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Wolfson History Prize

Literary awards for history in the UK

Summary

Literary awards for history in the UK

Field	Value
name	Wolfson History Prize
image_size
awarded_for	to promote and encourage standards of excellence in the writing of history for the general public
country	United Kingdom
presenter	Wolfson Foundation
former name	Wolfson Literary Awards
year
holder
most_awards
website
network
viewership
image2_size

The Wolfson History Prize is an annual literary award in the United Kingdom which is intended to promote and encourage 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 historians.

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.

Honourees

1970s

Year	Author	Title	Publisher	1972	1973	1974	1975	1976	1977	1978	1979
	**	Her Majesty's Stationery Office
	Religion and the Decline of Magic	Weidenfeld & Nicolson
	Henry II	Eyre & Spottiswoode
	**	Routledge & Keegan Paul
	**	Chatto & Windus
	France, 1848–1945: Ambition, Love and Politics	Oxford University Press
	Edward VIII	Weidenfeld & Nicolson
	**	Oxford University Press
	**	Thames & Hudson
	**	Hodder & Stoughton
	Patriots and Liberators: Revolution in the Netherlands 1780–1813	Collins
	Mussolini's Roman Empire	Longman & Co
	**	Macmillan
	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
	The Foundations of Modern Political Thought	Cambridge University Press
	Clementine Churchill: The Biography of a Marriage	Cassell

1980s

Year	Author	Title
	Culture and Anarchy in Ireland, 1890–1939	Oxford University Press
	**	Oxford University Press
	**	Cambridge University Press
	Death and the Enlightenment: Changing Attitudes to Death Among Christians and Unbelievers in Eighteenth-Century France	Oxford University Press
	Winston S. Churchill: Finest Hour, 1939–1941	Heinemann
	George V	Weidenfeld & Nicolson
	**	Weidenfeld & Nicolson
	Chivalry	Yale University Press
	Lloyd George, From Peace To War 1912–1916	Methuen
	Dudley Docker: The Life and Times of a Trade Warrior	Cambridge University Press
	The Count-Duke of Olivares: The Statesman in an Age of Decline	Yale University Press
	European Jewry in the Age of Mercantilism, 1550–1750	Oxford University Press
	Conquest, Coexistence, and Change: Wales, 1063–1415	Oxford University Press
	**	Oxford University Press
No award
	**	Unwin Hyman
	Death in Hamburg: Society and Politics in the Cholera Years, 1830–1910	Oxford University Press

1990s

Year	Author	Title	Publisher	1990	1991	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999
	**	Huchinson
	How War Came: The Immediate Origins of the Second World War, 1938–1939	William Heinemann
	**	Yale University Press
	Giordano Bruno and the Embassy Affair	Yale University Press
	Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives	HarperCollins
	Britons: Forging the Nation 1707-1837	Yale University Press
	John Maynard Keynes: The Economist as Saviour, 1920–1937	Pan Macmillan
	**	Viking
	Living and Dying in England, 1100–1540: The Monastic Experience	Oxford University Press
	William Morris: A Life for Our Time	Faber and Faber
	**	Cambridge University Press
	Gladstone 1875–1898	Oxford University Press
	**	Jonathan Cape
	Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century	HarperCollins
	Jennie Lee: A Life	Oxford University Press
	Stalingrad	Viking
	**	Yale University Press

