Wolfson History Prize

Given by Wolfson Foundation

Other Names: Wolfson Literary Awards
129 Works 46,949 Books 727 Reviews 4.1
The Wolfson History Prizes, which were established in 1972, are awarded annually to promote and encourage standards of excellence in the writing of history for the general public. Prizes are given show more annually, usually for two 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.

The shortlist started in 2017. Previously there were 1-3 winners per year and no shortlist.

Until 1987, prizes were awarded at the end of the competition year. However, subsequent prizes were awarded in the summer following the year of the books' publication. Accordingly, there is no prize listed for 1988. show less
Stages:
All, Winner (94), Shortlist (129)
Years:
All, 2023 (6), 2022 (6), 2021 (6), 2020 (6), 2019 (6), 2018 (6), 2017 (6), 2016 (2), 2015 (2), 2014 (2), 2013 (2), 2012 (2), 2011 (2), 2010 (2), 2009 (2), 2008 (2), 2007 (3), 2006 (2), 2005 (2), 2004 (2), 2003 (3), 2002 (2), 2001 (3), 2000 (2), 1999 (2), 1998 (2), 1997 (2), 1996 (1), 1995 (2), 1994 (2), 1993 (2), 1992 (2), 1991 (1), 1990 (2), 1989 (2), 1987 (2), 1986 (2), 1985 (2), 1984 (2), 1983 (2), 1982 (1), 1981 (2), 1980 (1), 1979 (3), 1978 (1), 1977 (2), 1976 (2), 1975 (2), 1974 (2), 1973 (2), 1972 (2)

