Nandini Das and Christopher Clark shortlisted for the £5k Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize

Christopher Clark, Nandini Das and Robert Darnton have been shortlisted for the £5,000 Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize for non-fiction books published in the UK during 2023.

Clark is in the running with Revolutionary Spring (Allen Lane), in which he "traces the energies of the 1848 revolution that toppled governments". Darnton is shortlisted for The Revolutionary Temper (Allen Lane) on pre-revolutionary Paris, and Das is competing with Courting India (Bloomsbury), which explores the encounter of Mughal India and Jacobean England.

Julian Jackson is on the shortlist for France on Trial (Allen Lane)- a book about the "moral quagmire of retribution"- alongside Jackie Wullschläger, shortlisted for Monet (Allen Lane), exploring the "passion" behind the artist’s work.

The winner will be announced on 4th March 2024 and will be in conversation with Artemis Cooper at the Oxford Literary Festival on 20th March.

Cooper, chair of the jury, said: "This year’s shortlist features five books that combine compelling narrative with imaginative insight. Each is ambitious, delighting in the textures of the past, songs and shipping bills, law reports and love notes, while offering intellectual rigour. As a jury, we feel these are future classics, stimulants to thought, conversation and omnivorous curiosity."

The award has been given annually ever since 1956, supported by Pol Roger and run by the Duff Cooper Memorial Fund, based in New College, Oxford. It was set up in memory of politician, diplomat and author Alfred Duff Cooper, whose grand-daughter Artemis Cooper is on the judging panel. Miles Young, the warden of New College, is also on the judging panel, alongside historians Susan Brigden, David Horspool and Minoo Dinshaw.