2000s

Year	Author	Title	Publisher	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009
	**	Granta Books
	Salisbury: Victorian Titan	Weidenfeld & Nicolson
	Hitler, 1936–1945: Nemesis	Allen Lane
	**	Weidenfeld & Nicolson
	Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World	Allen Lane
	Facing the Ocean: The Atlantic and Its Peoples	Oxford University Press
	London in the 20th Century: A City and Its Peoples	Viking
	White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth-century India	HarperCollins
	Marianne in Chains: In Search of the German Occupation	Macmillan
	Transformations of Love: The Friendship of John Evelyn and Margaret Godolphin	Oxford University Press
	**	Oxford University Press
	Reformation: Europe's House Divided 1490–1700	Allen Lane, Penguin Press
	**	Allen Lane, Penguin Press
	In Command of History: Churchill Fighting and Writing the Second World War	Allen Lane, Penguin Press
	Shopping in the Renaissance	Yale University Press
	Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean, 400–800	Oxford University Press
	Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600–1947	Allen Lane, Penguin Press
	City of Laughter: Sex and Satire in Eighteenth-Century London	Atlantic Books
	**	Allen Lane, Penguin Press
	After Tamerlane: The Global Story of Empire	Allen Lane
	God's Architect: Pugin & the Building of Romantic Britain	Allen Lane
	Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town	Profile Books
	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	2011	2012	2013	2014
	Russia Against Napoleon: The Battle for Europe, 1807–1814	Allen Lane, Penguin Press
	Divided Houses: The Hundred Years War. Vol. 3	Faber and Faber
	**	Allen Lane, Penguin Press
	Islanders: The Pacific in the Age of Empire	Yale University Press
	Nikolaus Pevsner: The Life	Chatto & Windus
	**	Oxford University Press
	Thomas Wyatt: The Heart's Forest	Faber and Faber
	Fascist Voices: An Intimate History of Mussolini's Italy	Boydell Press
	**	Thames & Hudson
	Red Fortress: The Secret Heart of Russia's History	Allen Lane, Penguin Books
	National Service: Conscription in Britain, 1945–1963	Allen Lane, Penguin Books
	Ring of Steel: Germany and Austria-Hungary at War, 1914-1918	Allen Lane, Penguin Books
	Augustine: Conversions and Confessions	Basic Books
	KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps	Little, Brown and Company
****	Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts: Twelve Journeys into the Medieval World	Allen Lane	author=Campbell, Lisa	date=16 May 2017	title=De Hamel wins £40k Wolfson History Prize	work=The Bookseller	url=http://www.thebookseller.com/news/former-cambridge-university-librarian-wins-40k-wolfson-history-prize-551636	access-date=19 May 2017}}
	**	Penguin Books
	Henry IV	Yale University Press
	Sleep in Early Modern England	Yale University Press
	Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet	Vintage
	Henry the Young King, 1155–1183	Yale University Press
****	Heretics and Believers: A History of the English Reformation	Yale University Press
	Out of China: How the Chinese Ended the Era of Western Domination	Penguin Books
	The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
	**	Yale University Press
	Black Tudors: The Untold Story	Oneworld Publications
	Heligoland: Britain, Germany and the Struggle for the North Sea	Oxford University Press
****	Reckonings: Legacies of Nazi Persecution and the Quest for Justice	Oxford University Press
	Building Anglo-Saxon England	Princeton University Press
	Trading in War: London's Maritime World in the Age of Cook and Nelson	Yale University Press
	Birds in the Ancient World: Winged Words	Oxford University Press
	Oscar: A Life	Head of Zeus
	Empress: Queen Victoria and India	Yale University Press

2020s

Year	Author	Title
****	******	Winner
	**	Shortlist
	**
	**
	Chaucer: A European Life
	Cricket Country: An Indian Odyssey in the Age of Empire
****	Black Spartacus: The Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture	Winner
	Atlantic Wars: From the Fifteenth Century to the Age of Revolution	Shortlist
	Burning the Books: A History of Knowledge Under Attack
	Double Lives: A History of Working Motherhood
	Ravenna: Capital of Empire, Crucible of Europe
	Survivors: Children's Lives After the Holocaust
****	Devil-Land: England Under Siege, 1588–1688	Winner
	**	Shortlist
	**
	Fallen Idols: Twelve Statues That Made History
	God: An Anatomy
	Going to Church in Medieval England
****	Resistance: The Underground War in Europe 1939-1945	Winner
	African and Caribbean People in Britain: A History	Shortlist
	**
	**
	Vagabonds: Life on the Streets of Nineteenth Century London
	Portable Magic: A History of Books and their Readers
****	Shadows at Noon: The South Asian Twentieth Century	Winner
	Courting India: England, Mughal India and the Origins of Empire	Shortlist
	Traders in Men: Merchants and the Transformation of the Transatlantic Slave Trade
	Our NHS: A History of Britain’s Best-Loved Institution
	Winnie & Nelson: Portrait of a Marriage
	Out of the Darkness: The Germans, 1942-2022
****	Survivors: The Lost Stories of the Last Captives of the Atlantic Slave Trade	Winner
	Embers of the Hands: Hidden Histories of the Viking Age	Shortlist
	The Eagle and the Hart: The Tragedy of Richard II and Henry IV
	Multicultural Britain: A People's History
	The Gravity of Feathers: Fame, Fortune and the Story of St Kilda
	The Mysterious Case of the Victorian Female Detective

