"While Europe Slept" was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award for 2006 in the criticism category, which led to controversy. Eliot Weinberger, one of the board members of the Circle, stated when he presented the list of nominations that Bawer's book was an example of "racism as criticism". The President of the Circle, John Freeman, declared: "I have never been more embarrassed by a choice than I have been with Bruce Bawer's "While Europe Slept"", and claimed that "ts hyperventilated rhetoric tips from actual critique into Islamophobia." J. Peder Zane, a member on the nomination committee, said that Weinberger "was completely unfair to Bruce Bawer" and insulting to the committee.