Congratulations are due to Michael L. Galaty, director of the UMMAA and professor of anthropology at the University of Michigan, who has won the 2019 Skendi Book Prize for his book Memory and Nation Building: From Ancient Times to the Islamic State.

The Skendi Book Prize is awarded by the Society for Albanian Studies. The prize committee praised the book’s “ambitious comparative commitment, which situates Albanian memory practices within a broader post-Ottoman and Mediterranean context. Memory and Nation Building notably adopts a diachronic approach, making connections from prehistory to the present. Additionally, it reveals the importance of crossing national borders by exploring neglected and understudied communities such as Greek-Albanians and Albanian-Egyptian minorities.