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

References

"Wolfson History Prize – The Wolfson Foundation". Wolfson.org.uk.
"Previous winners".
(2012-05-11). "Awards: Wolfson History Prize; Ondaatje Shortlist".
(15 May 2013). "Winners of the Wolfson History Prize Announced".
"Latest Prize Winners".
(2 June 2014). "Prize Winners – The Wolfson Foundation". Wolfson.org.uk.
(3 June 2014). "The Wolfson History Prize 2014".
(3 June 2014). "Serious history books will soon become a rarity, Wolfson History Prize winner says". The Daily Telegraph.
(2015-05-22). "Awards: Orwell; Wolfson History; Orion; Australia Book Industry".
(2016-06-20). "Awards: Pritzker, Wolfson History Winners".
Campbell, Lisa. (16 May 2017). "De Hamel wins £40k Wolfson History Prize". [[The Bookseller]].
(2017-05-16). "Awards: Wolfson; Trillium; Locus".
(2017-04-06). "Awards: Indies Choice/E.B. White; Waterstones Kids; Wolfson".
(2018-06-07). "Awards: Women's Prize; IndieReader Discovery; Wolfson History".
Cowdrey, Katherine. (5 June 2018). "'Ambitious' account of English Reformation wins Wolfson History Prize". [[The Bookseller]].
(2018-04-20). "Awards: SIBA's Southern Book Finalists; Wolfson History Shortlist".
(11 June 2019). "Mary Fulbrook wins Wolfson History Prize 2019 for revelatory Holocaust study 'Reckonings'". wolfsonhistoryprize.org.uk.
(2019-06-13). "Awards: Wolfson History; International Dublin; IndieReader Discovery".
(2019-04-16). "Awards: L.A. Times Book; Wolfson History".
(2020-06-15). "David Abulafia's 'The Boundless Sea' wins Wolfson History Prize 2020".
(2020-06-17). "Awards: Wolfson History Winner".
(2020-04-30). "Awards: Wolfson History Shortlist".
(2021-06-10). "Awards: PEN Pinter Winner; Wolfson History Winner".
(2021-05-03). "Shortlist announced for £40k Wolfson History Prize".
(2022-06-23). "Jackson wins £50k Wolfson History Prize".
(2022-06-23). "Awards: Wolfson History Winner; Miles Franklin Shortlist".
(2022-04-22). "£50k Wolfson History Prize shortlist announced".
(2022-04-21). "Awards: Wolfson History, RSL Ondaatje Shortlists".
(2023-11-14). "Kochanski wins £50k Wolfson History Prize". Books+Publishing.
(2023-09-05). "Wolfson History Prize 2023 shortlist announced".
"Wolfson History Prize announces 2023 Shortlist {{!}} Reading Agency".
(2024-12-05). "Chatterji wins 2024 Wolfson History Prize". Books+Publishing.
(22 September 2024). "2024 Wolfson History Prize shortlist announced".
(2025-12-03). "2025 Wolfson History Prize goes to Durkin’s “Survivors”". Books+Publishing.
Snow, Maia. (2025-12-02). "Wolfson History Prize: Historian Hannah Durkin wins £50,000".

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