Wolfson History Prize
The Wolfson History Prizes are literary awards given annually in the United Kingdom to promote and encourage standards of excellence in the writing of history for the general public. Prizes are given annually for two or three exceptional works published during the year, with an occasional oeuvre prize (a general award for an individual's distinguished contribution to the writing of history). They are awarded and administered by the Wolfson Foundation, with winning books being chosen by a panel of judges composed of eminent historians.
The Wolfson History Prize | |
---|---|
Awarded for | to promote and encourage standards of excellence in the writing of history for the general public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Presented by | Wolfson Foundation |
Formerly called | Wolfson Literary Awards |
First awarded | 1972 |
Website | www |
In order to qualify for consideration, a book must be published in the United Kingdom and the author must be a British subject at the time the award is made and normally resident in the UK. Books should be readable and scholarly and be accessible to the lay reader. Prizes are awarded in the summer following the year of the books' publication; however, until 1987 prizes were awarded at the end of the competition year.
Established in 1972 by the Wolfson Foundation, a UK charitable foundation, they were originally known as the Wolfson Literary Awards.[1][2]
Honourees
1970s
Year | Author | Title | Publisher |
---|---|---|---|
1972 | Michael Howard | The Grand Strategy: August 1942 – September 1943 | Her Majesty's Stationery Office |
Keith Thomas | Religion and the Decline of Magic | Weidenfeld & Nicolson | |
1973 | W. L. Warren | Henry II | Eyre & Spottiswoode |
Frances Yates | The Rosicrucian Enlightenment | Routledge & Keegan Paul | |
1974 | Moses Finley | The Ancient Economy | Chatto & Windus |
Theodore Zeldin | France, 1848–1945: Ambition, Love and Politics | Oxford University Press | |
1975 | Frances Donaldson | Edward VIII | Weidenfeld & Nicolson |
Olwen Hufton | The Poor of Eighteenth-century France 1750–1789 | Oxford University Press | |
1976 | Nikolaus Pevsner | A History of Building Types | Thames & Hudson |
Norman Stone | The Eastern Front: 1914–17 | Hodder & Stoughton | |
1977 | Simon Schama | Patriots and Liberators: Revolution in the Netherlands 1780–1813 | Collins |
Denis Mack Smith | Mussolini's Roman Empire | Longman & Co | |
1978 | Alistair Horne | A Savage War of Peace: Algeria, 1954–1962 | Macmillan |
1979 | Richard Cobb | Death in Paris: The Records of the Basse-Geôle de la Seine, October 1795 – September 1801, Vendémiaire Year IV-Fructidor Year IX | Oxford University Press |
Quentin Skinner | The Foundations of Modern Political Thought | Cambridge University Press | |
Mary Soames | Clementine Churchill: The Biography of a Marriage | Cassell |
1980s
Year | Author | Title | Publisher |
---|---|---|---|
1980 | F. S. L. Lyons | Culture and Anarchy in Ireland, 1890–1939 | Oxford University Press |
Robert Evans | The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1550–1700: An Interpretation | Oxford University Press | |
1981 | John Wyon Burrow | A Liberal Descent: Victorian Historians and the English Past | Cambridge University Press |
1982 | John McManners | Death and the Enlightenment: Changing Attitudes to Death Among Christians and Unbelievers in Eighteenth-Century France | Oxford University Press |
1983 | Martin Gilbert | Winston S. Churchill: Finest Hour, 1939–1941 | Heinemann |
Kenneth Rose | George V | Weidenfeld & Nicolson | |
1984 | Antonia Fraser | The Weaker Vessel | Weidenfeld & Nicolson |
Maurice Keen | Chivalry | Yale University Press | |
1985 | John Grigg | Lloyd George, From Peace To War 1912–1916 | Methuen |
Richard Davenport-Hines | Dudley Docker: The Life and Times of a Trade Warrior | Cambridge University Press | |
1986 | J. H. Elliott | The Count-Duke of Olivares: The Statesman in an Age of Decline | Yale University Press |
Jonathan Israel | European Jewry in the Age of Mercantilism, 1550–1750 | Oxford University Press | |
1987 | R. R. Davies | Conquest, Coexistence, and Change: Wales, 1063–1415 | Oxford University Press |
