Skip to content

Wendy Wong's 'We, the Data' among finalists for Lionel Gelber Prize

TORONTO — Works that examine technology and the economy are among the finalists for a Canadian award for books on international affairs. Five books have been shortlisted for the 2024 Lionel Gelber Prize, which is worth $50,000.
2024020718024-65c40c701028b6131034f077jpeg
Economist Daron Acemoglu discusses the effects robotics and AI have in industrial nations during an event hosted by The Canadian Institute for Advanced Research in Ottawa on Tuesday, June 13, 2017. The book "Power and Progress: Our 1000-year struggle over technology and prosperity" by Acemoglu and Simon Johnson, two professors at MIT is shortlisted for the 2023 Lionel Gelber Prize. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

TORONTO — Works that examine technology and the economy are among the finalists for a Canadian award for books on international affairs. 

Five books have been shortlisted for the 2024 Lionel Gelber Prize, which is worth $50,000. The winner will be announced March 6.

The prize is open internationally, but this year's short list includes a book by Canadian scholar Wendy Wong, "We, the Data: Human rights in the digital age."

Finalists also include  "Seven Crashes: The economic crises that shaped globalization" by Harold James of Princeton University, and "Underground Empire: How America weaponized the world economy" by Henry Farrell, who teaches at Johns Hopkins University, and Abraham Newman of Georgetown University.

Rounding out the short list are "Power and Progress: Our 1000-year struggle over technology and prosperity" by Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson, two professors at MIT, and "Homelands: A personal history of Europe" by Timothy Garton Ash of the University of Oxford.

The Lionel Gelber Prize was founded in 1989 by the Canadian diplomat and is presented annually by the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 8, 2024.

The Canadian Press

Note to readers: This is a corrected story. An earlier version erroneously referred to the 2023 prize.