Longtime JC friend Dan Jaffee was recently awarded the 2007 C. Wright Mills Book Award for the book based on his Ph.D. dissertation from UW, Brewing Justice: Fair Trade Coffee, Sustainability, and Survival. It's kind of a big deal, and well deserved.

As explained by the Society for the Study of Social Problems which administers the award:

C. Wright Mills wrote in The Power Elite that: “Only when mind has an autonomous basis, independent of power, but powerfully related to it, can mind exert its force in the shaping of human affairs. This is democratically possible only when there exists a free and knowledgeable public, to which [people] of knowledge may address themselves, and to which [people] of power are truly responsible.”

They award the prize to the book that most effectively:

1) critically addresses an issue of contemporary public importance,

2) brings to the topic a fresh, imaginative perspective,

3) advances social scientific understanding of the topic,

4) displays a theoretically informed view and empirical orientation,

5) evinces quality in style of writing,

6) explicitly or implicitly contains implications for courses of action.

Congrats Dan!