John Pemble | The Mediterranean Passion: Victorians And Edwardians in the South | Oxford University Press | |
1988 | No award[lower-alpha 1] | ||
1989 | Paul Kennedy | The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 To 2000 | Unwin Hyman |
Richard J. Evans | Death in Hamburg: Society and Politics in the Cholera Years, 1830–1910 | Oxford University Press |
1990s
Year | Author | Title | Publisher |
---|---|---|---|
1990 | Richard A. Fletcher | The Quest for El Cid | Huchinson |
Donald Cameron Watt | How War Came: The Immediate Origins of the Second World War, 1938–1939 | William Heinemann | |
1991 | Colin Platt | The Architecture of Medieval Britain: A Social History | Yale University Press |
1992 | John Bossy | Giordano Bruno and the Embassy Affair | Yale University Press |
Alan Bullock | Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives | HarperCollins | |
1993 | Linda Colley | Britons: Forging the Nation 1707-1837 | Yale University Press |
Robert Skidelsky | John Maynard Keynes: The Economist as Saviour, 1920–1937 | Pan Macmillan | |
1994 | Robert Bartlett | The Making of Europe: Conquest, Colonization and Cultural Change, 950–1350 | Viking |
Barbara Harvey | Living and Dying in England, 1100–1540: The Monastic Experience | Oxford University Press | |
1995 | Fiona MacCarthy | William Morris: A Life for Our Time | Faber and Faber |
John C. G. Rohl | The Kaiser and His Court: Wilhelm II and the Government of Germany | Cambridge University Press | |
1996 | H. C. G. Matthew | Gladstone 1875–1898 | Oxford University Press |
1997 | Orlando Figes | A People's Tragedy: A History of the Russian Revolution | Jonathan Cape |
1998 | John Brewer | Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century | HarperCollins |
Patricia Hollis | Jennie Lee: A Life | Oxford University Press | |
1999 | Antony Beevor | Stalingrad | Viking |
Amanda Vickery | The Gentleman's Daughter: Women's Lives in Georgian England | Yale University Press |
2000s
Year | Author | Title | Publisher |
---|---|---|---|
2000 | Joanna Bourke | An Intimate History of Killing | Granta Books |
Andrew Roberts | Salisbury: Victorian Titan | Weidenfeld & Nicolson | |
2001 | Ian Kershaw | Hitler, 1936–1945: Nemesis | Allen Lane |
Mark Mazower | The Balkans | Weidenfeld & Nicolson | |
Roy Porter | Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World | Allen Lane | |
2002 | Barry Cunliffe | Facing the Ocean: The Atlantic and Its Peoples | Oxford University Press |
Jerry White | London in the 20th Century: A City and Its Peoples | Viking | |
2003 | William Dalrymple | White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth-century India | HarperCollins |
Robert Gildea | Marianne in Chains: In Search of the German Occupation | Macmillan | |
2004 | Frances Harris | Transformations of Love: The Friendship of John Evelyn and Margaret Godolphin | Oxford University Press |
Julian T. Jackson | The Fall of France: The Nazi Invasion of 1940 | Oxford University Press | |
Diarmaid MacCulloch | Reformation: Europe's House Divided 1490–1700 | Allen Lane, Penguin Press | |
2005 | Richard Overy | The Dictators: Hitler's Germany; Stalin's Russia | Allen Lane, Penguin Press |
David Reynolds | In Command of History: Churchill Fighting and Writing the Second World War | Allen Lane, Penguin Press | |
2006 | Evelyn Welch | Shopping in the Renaissance | Yale University Press |
Christopher Wickham | Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean, 400–800 | Oxford University Press | |
2007 | Christopher Clark | Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600–1947 | Allen Lane, Penguin Press |
Vic Gatrell | City of Laughter: Sex and Satire in Eighteenth-Century London | Atlantic Books | |
Adam Tooze | The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy | Allen Lane, Penguin Press | |
2008 | John Darwin | After Tamerlane: The Global Story of Empire | Allen Lane |
Rosemary Hill | God's Architect: Pugin & the Building of Romantic Britain | Allen Lane | |
2009 | Mary Beard | Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town | Profile Books |
Margaret M. McGowan | Dance in the Renaissance: European Fashion, French Obsession | Yale University Press |
2010s
Awards after 2016 have a winner and shortlist of five.
