# Cundill History Prize

The Cundill History Prize is an annual Canadian book prize for "the best history writing in English". It was established in 2008 by Peter Cundill and is administered by McGill University. The prize encourages "informed public debate through the wider dissemination of history writing to new audiences around the world" and is awarded to an author whose book, published in the past year, demonstrates "historical scholarship, originality, literary quality and broad appeal". No restrictions are set on the topic of the book or the nationality of the author, and English translations are permitted.
At a value of US$75,000, the grand prize is the largest prize in the world for a work of non-fiction. In addition, two "Recognition of Excellence" prizes of $10,000 each are awarded. For translated works, 80% of the prize goes to the author, and 20% goes to the translator. The winners of the prizes are selected by a jury of prominent historians and writers chosen by McGill. The Cundill Prize has been called "the closest approximation to a Nobel Prize for history".

## History

The Cundill International Prize in History was announced on April 17, 2008, at McGill University by Peter Cundill, a London-based investment manager and graduate of McGill. A grand prize of US$75,000, as well as two "Recognition of Excellence" prizes of $10,000, would be awarded once a year to authors whose books were "determined to have a profound literary, social and academic impact on the subject". Books were required to be published in English or French. Cundill said that he "was surprised to learn there were no major prizes in history" and added that "I'm an investment researcher of finance and I think there's an analogy between the two disciplines – both study the past to understand the present and predict the future." The inaugural prize in November 2008 was administered by the Dean of the Faculty of Arts at McGill, along with the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada (MISC).
In 2010, the prize was renamed the Cundill Prize in History. Cundill died on January 24, 2011, and the 2011 prize was limited to books that were published in English. The prize was retitled again in 2013 as the Cundill Prize in Historical Literature, and the partnership with MISC continued up to 2016. McGill relaunched the prize for its 10th year in 2017: it was renamed the Cundill History Prize, and the prize's logo and website design were overhauled.

