The Susan M. Socolow and Lyman L. Johnson Chile-Río de la Plata book prize was established in 2018. It carries a stipend of $500. The prize is awarded biennially to the book judged to make the most significant contribution to the history of the following countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay. Books appearing in the two calendar years just preceding may be considered for a given year’s award. Hence, items published in 2024 and 2025 will be considered for the award year 2026 (awarded at the meeting in January 2027).

The Socolow-Johnson Committee will consider only those items nominated by CLAH members or by publishers. Publishers must provide copies of items nominated to all committee members. Members of the prize committee may include any items they feel appropriate in the list of works considered.

In exceptional cases, the book award committee may decide on co-winners. The co-winners will split the prize. In such cases, there would not be an honorable mention.

Winners:

2024
Paulina Alberto, Black Legend: The Many Lives of Raúl Grigera and the Power of Racial Storytelling in Argentina (Cambridge University Press, 2022)
Margarita Fajardo, The World that Latin America Created: The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America in the Development Era (Harvard University Press, 2022)

2023
Carmen Soliz, Fields of Revolution: Agrarian Reform and Rural State Formation in Bolivia, 1935-1964 (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2021)

Honorable Mention:
Angeles Donoso Macaya, The Insubordination of Photography: Documentary Practices under Chile’s Dictatorship (University Press of Florida, 2021)

2021
Elizabeth Penry, The People are King: The Making of an Indigenous Andean Politics (Oxford University Press, 2019)

Honorable Mention:
Alison J. Bruey, Bread, Justice and Liberty: Grassroots Activism and Human Rights in Pinochet’s Chile (University of Wisconsin Press, 2018)

Socolow Johnson Prize Committees (Chair listed first):

2024 Fabrício Prado, Ben Bryce, Carmen Soliz

2023 Jessica Stites-Mor, Kevin Young, Fabrício Prado

2021 Jody Pavilack, Eduardo Elena, Julia Sarreal