ACLS News

New Book by Ariela J. Gross F’03 Wins Awards from the Law and Society Association and American Political Science Association

ACLS congratulates Ariela J. Gross F’03 on the success of What Blood Won´t Tell: A History of Race on Trial in America (Harvard University Press, 2008). The book, based on Professor Gross’s Frederick Burkhardt Residential Fellowship-supported research, explores 150 years of American courts' struggle to define racial identity as it relates to citizenship. The book won the Law and Society Association’s 2009 J. Willard Hurst Prize for best

English-language work in sociolegal history and the best book award from the American Political Science Association’s section on Race, Ethnicity, and Politics. In spring 2009, the Southern Regional Council recognized What Blood Won’t Tell with the Lillian Smith Award for its “outstanding creative achievements, which demonstrate through literary merit and moral vision an honest representation of the South, its people, its problems, and its promises.” Professor Gross has discussed her work on C-Span and public radio.

Ariela J. Gross is the John B. and Alice R. Sharp Professor of Law and History at University of Southern California Gould School of Law.

Read more: Professor Ariela Gross: What Blood Won’t Tell