ASEEES NewsNet
2023 Prize winners on research, writing, and publishing
January 2024 • v. 64, n. 1
THE 2023 ASEEES BOOK PRIZE WINNERS
on research, writing, and publishing
Alessandro Iandolo Arrested Development: The Soviet Union in Ghana, Guinea, and Mali, 1955-1968 Co-Winner of the Marshall Shulman Book Prize and Winner of the W. Bruce Lincoln Book Prize Tell us about the process of writing this book! How did you determine your subjects, case studies, and/or methods? What kind(s) of research did it entail?
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AI: The idea for Arrested Development was born long ago, initially as a dissertation project. When I started graduate school, I knew I wanted to look at the Soviet Union from the outside. I also knew I was not especially interested in Western Europe or North America. Thinking about political radicalism during the Cold War era, I was inspired by the idea of exploring connections between Soviet socialism and anti-imperialism in newly independent Ghana, Guinea, and Mali. I found the encounter between a society whose revolution had become institutionalized and three of the most radical anti-imperialist states
Kyrill Kunakhovich Communism’s Public Sphere: Culture as Politics in Cold War Poland and East Germany Winner of the Kulczycki Book Prize in Polish Studies
in Africa endlessly fascinating. As a historian, I work primarily with archival sources, which requires travel. To write the book, I spent long periods of time in Russia between 2007 and 2019, and I also worked in Ghana and then Mali. I had a wonderful time in all cases. Over the years, my aversion to doing research in “the West” mellowed, and I took fruitful research trips to France, the US, and even England (where I have been based for most of the time).
It was the process of writing this book that pushed me to explore unfamiliar territory.
