Susan L. Shirk has been named the winner of the 2023 Lionel Gelber Prize.

Shirk, a research professor and chair of the 21st Century China Center at UC San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy, won the $50,000 award for her book Overreach: How China Derailed Its Peaceful Rise (Oxford University Press).

The award, presented annually by the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, is given to the top book on international affairs published in English.

“Shirk peels away the layers of Chinese politics to uncover the divisions and coalitions that drive Chinese decisions. Much of what alarms the world today, she tells us, began not with Xi Jinping but in the log-rolling politics of overreach under Hu Jintao,” jury co-chair Janice Gross Stein said in a press release.

This year’s winner was chosen by a jury made up of co-chairs Ian Shugart and Stein, and members Francis J. Gavin, Rosa Brooks, and Luis Rubio.

Shirk was one of five authors shortlisted for this year’s prize.