medal and $15,000.

“Say Nothing is a riveting story of political violence and its aftermath. Keefe makes the Troubles unforgettably real—and relevant,” said Gideon Rose, editor of Foreign Affairs and chair of the award jury, which includes CFR members, but reaches its decision independently of the institution.

The jury awarded the Silver Medal and $7,500 to Atlantic Staff Writer George Packer for Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century (Knopf).
 
The Bronze Medal and $2,500 were awarded to historian William Dalrymple for The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire (Bloomsbury).

Additional shortlist nominees:

• Political sociologist Larry Diamond for Ill Winds: Saving Democracy From Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency (Random House)

• Georgetown Professor Angela Stent for Putin’s World: Russia Against the West and With the Rest (Twelve)

• Writer David Treuer for The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present (Riverhead)

• Harvard Professor Shoshana Zuboff for The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power (PublicAffairs)

Endowed by the late Arthur Ross in 2001, this award honors nonfiction works, in English or translation, that bring forth new information that changes the understanding of events or problems, develop analytical approaches that offer insight into critical issues, or introduce ideas that help resolve foreign policy problems. Previous winners are listed here.

Keefe and the other awardees will be honored at a CFR virtual event on December 9.