Winner 94

WorkYear
Resistance: The Underground War Against Hitler, 1939-1945 by Halik Kochanski2023
Devil-Land: England Under Siege, 1588-1688 by Clare Jackson2022
Black Spartacus: The Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture by Sudhir Hazareesingh2021
The Boundless Sea: A Human History of the Oceans by David Abulafia2020
Reckonings: Legacies of Nazi Persecution and the Quest for Justice by Mary Fulbrook2019
Heretics and Believers: A History of the English Reformation by Peter Marshall2018
Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts: Twelve Journeys into the Medieval World by Christopher De Hamel2017
Augustine: Conversions to Confessions by Robin Lane Fox2016
KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps by Nikolaus Wachsmann2016
National Service: A Generation in Uniform 1945-1963 by Richard Vinen2015
Ring of Steel: Germany and Austria-Hungary in World War I by Alexander Watson2015
The Making of the Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean from the Beginning to the Emergence of the Classical World by Cyprian Broodbank2014
Red Fortress: The Secret Heart of Russia's History by Catherine Merridale2014
Thomas Wyatt: The Heart's Forest by Susan Brigden2013
Fascist Voices: An Intimate History of Mussolini's Italy by Christopher Duggan2013
Nikolaus Pevsner: The Life by Susie Harries2012
The Reformation of the Landscape: Religion, Identity, and Memory in Early Modern Britain and Ireland by Alexandra Walsham2012
The Man On Devil’s Island by Ruth Harris2011
Islanders: The Pacific in the Age of Empire by Nicholas Thomas2011
Russia Against Napoleon: The Battle for Europe, 1807 to 1814 by Dominic Lieven2010
Divided Houses by Jonathan Sumption2010
The Fires of Vesuvius: Pompeii Lost and Found by Mary Beard2009
Dance in the Renaissance: European Fashion, French Obsession by Margaret M. McGowan2009
After Tamerlane: The Rise and Fall of Global Empires, 1400-2000 by John Darwin2008
God's Architect: Pugin and the Building of Romantic Britain by Rosemary Hill2008
Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947 by Christopher Clark2007
City of Laughter: Sex and Satire in Eighteenth-Century London by Vic Gatrell2007
The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy by Adam Tooze2007
Shopping in the Renaissance: Consumer Cultures in Italy 1400-1600 by Evelyn S. Welch2006
Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean, 400-800 by Chris Wickham2006
The Dictators: Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia by Richard Overy2005
In Command of History: Churchill Fighting and Writing the Second World War by David Reynolds2005
Transformations of Love: The Friendship of John Evelyn and Margaret Godolphin by Frances Harris2004
The Fall of France: The Nazi Invasion of 1940 by Julian Jackson2004
White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century India by William Dalrymple2003
Marianne in Chains: Daily Life in the Heart of France During the German Occupation by Robert Gildea2003
Reformation : Europe's house divided : 1490-1700 by Diarmaid MacCulloch2003
Facing the Ocean: The Atlantic and Its Peoples, 8000 BC-AD 1500 by Barry Cunliffe2002
London in the Twentieth Century: A City and Its People by Jerry White2002
Hitler: 1936-1945: Nemesis by Ian Kershaw2001
The Balkans: A Short History by Mark Mazower2001
Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World by Roy Porter2001
An Intimate History of Killing: Face-to-Face Killing in Twentieth-Century Warfare by Joanna Bourke2000
Salisbury: Victorian Titan by Andrew Roberts2000
Stalingrad by Antony Beevor1999
The Gentleman's Daughter: Women's Lives in Georgian England by Amanda Vickery1999
The Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century by John Brewer1998
Jennie Lee: A Life by Patricia Hollis1998
Natasha's Dance: A Cultural History of Russia by Orlando Figes1997
A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891-1924 by Orlando Figes1997
Gladstone: 1875-1898 by H. C. G. Matthew1996
William Morris: A Life for Our Time by Fiona MacCarthy1995
The Kaiser and his Court: Wilhelm II and the Government of Germany by John C. G. Röhl1995
The Making of Europe by Robert Bartlett1994
Living and Dying in England, 1100-1540: The Monastic Experience by Barbara Harvey1994
Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707–1837 by Linda Colley1993
John Maynard Keynes, Vol. 2: The Economist as Saviour, 1920-1937 by Robert Skidelsky1993
Giordano Bruno and the Embassy Affair by John Bossy1992
Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives by Alan Bullock1992
The Architecture of Medieval Britain: A Social History by Colin Platt1991
The Quest for El Cid by Richard Fletcher1990
How War Came: The Immediate Origins of the Second World War by Donald Cameron Watt1990
Death in Hamburg: Society and Politics in the Cholera Years, 1830-1910 by Richard J. Evans1989
The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers by Paul Kennedy1989
The Age of Conquest: Wales 1063-1415 by R. R. Davies1987
The Mediterranean Passion: Victorians and Edwardians in the South by John Pemble1987
The Count-Duke of Olivares: The Statesman in an Age of Decline by J. H. Elliott1986
European Jewry in the Age of Mercantilism, 1550-1750 by Jonathan I. Israel1986
Dudley Docker: The Life and Times of a Trade Warrior by R. P. T. Davenport-Hines1985
Lloyd George: From Peace to War 1912 - 1916 by John Grigg1985
The Weaker Vessel by Antonia Fraser1984
Chivalry by Maurice Keen1984
Winston S. Churchill: Finest Hour, 1939-1941 (Volume VI) by Martin Gilbert1983
King George V by Kenneth Rose1983
Death and the Enlightenment: Changing Attitudes to Death among Christians and Unbelievers in Eighteenth-Century France by John McManners1982
A Liberal Descent: Victorian historians and the English past (Cambridge Paperback Library) by J. W. Burrow1981
The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1550-1700: An Interpretation by Robert John Weston Evans1981
Culture and Anarchy in Ireland, 1890-1939 by F. S. L. Lyons1980
Death in Paris, 1795-1801 by Richard Cobb1979
The Foundations of Modern Political Thought by Quentin Skinner1979
Clementine Churchill by Mary Soames1979
A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962 by Alistair Horne1978
Mussolini's Roman Empire by Denis Mack Smith1977
Patriots and Liberators: Revolution in the Netherlands, 1780-1813 by Simon Schama1977
A History of Building Types by Nikolaus Pevsner1976
The Eastern Front, 1914-1917 by Norman Stone1976
Edward VIII by Frances Lonsdale Donaldson1975
The Poor of Eighteenth-Century France, 1750-1789 by Olwen H. Hufton1975
The Ancient Economy by M. I. Finley1974
Ambition, Love, and Politics by Theodore Zeldin1974
Henry II by W. L. Warren1973
The Rosicrucian Enlightenment by Frances A. Yates1973
Grand Strategy, Vol. 4 (History of Second World War / U.K. Military History) by Michael Howard1972
Religion and the Decline of Magic : Studies in popular beliefs in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England by Keith Thomas1972