## Recipients

| Year | Winner | Winner | Finalists | Finalists | Jury |
| 2008 | Stuart B. Schwartz | All Can Be Saved: Religious Tolerance and Salvation in the Iberian Atlantic World | Harold J. Cook | Matters of Exchange: Commerce, Medicine, and Science in the Dutch Golden Age | Angela Schottenhammer, Denise Chong, Natalie Zemon Davis, Roger Chartier, Serge Joyal, and Timothy Aitken |
| 2008 | Stuart B. Schwartz | All Can Be Saved: Religious Tolerance and Salvation in the Iberian Atlantic World | Peter Fritzsche | Life and Death in the Third Reich | Angela Schottenhammer, Denise Chong, Natalie Zemon Davis, Roger Chartier, Serge Joyal, and Timothy Aitken |
| 2009 | Lisa Jardine | Going Dutch: How England Plundered Holland's Glory | David Hackett Fischer | Champlain's Dream | Angela Schottenhammer, Denise Chong, Kenneth Whyte, Roger Chartier, Serge Joyal, and Timothy Aitken |
| 2009 | Lisa Jardine | Going Dutch: How England Plundered Holland's Glory | Pekka Hämäläinen | The Comanche Empire | Angela Schottenhammer, Denise Chong, Kenneth Whyte, Roger Chartier, Serge Joyal, and Timothy Aitken |
| 2010 | Diarmaid MacCulloch | A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years | Giancarlo Casale | The Ottoman Age of Exploration | Adam Gopnik, Catherine Desbarats, Charles R. Kesler, Kenneth Whyte, and Lisa Jardine |
| 2010 | Diarmaid MacCulloch | A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years | Marla R. Miller | Betsy Ross and the Making of America | Adam Gopnik, Catherine Desbarats, Charles R. Kesler, Kenneth Whyte, and Lisa Jardine |
| 2011 | Sergio Luzzatto | Padre Pio: Miracles and Politics in a Secular Age | Maya Jasanoff | Liberty's Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World | Anthony Cary, Catherine Desbarats, Jeffrey Simpson, Ramachandra Guha, and Stuart B. Schwartz |
| 2011 | Sergio Luzzatto | Padre Pio: Miracles and Politics in a Secular Age | Timothy Snyder | Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin | Anthony Cary, Catherine Desbarats, Jeffrey Simpson, Ramachandra Guha, and Stuart B. Schwartz |
| 2012 | Stephen R. Platt | Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War | Steven Pinker | The Better Angels of Our Nature: The Decline of Violence in History and Its Causes | Charles R. Kesler, Garvin Brown, Jeffrey Simpson, and Vanessa Ruth Schwartz |
| 2012 | Stephen R. Platt | Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War | Andrew Preston | Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith: Religion in American War and Diplomacy | Charles R. Kesler, Garvin Brown, Jeffrey Simpson, and Vanessa Ruth Schwartz |
| 2013 | Anne Applebaum | Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944–1956 | Christopher Clark | The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 | Anthony Cary, Garvin Brown, Marla R. Miller, Sergio Luzzatto, and Thomas H. B. Symons |
| 2013 | Anne Applebaum | Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944–1956 | Fredrik Logevall | Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam | Anthony Cary, Garvin Brown, Marla R. Miller, Sergio Luzzatto, and Thomas H. B. Symons |
| 2014 | Gary J. Bass | The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide | Richard Overy | The Bombing War: Europe, 1939–1945 | Althia Raj, David Frum, Marla R. Miller, Stuart B. Schwartz, and Thomas H. B. Symons |
| 2014 | Gary J. Bass | The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide | David Van Reybrouck | Congo: The Epic History of a People | Althia Raj, David Frum, Marla R. Miller, Stuart B. Schwartz, and Thomas H. B. Symons |
| 2015 | Susan Pedersen | The Guardians: The League of Nations and the Crisis of Empire | Sven Beckert | Empire of Cotton: A Global History | Anna Porter, Anthony Cary, Chad Gaffield, David Frum, and Maya Jasanoff |
| 2015 | Susan Pedersen | The Guardians: The League of Nations and the Crisis of Empire | Bettina Stangneth | Eichmann Before Jerusalem: The Unexamined Life of a Mass Murderer | Anna Porter, Anthony Cary, Chad Gaffield, David Frum, and Maya Jasanoff |
| 2016 | Thomas W. Laqueur | The Work of the Dead: A Cultural History of Mortal Remains | David Wootton | The Invention of Science: A New History of the Scientific Revolution | Anna Porter, David Frum, John Darwin, and Timothy Brook |
| 2016 | Thomas W. Laqueur | The Work of the Dead: A Cultural History of Mortal Remains | Andrea Wulf | The Invention of Nature: Alexander Von Humboldt's New World | Anna Porter, David Frum, John Darwin, and Timothy Brook |
| 2017 | Daniel Beer | The House of the Dead: Siberian Exile Under the Tsars | Christopher Goscha | Vietnam: A New History | Margaret MacMillan (chair), Amanda Foreman, R. F. Foster, Rana Mitter, and Jeffrey Simpson |
| 2017 | Daniel Beer | The House of the Dead: Siberian Exile Under the Tsars | Walter Scheidel | The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century | Margaret MacMillan (chair), Amanda Foreman, R. F. Foster, Rana Mitter, and Jeffrey Simpson |
| 2018 | Maya Jasanoff | The Dawn Watch: Joseph Conrad in a Global World | Caroline Fraser | Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder | Mark Gilbert (chair), Carol Berkin, Caroline Elkins, Peter Frankopan, and Jeffrey Simpson |
| 2018 | Maya Jasanoff | The Dawn Watch: Joseph Conrad in a Global World | Sam White | A Cold Welcome: The Little Ice Age and Europe's Encounter with North America | Mark Gilbert (chair), Carol Berkin, Caroline Elkins, Peter Frankopan, and Jeffrey Simpson |
| 2019 | Julia Lovell | Maoism: A Global History | Mary Fulbrook | Reckonings: Legacies of Nazi Persecution and the Quest for Justice | Alan Taylor (chair), Charlotte Gray, Robert Gerwarth, Jane Kamensky, and Rana Mitter |
| 2019 | Julia Lovell | Maoism: A Global History | Jill Lepore | These Truths: A History of the United States | Alan Taylor (chair), Charlotte Gray, Robert Gerwarth, Jane Kamensky, and Rana Mitter |
| 2020 | Camilla Townsend | Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs | Vincent Brown | Tacky's Revolt: The Story of an Atlantic Slave War | Peter Frankopan (chair), Anne Applebaum, Lyse Doucet, Eliga Gould, and Sujit Sivasundaram |
| 2020 | Camilla Townsend | Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs | William Dalrymple | The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company | Peter Frankopan (chair), Anne Applebaum, Lyse Doucet, Eliga Gould, and Sujit Sivasundaram |
| 2021 | Marjoleine Kars | Blood on the River: A Chronicle of Mutiny and Freedom on the Wild Coast | Rebecca Clifford | Survivors: Children's Lives After the Holocaust | Michael Ignatieff (chair), Eric Foner, Henrietta Harrison, Sunil Khilnani, and Jennifer L. Morgan |
| 2021 | Marjoleine Kars | Blood on the River: A Chronicle of Mutiny and Freedom on the Wild Coast | Marie Favereau | The Horde: How the Mongols Changed the World | Michael Ignatieff (chair), Eric Foner, Henrietta Harrison, Sunil Khilnani, and Jennifer L. Morgan |
| 2022 | Tiya Miles | All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake | Ada Ferrer | Cuba: An American History | J. R. McNeill (chair), Misha Glenny, Martha S. Jones, Yasmin Khan, and Kenda Mutongi |
| 2022 | Tiya Miles | All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake | Vladislav M. Zubok | Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union | J. R. McNeill (chair), Misha Glenny, Martha S. Jones, Yasmin Khan, and Kenda Mutongi |
| 2023 | Tania Branigan | Red Memory: Living, Remembering and Forgetting China's Cultural Revolution | James Morton Turner | Charged: A History of Batteries and Lessons for a Clean Energy Future | Philippa Levine (chair), Marie Favereau, Adam Gopnik, Eve M. Troutt Powell, Sol Serrano, and Coll Thrush |
| 2023 | Tania Branigan | Red Memory: Living, Remembering and Forgetting China's Cultural Revolution | Kate Cooper | Queens of a Fallen World: The Lost Women of Augustine's Confessions | Philippa Levine (chair), Marie Favereau, Adam Gopnik, Eve M. Troutt Powell, Sol Serrano, and Coll Thrush |
| 2024 | Kathleen DuVal | Native Nations: A Millennium in North America | Gary J. Bass | Judgment at Tokyo: World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia | Rana Mitter (chair), Nicole Eustace, Moses Ochonu, Rebecca L. Spang, and Stephanie Nolen |
| 2024 | Kathleen DuVal | Native Nations: A Millennium in North America | Dylan C. Penningroth | Before the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights | Rana Mitter (chair), Nicole Eustace, Moses Ochonu, Rebecca L. Spang, and Stephanie Nolen |