Zócalo Public Square Book Prize

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May 1, 2012

The Zócalo Public Square Book Prize is awarded annually to the U.S.-published book that most enhances our understanding of community and the forces that strengthen or undermine human connectedness and social cohesion.

Consistent with our organizational mission, as well as with the form and content of our web magazine and events, the Zócalo Public Square Book Prize seeks to honor the best contemporary thinking on the oldest of human dilemmas: how best to live and work together.

Because community is such a vast subject that can be explored in myriad ways, we accept submissions on a broad array of topics and themes from many fields and disciplines.

But, as with everything else we feature, we are most on the lookout for that rare combination of brilliance and clarity, excellence and accessibility.

Three finalists will be announced in March 2013. The author of the winning book, as determined by a panel of judges, will receive $5,000 and deliver a lecture at the award ceremony in May 2013. In 2012, Richard Sennett won the second annual book prize for Together: The Rituals, Pleasures and Politics of Cooperation, and in 2011 Peter Lovenheim was awarded the inaugural prize for In the Neighborhood: The Search for Community on an American Street, One Sleepover at a Time.

Our judges:
Kimberly Freeman, director of community relations for the Southern California Gas Company
Gregory Rodriguez, founding director of Zócalo Public Square
Raquelle de la Rocha, Disability Rights Legal Center, Loyola Law School
Marshall Croddy, vice president of the Constitutional Rights Foundation
Susan Straight, author and professor of creative writing at University of California Riverside
Marten denBoer, provost of California State Polytechnic University Pomona
Maria Blanco, vice president of civic engagement for the California Community Foundation

The Zócalo Book Prize is sponsored by the Southern California Gas Company. Additional support provided by the Shepard Broad Foundation.