Dan Hind wins 2011 Best Book of Ideas for The Return of the Public

Date posted: 18 May 11

Bristol Festival of Ideas today announced the winner of its annual book prize. Dan Hind’s The Return of the Public (Verso) beat five other books to secure the £7,500 prize, awarded annually to the book which presents new, important and challenging ideas, and which is engaging, accessible and rigorously argued.

Over 100 books were submitted for consideration. The other shortlisted titles were: Kat Banyard The Equality Illusion: The Truth about Women and Men Today (Faber); Ha-Joon Chang 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism (Allen Lane); Cordelia Fine Delusions of Gender: The Real Science Behind Sex Differences (Icon); David Shenk The Genius in All of Us: Why Everything You’ve Been Told About Genes, Talent and Intelligence is Wrong (Icon); and Gary Younge Who Are We – And Should It Matter in the 21st Century? (Viking).

Andrew Kelly, festival director, said today:

“The books submitted this year were of very high quality. It was difficult to select the shortlist and even harder to choose the outright winner, but, as always, it has been an exhilarating experience as well as a challenging one.”

He added:

“Dan Hind has emerged as a worthy successor to Nick Davies (2009) and Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson (2010). The Return of the Public offers both an analysis of and solutions to a crisis we currently face in our ability to engage in truly democratic decision making.

Specifically, Hind articulates the idea of a society that is informed by a news agenda developed by publicly commissioned journalists and researchers which breaks free of the twin stranglehold of government spin and self-interested media corporations.”

The Return of the Public‘s win was announced as part of the sixth annual Bristol Festival of Ideas, which ends on 31 May. The prize is awarded in association with Arts & Business.

Links

Click here to read more about the Book Prize.