Tomas Wallenius wins ISA award for Historical International Relations

Tomas Wallenius has been co-awarded the 2018 Barbara W. Tuchman Prize for best graduate paper in Historical International Relations by a Graduate Student at the International Studies Association's annual convention in San Francisco.

Mr Wallenius's paper, 'After Great Thinkers. Emer de Vattel and the Making of Modern International Law', questions the conventional understanding of Emer de Vattel's pivotal role in the formation of modern international law. His alternative interpretation re-assesses the role usually assigned to great thinkers. The argument, grounded in considerable original research, engages with not only international relations scholars but also with historians, international lawyers and political theorists and has important implications for the understanding of the dynamics of international legal change.

The Barbara W. Tuchman Prize for the Best Paper in Historical International Relations recognises an outstanding paper presented by a graduate student at the previous ISA convention.  Barbara W. Tuchman was a prominent American historian in the second half of the twentieth century, who won two Pulitzer prizes for her books 'The Guns of August' (1962) and 'Stilwell and American Experience in China 1911-1945' (1971).