History Professor Wins 2012 Smith Book Award

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Confronting America: The Cold War between the United States and the Communists in France and Italy, by Alessandro Brogi. Published by the University of North Carolina Press, 2011.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Alessandro Brogi, professor of history in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, has won the 2012 Smith Book Award for Confronting America: The Cold War between the United States and the Communists in France and Italy, published in 2011 by the University of North Carolina Press.

The Smith award is given by the European Section of the Southern Historical Association every even year to recognize the best book published in European history by a Southern press, a member of the associations European Section or a faculty member of a Southern college or university. Brogi will receive the award at the Association’s annual meeting this November in Mobile, Alabama.

“It is such a privilege to have my work recognized this way,” said Brogi. “Being a biennial prize, the Smith Award has been given to only a selected number of scholars, and I’m honored to be among them.” 

The Smith Award Selection Committee was unanimous in its decision to award the prize to Confronting America.  According to the committee, Brogi’s book “transforms our understanding of the Cold War” and it is “highly readable and accessible, even for non-specialists, with a broad appeal for general readers.” 

“The history department is full of accomplished and respected faculty members,” said Lynda Coon, professor of history and chair of the department. “We expect a lot out of all of them, and it’s wonderful to see their hard work recognized by others in the discipline.”

Confronting America is an original study using new evidence from communist archives in France and Italy, among other sources. Brogi examines the Italian and French Communist resistance to Americanization, the impact of anti-American Communist Parties in France and Italy on the United States, and the United States’ evaluation of its anticommunist strategies, its image and the general meaning of American liberal capitalist culture and ideology.

Brogi is the author of two previous books, L'Italia e l'egemonia americana nel Mediterraneo (finalist for Italy’s Acqui Storia Prize) and A Question of Self-Esteem: The United States and the Cold War Choices in France and Italy.