Robert Conquest, a senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution and a noted expert on the history of the former Soviet Union, received a prestigious Ingersoll Prize in Literature and Humanities.
Conquest was presented with The Richard M. Weaver Award for Scholarly Letters at a ceremony earlier this month in Charlotte, N.C. The prize recognizes authors whose works address the themes of honor and virtue in society. Former winners of the Weaver Award include Shelby Foote, Eugene Genovese, Russell Kirk, and the late Robert Nisbet.
In the just published Reflections on a Ravaged Century (W.W. Norton & Company, 1999), Conquest examines the nature, strengths, and weaknesses of the Open Society and the long struggle waged against it by such rogue ideologies as Marxism and National Socialism. He develops the Soviet record, Western misunderstanding of it, and the long confrontation of the Cold War. Conquest concludes with an overview of the world today.
One of Conquest’s earlier books, The Great Terror: A Reassessment is considered the definitive study of Stalin’s purges. He also wrote the acclaimed Harvest of Sorrow.
Established in 1983, the Ingersoll Prizes are awarded by The Ingersoll Foundation, a philanthropic division of the Ingersoll Milling Machine Company of Rockford, Il.
