All winners
The first awards were made in 1972. Until 1987, prizes were awarded at the end of the competition year. Since then, they have been awarded in the following year.
Until 2016, up to three awards were made every year. Since 2017, a shortlist of six titles have been announced in advance of one overall winner.
(Winners are listed alphabetically by author)
2026
2026 Shortlist:
The Boundless Deep: Young Tennyson, Science and the Crisis of Belief
Richard Holmes
(William Collins)
Vanished: An Unnatural History of Extinction
Sadiah Qureshi
(Allen Lane)
Summer of Fire and Blood: The German Peasants’ War
Lyndal Roper
(Basic Books)
Liverpool: A Story of Britain
Sam Wetherell
(Apollo)
The Library of Ancient Wisdom: Mesopotamia and the Making of History
Selena Wisnom
(Allen Lane)
Silence of the Gods: The Untold History of Europe’s Last Pagan Peoples
Francis Young
(Cambridge University Press)
2025
Survivors: The Lost Stories of the Last Captives of the Atlantic Slave Trade
Hannah Durkin
(William Collins)
2025 Shortlist:
Embers of the Hands: Hidden Histories of the Viking Age
Eleanor Barraclough
(Profile Books)
The Eagle and the Hart: The Tragedy of Richard II and Henry IV
Helen Castor
(Allen Lane)
Multicultural Britain: A People’s History
Kieran Connell
(Hurst Publishing)
The Gravity of Feathers: Fame, Fortune and the Story of St Kilda
Andrew Fleming
(Birlinn)
The Mysterious Case of the Victorian Female Detective
Sara Lodge
(Yale University Press)
2024
Shadows at Noon: The South Asian Twentieth Century
Joya Chatterji
(The Bodley Head)
2024 Shortlist:
Courting India: England, Mughal India and the Origins of Empire
Nandini Das
(Bloomsbury Publishing)
Traders in Men: Merchants and the Transformation of the Transatlantic Slave Trade
Nicholas Radburn
(Yale University Press)
Our NHS: A History of Britain’s Best-Loved Institution
Andrew Seaton
(Yale University Press)
Winnie & Nelson: Portrait of a Marriage
Jonny Steinberg
(William Collins)
Out of the Darkness: The Germans, 1942-2022
Frank Trentmann
(Allen Lane)
2023
Resistance: The Underground War in Europe, 1939-45
Halik Kochanski
(Allen Lane)
2023 Shortlist:
African and Caribbean People in Britain: A History
Hakim Adi
(Allen Lane)
The World the Plague Made: The Black Death and the Rise of Europe
James Belich
(Princeton University Press)
The Perils of Interpreting: The Extraordinary Lives of Two Translators between Qing China and the British Empire
Henrietta Harrison
(Princeton University Press)
Vagabonds: Life on the Streets of Nineteenth-Century London
Oskar Jensen
(Duckworth Books)
Portable Magic: A History of Books and their Readers
Emma Smith
(Allen Lane)
2022
Devil-Land: England Under Siege, 1588-1688
Clare Jackson
(Allen Lane)
2022 Shortlist:
The Ottomans: Khans, Caesars and Caliphs
Marc David Baer
(Basic Books)
The Ruin of all Witches: Life and Death in the New World
Malcolm Gaskill
(Allen Lane)
Going to Church in Medieval England
Nicholas Orme
(Yale University Press)
God: An Anatomy
Francesca Stavrakopoulou
(Picador)
Fallen Idols: Twelve Statues that Made History
Alex von Tunzelmann
(Headline)
2021
Black Spartacus: The Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture
Sudhir Hazareesingh
(Allen Lane)
2021 Shortlist:
Survivors: Children’s Lives after the Holocaust
Rebecca Clifford
(Yale University Press)
Ravenna: Capital of Empire, Crucible of Europe
Judith Herrin
(Allen Lane)
Double Lives: A History of Working Motherhood
Helen McCarthy
(Bloomsbury)
Burning the Books: A History of Knowledge Under Attack
Richard Ovenden
(John Murray Press)
Atlantic Wars: From the Fifteenth Century to the Age of Revolution
Geoffrey Plank
(Oxford University Press)
2020
The Boundless Sea: A Human History of the Oceans
David Abulafia
(Allen Lane)
2020 Shortlist:
A History of the Bible: The Book and Its Faiths
John Barton
(Allen Lane)
A Fistful of Shells: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution
Toby Green
(Allen Lane)
Cricket Country: An Indian Odyssey in the Age of Empire
Prashant Kidambi
(Oxford University Press)
The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper
Hallie Rubenhold
(Doubleday)
Chaucer: A European Life
Marion Turner
(Princeton University Press)
2019
Reckonings: Legacies of Nazi Persecution and the Quest for Justice
Mary Fulbrook
(Oxford University Press)
Shortlist:
Building Anglo-Saxon England
John Blair
(Princeton University Press)
Trading in War: London’s Maritime World in the Age of Cook and Nelson
Margarette Lincoln
(Yale University Press)
Birds in the Ancient World: Winged Words
Jeremy Mynott
(Oxford University Press)
Oscar: A Life
Matthew Sturgis
(Head of Zeus)
Empress: Queen Victoria and India
Miles Taylor
