| The Wolfson History Prize | |
| Image Upright: | --> |
| 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 |
| Winner: | or |
| Winners: | --> |
| Most Wins: | --> |
| Network List: | --> |
| Ratings: | --> |
The Wolfson History Prizes are literary awards given annually in the United Kingdom to promote and encourage standards of 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 eminent 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.[1] [2]
| 1972 | Her Majesty's Stationery Office | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Religion and the Decline of Magic | Weidenfeld & Nicolson | ||
| 1973 | Henry II | Eyre & Spottiswoode | |
| Routledge & Keegan Paul | |||
| 1974 | Chatto & Windus | ||
| France, 1848–1945: Ambition, Love and Politics | Oxford University Press | ||
| 1975 | Edward VIII | Weidenfeld & Nicolson | |
| Oxford University Press | |||
| 1976 | Thames & Hudson | ||
| Hodder & Stoughton | |||
| 1977 | Patriots and Liberators: Revolution in the Netherlands 1780–1813 | Collins | |
| Mussolini's Roman Empire | Longman & Co | ||
| 1978 | Macmillan | ||
| 1979 | 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 |
| 1980 | Culture and Anarchy in Ireland, 1890–1939 | Oxford University Press | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oxford University Press | |||
| 1981 | Cambridge University Press | ||
| 1982 | Death and the Enlightenment: Changing Attitudes to Death Among Christians and Unbelievers in Eighteenth-Century France | Oxford University Press | |
| 1983 | Winston S. Churchill: Finest Hour, 1939–1941 | Heinemann | |
| George V | Weidenfeld & Nicolson | ||
| 1984 | Weidenfeld & Nicolson | ||
| Chivalry | Yale University Press | ||
| 1985 | Lloyd George, From Peace To War 1912–1916 | Methuen | |
| Dudley Docker: The Life and Times of a Trade Warrior | Cambridge University Press | ||
| 1986 | 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 | ||
| 1987 | Conquest, Coexistence, and Change: Wales, 1063–1415 | Oxford University Press | |
| Oxford University Press | |||
| 1988 | No award | ||
| 1989 | Unwin Hyman | ||
| Death in Hamburg: Society and Politics in the Cholera Years, 1830–1910 | Oxford University Press | ||
| 1990 | Huchinson | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| How War Came: The Immediate Origins of the Second World War, 1938–1939 | William Heinemann | ||
| 1991 | Yale University Press | ||
| 1992 | Giordano Bruno and the Embassy Affair | Yale University Press | |
| HarperCollins | |||
| 1993 | Britons: Forging the Nation 1707-1837 | Yale University Press | |
| John Maynard Keynes: The Economist as Saviour, 1920–1937 | Pan Macmillan | ||
| 1994 | Viking | ||
| Living and Dying in England, 1100–1540: The Monastic Experience | Oxford University Press | ||
| 1995 | William Morris: A Life for Our Time | Faber and Faber | |
| Cambridge University Press | |||
| 1996 | Gladstone 1875–1898 | Oxford University Press | |
| 1997 | Jonathan Cape | ||
| 1998 | Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century | HarperCollins | |
| Jennie Lee A Life | Oxford University Press | ||
| 1999 | Stalingrad | Viking | |
| Yale University Press |
| 2000 | Granta Books | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Salisbury: Victorian Titan | Weidenfeld & Nicolson | ||
| 2001 | Hitler, 1936–1945: Nemesis | Allen Lane | |
| Weidenfeld & Nicolson | |||
| Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World | Allen Lane | ||
| 2002 | Facing the Ocean: The Atlantic and Its Peoples | Oxford University Press | |
| London in the 20th Century: A City and Its Peoples | Viking | ||
| 2003 | White Mughals Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth-century India | HarperCollins | |
| Marianne in Chains: In Search of the German Occupation | Macmillan | ||
| 2004 | 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 | ||
| 2005 | Allen Lane, Penguin Press | ||
| In Command of History: Churchill Fighting and Writing the Second World War | Allen Lane, Penguin Press | ||
| 2006 | Shopping in the Renaissance | Yale University Press | |
| Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean, 400–800 | Oxford University Press | ||
| 2007 | 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 | |||
| 2008 | After Tamerlane: The Global Story of Empire | Allen Lane | |
| God's Architect: Pugin & the Building of Romantic Britain | Allen Lane | ||
| 2009 | Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town | Profile Books | |
| Dance in the Renaissance: European Fashion, French Obsession | Yale University Press |
Awards after 2016 have a winner and shortlist of five.
| 2010 | Russia Against Napoleon: The Battle for Europe, 1807–1814 | Allen Lane, Penguin Press | [3] | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Divided Houses: The Hundred Years War. Vol. 3 | Faber and Faber | |||
| 2011 | Allen Lane, Penguin Press | |||
| Islanders: The Pacific in the Age of Empire | Yale University Press | |||
| 2012 | Nikolaus Pevsner: The Life | Chatto & Windus | [4] | |
| Oxford University Press | ||||
| 2013 | Thomas Wyatt: The Heart's Forest | Faber and Faber | [5] [6] | |
| Fascist Voices: An Intimate History of Mussolini's Italy | Boydell Press | |||
| 2014 | Thames & Hudson | [7] [8] [9] | ||
| Red Fortress: The Secret Heart of Russia's History | Allen Lane, Penguin Books | |||
| 2015 | National Service: Conscription in Britain, 1945–1963 | Allen Lane, Penguin Books | [10] | |
| Allen Lane, Penguin Books | ||||
| 2016 | Augustine: Conversions and Confessions | Basic Books | [11] | |
| KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps | Little, Brown and Company | |||
| 2017 | Allen Lane | [12] [13] | ||
| Penguin Books | [14] | |||
| 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 | |||
| 2018 | Heretics and Believers: A History of the English Reformation | Yale University Press | [15] [16] | |
| Out of China: How the Chinese Ended the Era of Western Domination | Penguin Books | [17] | ||
| 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 | |||
| 2019 | Reckonings: Legacies of Nazi Persecution and the Quest for Justice | Oxford University Press | [18] [19] | |
| Building Anglo-Saxon England | Princeton University Press | [20] | ||
| 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 |
| 2020 | Winner | [21] [22] | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shortlist | [23] | |||
| Chaucer: A European Life | ||||
| Cricket Country: An Indian Odyssey in the Age of Empire | ||||
| 2021 | Black Spartacus: The Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture | Winner | [24] | |
| Atlantic Wars: From the Fifteenth Century to the Age of Revolution | Shortlist | [25] | ||
| 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 | ||||
| 2022 | Devil-Land: England Under Siege, 1588–1688 | Winner | [26] [27] | |
| Shortlist | [28] [29] | |||
| God: An Anatomy | ||||
| Going to Church in Medieval England | ||||
| 2023 | Halik Kochanski | Resistance: The Underground War in Europe 1939-1945 | Winner | [30] |
| Hakim Adi | African and Caribbean People in Britain: A History | Shortlist | [31] [32] | |
| James Belich | The World the Plague Made: The Black Death and the Rise of Europe | |||
| Henrietta Harrison | The Perils of Interpreting: The Extraordinary Lives of Two Translators between Qing China and the British Empire | |||
| Oskar Jensen | Vagabonds: Life on the Streets of Nineteenth Century London | |||
| Emma Smith | Portable Magic: A History of Books and their Readers |