Year | Author | Title | Publisher | |
---|---|---|---|---|
2010 | Dominic Lieven | Russia Against Napoleon: The Battle for Europe, 1807–1814 | Allen Lane, Penguin Press | [3] |
Jonathan Sumption | Divided Houses: The Hundred Years War. Vol. 3 | Faber and Faber | ||
2011 | Ruth Harris | The Man on Devil's Island: The Affair that Divided France | Allen Lane, Penguin Press | [3] |
Nicholas Thomas | Islanders: The Pacific in the Age of Empire | Yale University Press | ||
2012 | Susie Harries | Nikolaus Pevsner: The Life | Chatto & Windus | [3][4] |
Alexandra Walsham | The Reformation of the Landscape | Oxford University Press | ||
2013 | Susan Brigden | Thomas Wyatt: The Heart's Forest | Faber and Faber | [3][5][6] |
Christopher Duggan | Fascist Voices: An Intimate History of Mussolini's Italy | Boydell Press | ||
2014 | Cyprian Broodbank | The Making of the Middle Sea | Thames & Hudson | [7][8][9] |
Catherine Merridale | Red Fortress: The Secret Heart of Russia's History | Allen Lane, Penguin Books | ||
2015 | Richard Vinen | National Service: Conscription in Britain, 1945–1963 | Allen Lane, Penguin Books | [10] |
Alexander Watson | Ring of Steel: Germany and Austria-Hungary at War, 1914-1918 | Allen Lane, Penguin Books | ||
2016 | Robin Lane Fox | Augustine: Conversions and Confessions | Basic Books | [11] |
Nikolaus Wachsmann | KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps | Little, Brown and Company | ||
2017 | Christopher de Hamel | Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts: Twelve Journeys into the Medieval World | Allen Lane | [12][13] |
Daniel Beer | The House of The Dead: Siberian Exile Under the Tsar | Penguin Books | [14] | |
Chris Given-Wilson | Henry IV | Yale University Press | ||
Sasha Handley | Sleep in Early Modern England | Yale University Press | ||
Lyndal Roper | Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet | Vintage | ||
Matthew Strickland | Henry the Young King, 1155–1183 | Yale University Press | ||
2018 | Peter Marshall | Heretics and Believers: A History of the English Reformation | Yale University Press | [15][16] |
Robert Bickers | Out of China: How the Chinese Ended the Era of Western Domination | Penguin Books | [17] | |
Lindsey Fitzharris | The Butchering Art: Joseph Listers' Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine | Farrar, Straus and Giroux | ||
Tim Grady | A Deadly Legacy: German Jews and the Great War | Yale University Press | ||
Miranda Kaufmann | Black Tudors: The Untold Story | Oneworld Publications | ||
Jan Ruger | Heligoland: Britain, Germany and the Struggle for the North Sea | Oxford University Press | ||
2019 | Mary Fulbrook | Reckonings: Legacies of Nazi Persecution and the Quest for Justice | Oxford University Press | [18][19] |
John Blair | Building Anglo-Saxon England | Princeton University Press | [20] | |
Margarette Lincoln | Trading in War: London's Maritime World in the Age of Cook and Nelson | Yale University Press | ||
Jeremy Mynott | Birds in the Ancient World: Winged Words | Oxford University Press | ||
Matthew Sturgis | Oscar: A Life | Head of Zeus | ||
Miles Taylor | Empress: Queen Victoria and India | Yale University Press |
2020s
Year | Author | Title | Result | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|
2020 | David Abulafia | The Boundless Sea: A Human History of the Oceans | Winner | [21][22] |
Toby Green | A Fistful of Shells: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution | Shortlist | [23] | |
John Barton | A History of the Bible: The Book and Its Faiths | |||
Hallie Rubenhold | The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper | |||
Marion Turner | Chaucer: A European Life | |||
Prashant Kidambi | Cricket Country: An Indian Odyssey in the Age of Empire | |||
2021 | Sudhir Hazareesingh | Black Spartacus: The Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture | Winner | [24] |
Geoffrey Plank | Atlantic Wars: From the Fifteenth Century to the Age of Revolution | Shortlist | [25] | |
Richard Ovenden | Burning the Books: A History of Knowledge Under Attack | |||
Helen McCarthy | Double Lives: A History of Working Motherhood | |||
Judith Herrin | Ravenna: Capital of Empire, Crucible of Europe | |||
Rebecca Clifford | Survivors: Children's Lives After the Holocaust | |||
2022 | Clare Jackson | Devil-Land: England Under Siege, 1588–1688 | Winner | [26][27] |
Marc David Baer | The Ottomans: Khans, Caesars and Caliphs | Shortlist | [28][29] | |
Malcolm Gaskill | The Ruin of All Witches: Life and Death in the New World | |||
Alex von Tunzelmann | Fallen Idols: Twelve Statues That Made History | |||
Francesca Stavrakopoulou | God: An Anatomy | |||
Nicholas Orme | Going to Church in Medieval England | |||
2023 | Hakim Adi | African and Caribbean People in Britain: A History | Shortlist | [30][31] |
James Belich | The World the Plague Made: The Black Death and the Rise of Europe | |||
Henrietta Harrison | The Perils of Interpreting: The Extraordinary Lives of Two Translators between Qing China and the British Empire | |||
Halik Kochanski | Resistance: The Underground War in Europe 1939-1945 | |||
Oskar Jensen | Vagabonds: Life on the Streets of Nineteenth Century London | |||
Emma Smith | Portable Magic: A History of Books and their Readers |
List of winners of the Oeuvre Prize
- 2005 – Christopher Bayly
- 2002 – Roy Jenkins
- 2000 – Asa Briggs
- 1997 – Eric Hobsbawm
- 1982 – Steven Runciman
- 1981 – Owen Chadwick
- 1978 – Howard Colvin
Notes
- Until 1987, prizes were awarded at the end of the competition year. However, subsequent prizes were awarded in the summer following the year of the books' publication. Accordingly, there is no prize listed for 1988.
