14 The Cornelius Ryan Award 2022

Best non-fiction book on international affairs

AWARD YEAR: 2022
AWARD NAME: The Cornelius Ryan Award 2022
RECIPIENT: William Neuman
AFFILIATION: St. Martin’s Press
HONORED WORK: “Things Are Never So Bad That They Can’t Get Worse: Inside the Collapse of Venezuela”

William Neuman’s book is a devastating account of the collapse of the economy and political system of a once-wealthy Latin American petro-state. Prior to his 2013 death, strongman Hugo Chavez spent billions to buy and build industries, then starved them of investment. He allowed widespread corruption and soaring inflation. “Chavez’s socialism was all means and no production,” Neuman writes. “It was showcialismo.” Neuman’s vivid reporting never lets the reader forget how the lives of ordinary Venezuelans have been crushed by this manmade disaster and how the misrule of the current Maduro administration has corrupted Venezuela’s society to its very roots.

Link to the publisher’s book page:
Things Are Never So Bad That They Can’t Get Worse: Inside the Collapse of Venezuela

 

Citation for Excellence:
Louisa Lim
Riverhead Books
“Indelible City:
Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong”