Our Search for Human Connection Continues in 2020

The 11th Annual Zócalo Book Prize Honors the Best Writing on Community and Social Cohesion

Since 2011, Zócalo Public Square’s annual book prize has recognized the nonfiction book, published in the U.S., that best enhances our understanding of community and the forces that strengthen or undermine human connectedness and social cohesion.

The 10 past Zócalo Public Square Book Prize recipients come from a wide range of backgrounds, experiences, and scholarship. They range from historians and journalists to political scientists and philosophers. Previous winners have studied a single location (whether that’s Hattiesburg, Mississippi, during the Jim Crow era or an Eastern European border town in the centuries …

September 4, 2020

A Letter From Beijing, Where There Is No Normal to Go Back to

During Months in Lockdown, a Family Grows Closer and Gets Better at Taking Disappointments in Stride

Interview by Peter Hong | May 19, 2020

In China, people have recently emerged after spending months in their homes. Ching-Ching Ni, editor-in-chief of the New York Times Chinese website, explained to Zócalo how being stuck at home …

A Letter From Shanghai, Where a Powerful System of Control Prevails Over COVID-19

A Mother and Her Daughters Return Home to a Careful Regime and a Changed City

by June Shih | April 24, 2020

On March 15, I flew home to the U.S. to bring my daughters back to Shanghai. The sharp contrast between the way China has sought to prevent the further spread …

Jai Hamid Bashir Wins Zócalo’s Ninth Annual Poetry Prize

In 'Little Bones,' a Girl Considers a Utah Sunset, Intoxicated on 'Untold Plans for Eternity'

Interview by Jackie Mansky | April 16, 2020

Since 2012, the Zócalo Public Square Poetry Prize has been awarded annually to the U.S. poem that best evokes a connection to place. This year, talking about “place”—a concept always …

Do Californians Love Their Houses Too Much?

A Fourth-Generation Homeowner Reconsiders the California Dream

by Joe Mathews | November 12, 2018

No house on earth means more to me than my paternal grandparents’ small blue home near the bottom of a windswept hill in the Bay Area city of San Mateo.

I’ve …

Can Criminals Be Genetically Determined?

Just Five Percent of Families Commit Half of All U.S. Crimes. Is It Bad Genes, Bad Family Values, or Both?

by REED JOHNSON | October 25, 2018

When veteran New York Times reporter Fox Butterfield first met the Bogle family, he believed that nurture mattered more than nature in influencing people to commit violent crimes.

But how, …

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