(Yale University Press)
2018
Heretics and Believers: A History of the English Reformation
Peter Marshall
(Yale University Press)
Shortlist:
Out of China: How the Chinese Ended the Era of Western Domination
Robert Bickers
(Allen Lane)
The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine
Lindsey Fitzharris
(Allen Lane)
A Deadly Legacy: German Jews and the Great War
Tim Grady
(Yale University Press)
Black Tudors: The Untold Story
Miranda Kaufmann
(Oneworld)
Heligoland: Britain, Germany and the Struggle for the North Sea
Jan Rüger
(Oxford University Press)
2017
Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts
Christopher de Hamel
(Allen Lane)
Shortlist:
The House of the Dead: Siberian Exile under the Tsars
Daniel Beer
(Allen Lane)
Henry IV
Chris Given-Wilson
(Yale University Press)
Sleep in Early Modern England
Sasha Handley
(Yale University Press)
Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet
Lyndal Roper
(The Bodley Head)
Henry the Young King, 1155 – 1183
Matthew Strickland
(Yale University Press)
2016
Augustine: Conversions and Confessions
Robin Lane Fox
(Allen Lane)
KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps
Nikolaus Wachsmann
(Little, Brown)
2015
National Service: Conscription in Britain, 1945-1963
Richard Vinen
(Allen Lane)
Ring of Steel: Germany and Austria-Hungary at War, 1914-1918
Alexander Watson
(Allen Lane)
2014
The Making of the Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean from the Beginning to the Emergence of the Classical World
Cyprian Broodbank
(Thames & Hudson)
Red Fortress: The Secret Heart of Russia’s History
Catherine Merridale
(Allen Lane)
2013
Thomas Wyatt: The Heart’s Forest
Susan Brigden
(Faber & Faber)
Fascist Voices: An Intimate History of Mussolini’s Italy
Christopher Duggan
(Random House)
2012
Nikolaus Pevsner: The Life
Susie Harries
(Chatto & Windus)
The Reformation of the Landscape: Religion, Identity & Memory in Early Modern Britain & Ireland
Alexandra Walsham
(Oxford University Press)
2011
The Man on Devil’s Island: Alfred Dreyfus and the Affair that Divided France
Ruth Harris
(Allen Lane)
Islanders: The Pacific in the Age of Empire
Nicholas Thomas
(Yale University Press)
2010
Russia against Napoleon: The Battle for Europe 1807 to 1814
Dominic Lieven
(Allen Lane)
The Hundred Years War, vol. III: Divided Houses
Jonathan Sumption
(Faber & Faber)
2009
Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town
Mary Beard
(Profile Books)
Dance in the Renaissance: European Fashion, French Obsession
Margaret McGowan
(Yale University Press)
2008
After Tamerlane: The Global History of Empire since 1405
John Darwin
(Allen Lane)
God’s Architect: Pugin & the Building of Romantic Britain
Rosemary Hill
(Allen Lane)
2007
Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia 1600-1947
Christopher Clark
(Allen Lane)
City of Laughter: Sex and Satire in Eighteenth-Century London
Vic Gatrell
(Atlantic Books)
The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy
Adam Tooze
(Allen Lane)
2006
Shopping in the Renaissance: Consumer Cultures in Italy 1400-1600
Evelyn Welch
(Yale University Press)
Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean 400-800
Christopher Wickham
(Oxford University Press)
2005
The Dictators: Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Russia
Richard Overy
(Allen Lane)
In Command of History: Churchill Fighting and Writing the Second World War
David Reynolds
(Allen Lane)
For distinguished contribution to the writing of history
Christopher Bayly
2004
Transformations of Love: The Friendship of John Evelyn and Margaret Godolphin
Frances Harris
(Oxford University Press)
The Fall of France: The Nazi Invasion of 1940
Julian Jackson
(Oxford University Press)
Reformation: Europe’s House Divided 1490-1700
Diarmaid MacCulloch
(Allen Lane)
2003
White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century India
William Dalrymple
(HarperCollins)
Marianne in Chains: In search of the German Occupation 1940-1945
Robert Gildea
(Macmillan)
2002
Facing the Ocean: The Atlantic and its Peoples 8000BC-AD1500
Barry Cunliffe
(Oxford University Press)
London in the Twentieth Century: A City and its People
Jerry White
(Viking)
For distinguished contribution to the writing of history:
Roy Jenkins
2001
Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis
Ian Kershaw
(Allen Lane)
The Balkans: From the End of Byzantium to the Present Day
Mark Mazower
(Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World
Roy Porter
(Allen Lane)
2000
An Intimate History of Killing: Face-To-Face Killing In Twentieth-Century Warfare
Joanna Bourke
(Granta Books)
Salisbury: Victorian Titan
Andrew Roberts
(Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
For distinguished contribution to the writing of history
Asa Briggs
1999
Stalingrad
Antony Beevor
(Viking)
The Gentleman’s Daughter: Women’s Lives in Georgian England
Amanda Vickery
(Yale University Press)
1998
The Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century
John Brewer
(HarperCollins)
Jennie Lee: A Life
Patricia Hollis
(Oxford University Press)
1997
A People’s Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891-1924
Orlando Figes
(Jonathan Cape)
For distinguished contribution to the writing of history
Eric Hobsbawm
1996
Gladstone, 1875-1898
HCG Matthew
(Oxford University Press)
1995
William Morris: A Life for Our Time
Fiona MacCarthy
(Faber & Faber)
The Kaiser and his Court: Wilhelm II and the Government of Germany
John Röhl
(Cambridge University Press)
1994
The Making of Europe: Conquest, Colonization and Cultural Change 950-1350
Robert Bartlett
(Allen Lane)
Living and Dying in England 1100-1540: The Monastic Experience
Barbara Harvey
(Oxford University Press)
1993
Britons: Forging the Nation 1707 – 1837
Linda Colley
(Yale University Press)
John Maynard Keynes, vol. 2: the Economist as Saviour 1920-1937
Robert Skidelsky
(PanMacmillan)
1992
Giordano Bruno and the Embassy Affair
John Bossy
(Yale University Press)
Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives
Alan Bullock
(HarperCollins)
1991
The Architecture of Medieval Britain: A Social History
Colin Platt
(Yale University Press)
1990
The Quest for El Cid
Richard Fletcher
(Hutchinson)
How War Came
Donald Cameron Watt
(William Heinemann)
1989
Death in Hamburg: Society and Politics in the Cholera Years, 1830-1910
Richard Evans
(Oxford University Press)
The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Control from 1500-2000
Paul Kennedy
(Unwin Hyman)
1987
Conquest, Coexistence, and Change: Wales 1063-1415
Rees Davies
(Oxford University Press)
The Mediterranean Passion: Victorians and Edwardians in the South
John Pemble
(Oxford University Press)
1986
The Count-Duke of Olivares: The Statesman in an Age of Decline
John Elliott
(Yale University Press)
European Jewry in the Age of Mercantilism 1550-1750
Jonathan Israel
(Oxford University Press)
1985
Dudley Docker: The Life and Times of a Trade Warrior
Richard Davenport-Hines
(Cambridge University Press)
Lloyd George: From Peace to War, 1912-1916
John Grigg
(Methuen)
1984
The Weaker Vessel: Woman’s Lot in Seventeenth-Century England
Antonia Fraser
(Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
Chivalry
Maurice Keen
(Yale University Press)
1983
Winston S. Churchill, vol. VI: Finest Hour
Martin Gilbert
(Heinemann)
King George V
Kenneth Rose
(Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
1982
Death and the Enlightenment: Changing Attitudes to Death Among Christians and Unbelievers in Eighteenth-century France
John McManners
(Oxford University Press)
For distinguished contribution to the writing of history
Steven Runciman
1981
A Liberal Descent: Victorian Historians and the English Past
John Burrow
(Cambridge University Press)
For distinguished contribution to the writing of history
Owen Chadwick
1980
The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1550-1700: An Interpretation
Robert Evans
(Oxford University Press)
Culture and Anarchy in Ireland, 1890-1939
FSL Lyons
(Oxford University Press)
1979
Death in Paris , 1795-1801
Richard Cobb
(Oxford University Press)
Clementine Churchill
Mary Soames
(Cassell)
The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, vol. 1: The Renaissance
Quentin Skinner
(Cambridge University Press)
1978
A Savage War of Peace: Algeria, 1954-1962
Alistair Horne
(Macmillan)
For distinguished contribution to the writing of history
Howard Colvin
1977
Patriots and Liberators: Revolution in the Netherlands, 1780-1813
Simon Schama
(Collins)
Mussolini’s Roman Empire
Denis Mack Smith
(Longman & Co)
1976
A History of Building Types
Nikolaus Pevsner
(Thames & Hudson)
The Eastern Front 1914-17
Norman Stone
(Hodder & Stoughton)
1975
Edward VIII
Frances Donaldson
(Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
The Poor of Eighteenth-Century France, 1750-1789
Olwen Hufton
(Oxford University Press)
1974
The Ancient Economy
Moses Finley
(Chatto & Windus)
France, 1848-1945: Ambition, Love & Politics
Theodore Zeldin
(Oxford University Press)
1973
Henry II
WL Warren
(Eyre & Spottiswoode)
The Rosicrucian Enlightenment
Frances Yates
(Routledge & Kegan Paul)
1972
Grand Strategy, vol. IV: August 1942 – September 1943
Michael Howard
(HMSO)
Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth and Seventeenth-Century England
Keith Thomas
(Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
