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This year’s $75,000 (£61,763) Cundill History Prize features books that create “dialogues between dilemmas of yesterday and today” from clean energy’s “battery problem” to China’s Cultural Revolution, US state secrets to religion and mental health.
Nature and evolution are prevalent topics in this year’s list, which includes titles like The Huxleys by Alison Bashford (The University of Chicago Press/Allen Lane) and The Perfection of Nature by Mackenzie Cooley (also The University of Chicago Press). The climate crisis is touched upon with books like Charged by James Morton Turner, while lost biographies and national amnesia are highlighted elsewhere.
The historian Philippa Levine, who chaired this year’s judging panel, announced the shortlist at an in-person event at Scandinavia House in New York City. She commented: “This shortlist includes heartbreaking tales from China’s Cultural Revolution, biography, environmental concerns, religion, data management, and much more.
"It ranges in time from the ancient Mediterranean to the really recent past, and examines animals as well as humans. Every one of these authors advances original conceptions and tells a gripping story. We could not be more thrilled with the eight titles that have made it to this year’s shortlist.”
Judge Sol Serrano added: “From the challenge of storing electricity in batteries to the tensions between religion and nationalism; from the fast politics of the 20th century to the long search for Buddhism in India, all these books have in common a desire to establish human dialogues between the author and the reader; between the dilemmas of yesterday and today."
Lisa Shapiro, Dean of Arts at McGill University, said: “This shortlist demonstrates just what the best history writing can do for us in the present. We are delighted to announce it here, in New York City, and to have the Cundill History Prize visit the US for the first time since 2019."
Awarding $75,000 (£61,763) to the winner and $10,000 (£8,222) to the two runners-up, the Cundill History Prize is the largest prize for a book of non-fiction in English. It is open to books from anywhere in the world, regardless of the author’s nationality, as well as works translated into English.
The finalists will be announced in mid-October, and the winner will be named as part of the Cundill History Prize Festival on 8th November. The 2023 winner will join an alumni list of historians including 2022 winner Tiya Miles, author of All That She Carried (Profile/ Random House).