News

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The Unexpected War: Canada in Kandahar short-listed for the 10th Annual Donner Prize

Following Shaughnessy Cohen Prize win last month, authors Janice Gross Stein and Eugene Lang earn nomination for best book on Canadian public policy.

March 27, 2008
Penguin Group (Canada) is proud to announce that authors Janice Gross Stein and Eugene Lang have been nominated for the 2007/2008 Donner Prize, the award for best book on Canadian public policy, for The Unexpected War: Canada in Kandahar (Viking Canada, $35, Hardcover). The announcement was made Tuesday in Toronto; the winners will be announced, and the $35,000 prize awarded, at a black-tie ceremony on Wednesday, April 16. The Donner Prize nomination comes on the heels of Stein and Lang’s win last month of The Writers’ Trust of Canada Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing.

Edited by Diane Turbide, Editorial Director at Penguin, The Unexpected War is one of five titles on the Donner Prize shortlist that were selected from a field of 69 submissions. Other nominated titles include Enter the Babylon System: Unpacking Gun Culture from Samuel Colt to 50 Cent (Rodrigo Bascunan and Christian Pearce); Young Thugs: Inside the Dangerous World of Canadian Street Gangs (Michael C. Chettleburgh); Fueling Our Future: An Introduction to Sustainable Energy (Robert L. Evans); and The People’s House of Commons: Theories of Democracy in Contention (David E. Smith). Jury Chairman Grant Reuber summarized the 2007/2008 short-list:

"As always, it is our responsibility as a jury to find great books about issues that Canadians think about, talk about and care about. We feel this year’s Donner Prize Shortlist meets those criteria, with the writers venturing into public policy issues that are both relevant and somewhat controversial."

Combining Gross Stein’s security and foreign policy expertise and with Lang’s first-hand accounts of behind-the-scenes political negotiations, The Unexpected War charts Canada’s foray into Afghanistan from the aftermath of 9/11 to the present. The book also features candid interviews with key leaders including former prime minister Paul Martin; past ministers of defence Bill Graham, John McCallum and Gordon O'Connor; and General Rick Hillier.

As Canadian soldiers continue to fight an insurgency unlike any they have encountered before and the country struggles to understand its role in Afghanistan, and within the international community, The Unexpected War offers an informed assessment of what lies ahead.

"Janice Stein and Eugene Lang have done a terrific job of explaining how and why Canada took the path it did in Afghanistan," said Turbide. "They tell a dramatic story, one that highlights the complexities and dilemmas of the situation. Unexpected War has made an invaluable contribution to the debate over the appropriate role of Canada’s military and the direction of its foreign policy. We are very proud to be their publisher."

Janice Gross Stein is the Belzberg Professor of Conflict Management in the Department of Political Science and the director of the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, a member of the Order of Canada, and an honourary foreign member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She was the Massey Lecturer in 2001, has been a Trudeau Fellow, and was awarded the Molson Prize by the Canada Council for an outstanding contribution by a social scientist to public debate.

Eugene Lang, a public policy consultant and writer, served as chief of staff to two ministers of national defence from 2002 to 2006. A 2006-2007 visiting fellows at the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto and a former Chevening Scholar at the London School of Economics, Lang is a frequent contributor to The Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star, and is co-author (with Philip DeMont) of Turning Point: Moving Beyond Neoconservatism. He lives in Ottawa with his wife and two children.

Founded in 1974 as a distribution company for Penguin books from all over the world, Penguin Group (Canada) began publishing Canadian and international titles in 1977, and quickly became known as one of Canada's pre-eminent publishers of literary fiction and non-fiction, now publishing an award-winning roster of Canadian authors including Janice Gross Stein, Eugene Lang, Margaret Macmillan, John Ralston Saul, Michael Ignatieff, Adrienne Clarkson, and Roy McGregor. This month, Penguin Group Canada launched Extraordinary Canadians, a series of eighteen biographies written by Canada’s most influential contemporary writers, and the most ambitious set of biographies ever to be published in this country.

> back to news page