Peter Bergen wins top honor in Washington Institute book prize

By Allen McDuffee

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy has announced the winners of its annual book prize “to reward outstanding writing and to stimulate new contributions to the field” of Middle East affairs.

New America Foundation’s Peter Bergen won the Gold Prize ($30,000) for “The Longest War: The Enduring Conflict between America and al-Qaeda.”

Michael J. Totten won the Silver Prize ($15,000) for “The Road to Fatima Gate: The Beirut Spring, the Rise of Hizbollah, and the Iranian War against Israel.”

And Stéphane Lacroix won the Bronze Prize ($5,000) for “Awakening Islam: The Politics of Religious Dissent in Contemporary Saudi Arabia.”

Elliott Abrams, Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Affairs; Ellen Laipson, president and chief executive officer of the Stimson Center; and Walter Russell Mead, the James Clarke Chace Professor of Foreign Affairs and the Humanities at Bard College were the three-member prize committee.