Inaugural Richard Arndt Awards Announced
The Lois Roth Foundation and the Public Diplomacy Council of America have announced two winners of the 2025 inaugural Richard T. Arndt Prize for an Outstanding Work on Cultural Diplomacy.
PDCA Board member Nicholas Cull (USC) received the award for Reputational Security: Refocusing Public Diplomacy for a Dangerous World (2024, Polity Press). It is described as a theoretical rethinking of the relationship between Realpolitik and “soft power” for the 21st century, supported by a convincing array of historical and current examples. According to the jury, “This book argues that, particularly in the context of today’s radically different media and communications environment, national reputation is fundamental to national wellbeing and security. Chapter seven explores the specific roles played by cultural diplomacy in relation to national reputation, situating these in a sophisticated and useful context and providing examples of a range of successful cultural diplomacy efforts.” The book was the focus of PDCA’s January 2024 Forum; a recording of the forum is available on PDCA’s YouTube Channel.
Dr. Pete Millwood (Univ. of Melbourne) received the award for Improbable Diplomats: How Ping-Pong Players, Musicians, and Scientists Remade U.S.-China Relations (2022, Cambridge Univ. Press). The jury noted, “This readable, well-documented academic contribution to work on Sino-American relations in the 1970s investigates how cultural diplomacy remade international affairs. Methodologically innovative, it fleshes out the role and status of NGOs, situated between governments and individuals, and makes use of new archival materials and original oral history interviews. The result is a well-rounded transnational history that examines linguistic and cultural points of view, as well as the agency of Chinese individuals and organizations of the time.”
The Richard T. Arndt Prize for an Outstanding Work on Cultural Diplomacy was established by PDCA and its partner, Lois Roth Foundation, to honor Life Member Dr. Richard Arndt, who worked for USIA for twenty-four years after earning a doctorate and teaching at Columbia University. He served as the president of the U.S. Fulbright Association, co-edited The Fulbright Difference, 1948-1992, and wrote The First Resort of Kings: American Cultural Diplomacy in the Twentieth Century. He founded the Lois Roth Foundation in recognition of the contributions of his wife, a well known cultural diplomat.
Here is the announcement from the Lois Roth Foundation:
Announcement
The Lois Roth Foundation and the Public Diplomacy Council of America (PDCA) are pleased to announce the winners of the 2025 inaugural edition of the Richard T. Arndt Prize for an Outstanding Work on Cultural Diplomacy.
We received a large and wide-ranging group of worthy submissions. While some works surveyed the history of cultural diplomacy or considered the theoretical and practical underpinnings of cultural exchange in a changing world, others presented case studies of efforts to create bridges between peoples and nations, on the part of governments, non-governmental organizations, and individuals. While heartened by the obvious interest of so many distinguished experts in the field of cultural diplomacy, it was extremely difficult to choose among such different and substantive works. Of the six short-listed works for the prize, the jury ultimately selected two co-winners and an honorable mention. Our congratulations to their authors!
Winners
- Dr. Nicholas Cull (USC), for Reputational Security: Refocusing Public Diplomacy for a Dangerous World (2024, Polity Press). A theoretical rethinking of the relationship between realpolitik and “soft power” for the 21st century, supported by a convincing array of historical and current examples. This book argues that, particularly in the context of today’s radically different media and communications environment, national reputation is fundamental to national wellbeing and security. Chapter seven explores the specific roles played by cultural diplomacy in relation to national reputation, situating these in a sophisticated and useful context and providing examples of a range of successful cultural diplomacy efforts.
- Dr. Pete Millwood (Univ. of Melbourne), for Improbable Diplomats: How Ping-Pong Players, Musicians, and Scientists Remade U.S.-China Relations (2023, Cambridge Univ. Press). This readable, well-documented academic contribution to work on Sino-American relations in the 1970s investigates how cultural diplomacy remade international affairs. Methodologically innovative, it fleshes out the role and status of NGOs, situated between governments and individuals, and makes use of new archival materials and original oral history interviews. The result is a well-rounded transnational history that examines linguistic and cultural points of view, as well as the agency of Chinese individuals and organizations of the time.
- Dr. Elisabeth Piller (Univ. Freiburg), for Selling Weimar: German Public Diplomacy and the United States, 1918-1933 (2021, Franz Steiner Verlag). While much attention has been paid to Cold War US cultural diplomacy efforts toward Germany, very little has focused on Germany’s use of public diplomacy to shape US views in any period. This book notes that, for the Weimar Republic democracy, “the need for systematic public diplomacy was among the central lessons” of WWI, and the country accordingly redesigned and prioritized its cultural outreach, especially toward the U.S. This innovative history of Germany’s interwar “American project” goes beyond economic accounts to explain the puzzlingly rapid reversal in U.S. relations with Germany post-WWI and reveals the roots of German self-representations to this day.
The Dick Arndt Prize honors works that are written for an educated lay audience. We therefore strongly recommend these three books to all readers who are interested in better understanding international history and the continuing promise represented by cultural and public diplomacy. As always, diplomacy remains our one best strategy for maintaining constructive relations with other countries and joining together to work on the grave problems we face around the globe.