Martin Kramer is The Washington Institute's Walter P. Stern Fellow and author of one of its most widely read monographs, Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America.
Michael Mandelbaum is professor emeritus of American foreign policy at Johns Hopkins University's Nitze School of Advanced International Studies.
In-Depth Reports
Robert Satloff and Martin Kramer addressed The Washington Institute's annual Weinberg Founders Conference on September 20, 2008, to introduce the inaugural awards of the Institute's Book Prize. Michael Mandelbaum, who with eminent Middle East historian Bernard Lewis, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jim Hoagland juried the Book Prize, announced the winning books and their authors.
The Siege of Mecca, Yaroslav Trofimov's gripping account of the takeover of Islam's holy shrine in 1979, garnered the Gold Medal -- and a $30,000 cash award. In addition to the top winner, two other books were recognized as well -- Silver Medal winner ($15,000) Foxbats over Dimona, by Isabella Ginor and Gideon Remez, the provocative account of how nuclear politics triggered the Six Day War; and Bronze Medal winner ($5,000) Worlds at War, by Anthony Pagden, a sweeping look at the two-millennia-old contest between East and West.
Read more about the Book Prize and the 2008 winners.
Robert Satloff is executive director of The Washington Institute.
Martin Kramer is Wexler-Fromer fellow at The Washington Institute.
Michael Mandelbaum is the Christian A. Herter professor of American foreign policy at the Johns Hopkins University's Nitze School of Advanced International Studies.