References
- "Wolfson History Prize – The Wolfson Foundation". Wolfson.org.uk. Retrieved 13 June 2014.
- "Wolfson History Prize Winners". Goodreads.com. Retrieved 13 June 2014.
- "Previous winners". Archived from the original on 7 February 2015. Retrieved 26 October 2018.
- "Awards: Wolfson History Prize; Ondaatje Shortlist". Shelf Awareness. 11 May 2012. Retrieved 4 August 2022.
- "Winners of the Wolfson History Prize Announced". History Today. 15 May 2013. Retrieved 13 June 2014.
- "Latest Prize Winners". Archived from the original on 4 September 2013. Retrieved 13 June 2014.
- "Prize Winners – The Wolfson Foundation". Wolfson.org.uk. 2 June 2014. Archived from the original on 4 September 2013. Retrieved 13 June 2014.
- "The Wolfson History Prize 2014". History Today. 3 June 2014. Retrieved 13 June 2014.
- "Serious history books will soon become a rarity, Wolfson History Prize winner says". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 13 June 2014.
- "Awards: Orwell; Wolfson History; Orion; Australia Book Industry". Shelf Awareness. 22 May 2015. Retrieved 4 August 2022.
- "Awards: Pritzker, Wolfson History Winners". Shelf Awareness. 20 June 2016. Retrieved 4 August 2022.
- Campbell, Lisa (16 May 2017). "De Hamel wins £40k Wolfson History Prize". The Bookseller. Retrieved 19 May 2017.
- "Awards: Wolfson; Trillium; Locus". Shelf Awareness. 16 May 2017. Retrieved 4 August 2022.
- "Awards: Indies Choice/E.B. White; Waterstones Kids; Wolfson". Shelf Awareness. 6 April 2017. Retrieved 4 August 2022.
- "Awards: Women's Prize; IndieReader Discovery; Wolfson History". Shelf Awareness. 7 June 2018. Retrieved 4 August 2022.
- Cowdrey, Katherine (5 June 2018). "'Ambitious' account of English Reformation wins Wolfson History Prize". The Bookseller. Retrieved 5 June 2018.
- "Awards: SIBA's Southern Book Finalists; Wolfson History Shortlist". Shelf Awareness. 20 April 2018. Retrieved 4 August 2022.
- "Mary Fulbrook wins Wolfson History Prize 2019 for revelatory Holocaust study 'Reckonings'". wolfsonhistoryprize.org.uk. 11 June 2019. Retrieved 12 June 2019.
- "Awards: Wolfson History; International Dublin; IndieReader Discovery". Shelf Awareness. 13 June 2019. Retrieved 4 August 2022.
- "Awards: L.A. Times Book; Wolfson History". Shelf Awareness. 16 April 2019. Retrieved 4 August 2022.
- "David Abulafia's 'The Boundless Sea' wins Wolfson History Prize 2020". The Wolfson History Prize. 15 June 2020. Retrieved 15 June 2020.
- "Awards: Wolfson History Winner". Shelf Awareness. 17 June 2020. Retrieved 4 August 2022.
- "Awards: Wolfson History Shortlist". Shelf Awareness. 30 April 2020. Retrieved 4 August 2022.
- "Awards: PEN Pinter Winner; Wolfson History Winner". Shelf Awareness. 10 June 2021. Retrieved 4 August 2022.
- "Shortlist announced for £40k Wolfson History Prize". Books+Publishing. 3 May 2021. Retrieved 3 May 2020.
- "Jackson wins £50k Wolfson History Prize". Books+Publishing. 23 June 2022. Retrieved 23 June 2022.
- "Awards: Wolfson History Winner; Miles Franklin Shortlist". Shelf Awareness. 23 June 2022. Retrieved 4 August 2022.
- "£50k Wolfson History Prize shortlist announced". Books+Publishing. 22 April 2022. Retrieved 29 April 2022.
- "Awards: Wolfson History, RSL Ondaatje Shortlists". Shelf Awareness. 21 April 2022. Retrieved 4 August 2022.
- "Wolfson History Prize 2023 shortlist announced". History Scotland. 5 September 2023. Retrieved 5 September 2023.
- "Wolfson History Prize announces 2023 Shortlist | Reading Agency". readingagency.org.uk. Retrieved 5 September 2023.