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Former Guest Scholar Shmuel N. Eisenstadt wins Holberg International Memorial Prize

Shmuel N. Eisenstadt, a Guest Scholar at the Wilson Center in the fall of 1998 and Professor Emeritus at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, has received the Holberg International Memorial Prize for his contributions to the fields of sociology and anthropology.

Shmuel N. Eisenstadt, a Guest Scholar at the Wilson Center in the fall of 1998 and Professor Emeritus at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, has received the Holberg International Memorial Prize for his contributions to the fields of sociology and anthropology.

The Holberg International Memorial Prize is awarded by the Norwegian government in recognition for "outstanding scholarly work in the academic fields of the arts and humanities, social science, law and theology." The prize is administered by a committee of scholars convened by the University of Bergen and was awarded on November 29th, 2006. It carries a prize of NOK 4.5 million ($680,000).

For more than 50 years, Shmuel N. Eisenstadt has studied the problems of social and political development, with an eye towards the processes of differentiation and modernity. Combining theory with historical and empirical research, his work pioneered the paradigm of ‘multiple modernities' and has helped to explain the phenomenology of sectarianism and extremism.

In its citation, the committee hailed Eisenstadt as "legend of modern sociology" and "an extraordinarily productive scholar [who] has had great influence in many disciplines, including sociology, political science, history, religious studies and anthropology."

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