Shortlist 129

WorkYear
Resistance: The Underground War Against Hitler, 1939-1945 by Halik Kochanski2023
African and Caribbean People in Britain: A History by Hakim Adi2023
The World the Plague Made: The Black Death and the Rise of Europe by James Belich2023
The Perils of Interpreting: The Extraordinary Lives of Two Translators between Qing China and the British Empire by Henrietta Harrison2023
Vagabonds by Oskar Jensen2023
Portable Magic: A History of Books and Their Readers by Emma Smith2023
Devil-Land: England Under Siege, 1588-1688 by Clare Jackson2022
The Ottomans: Khans, Caesars, and Caliphs by Marc David Baer2022
The Ruin of All Witches: Life and Death in the New World by Malcolm Gaskill2022
Going to Church in Medieval England by Nicholas Orme2022
God: An Anatomy by Francesca Stavrakopoulou2022
Fallen Idols: Twelve Statues That Made History by Alex Von Tunzelmann2022
Black Spartacus: The Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture by Sudhir Hazareesingh2021
Survivors: Children's Lives After the Holocaust by Rebecca Clifford2021
Ravenna: Capital of Empire, Crucible of Europe by Judith Herrin2021
Double Lives: A History of Working Motherhood by Helen McCarthy2021
Burning the Books: A History of the Deliberate Destruction of Knowledge by Richard Ovenden2021
Atlantic Wars: From the Fifteenth Century to the Age of Revolution by Geoffrey Plank2021
The Boundless Sea: A Human History of the Oceans by David Abulafia2020
A History of the Bible: The Book and Its Faiths by John Barton2020
A Fistful of Shells: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution by Toby Green2020
Cricket country : an Indian Odyssey in the age of empire by Prashant Kidambi2020
The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold2020
Chaucer: A European Life by Marion Turner2020
Reckonings: Legacies of Nazi Persecution and the Quest for Justice by Mary Fulbrook2019
Building Anglo-Saxon England by John Blair2019
Trading in War: London's Maritime World in the Age of Cook and Nelson by Margarette Lincoln2019
Birds in the Ancient World: Winged Words by Jeremy Mynott2019
Oscar Wilde: A Life by Matthew Sturgis2019
Empress: Queen Victoria and India by Miles Taylor2019
Heretics and Believers: A History of the English Reformation by Peter Marshall2018
Out of China: How the Chinese Ended the Era of Western Domination by Robert Bickers2018
The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine by Lindsey Fitzharris2018
A Deadly Legacy: German Jews and the Great War by Tim Grady2018
Black Tudors: The Untold Story by Miranda Kaufmann2018
Heligoland: Britain, Germany, and the Struggle for the North Sea by Jan Rüger2018
Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts: Twelve Journeys into the Medieval World by Christopher De Hamel2017
The House of the Dead: Siberian Exile Under the Tsars by Daniel Beer2017
Henry IV by Chris Given-Wilson2017
Sleep in early modern England by Sasha Handley2017
Martin Luther: renegade and prophet by Lyndal Roper2017
Henry the Young King, 1155-1183 by Matthew Strickland2017
Augustine: Conversions to Confessions by Robin Lane Fox2016
KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps by Nikolaus Wachsmann2016
National Service: A Generation in Uniform 1945-1963 by Richard Vinen2015
Ring of Steel: Germany and Austria-Hungary in World War I by Alexander Watson2015
The Making of the Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean from the Beginning to the Emergence of the Classical World by Cyprian Broodbank2014
Red Fortress: The Secret Heart of Russia's History by Catherine Merridale2014
Thomas Wyatt: The Heart's Forest by Susan Brigden2013
Fascist Voices: An Intimate History of Mussolini's Italy by Christopher Duggan2013
Nikolaus Pevsner: The Life by Susie Harries2012
The Reformation of the Landscape: Religion, Identity, and Memory in Early Modern Britain and Ireland by Alexandra Walsham2012
The Man On Devil’s Island by Ruth Harris2011
Islanders: The Pacific in the Age of Empire by Nicholas Thomas2011
Russia Against Napoleon: The Battle for Europe, 1807 to 1814 by Dominic Lieven2010
Divided Houses by Jonathan Sumption2010
The Fires of Vesuvius: Pompeii Lost and Found by Mary Beard2009
Dance in the Renaissance: European Fashion, French Obsession by Margaret M. McGowan2009
After Tamerlane: The Rise and Fall of Global Empires, 1400-2000 by John Darwin2008
God's Architect: Pugin and the Building of Romantic Britain by Rosemary Hill2008
Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947 by Christopher Clark2007
City of Laughter: Sex and Satire in Eighteenth-Century London by Vic Gatrell2007
The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy by Adam Tooze2007
Shopping in the Renaissance: Consumer Cultures in Italy 1400-1600 by Evelyn S. Welch2006
Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean, 400-800 by Chris Wickham2006
The Dictators: Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia by Richard Overy2005
In Command of History: Churchill Fighting and Writing the Second World War by David Reynolds2005
Transformations of Love: The Friendship of John Evelyn and Margaret Godolphin by Frances Harris2004
The Fall of France: The Nazi Invasion of 1940 by Julian Jackson2004
White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century India by William Dalrymple2003
Marianne in Chains: Daily Life in the Heart of France During the German Occupation by Robert Gildea2003
Reformation : Europe's house divided : 1490-1700 by Diarmaid MacCulloch2003
Facing the Ocean: The Atlantic and Its Peoples, 8000 BC-AD 1500 by Barry Cunliffe2002
London in the Twentieth Century: A City and Its People by Jerry White2002
Hitler: 1936-1945: Nemesis by Ian Kershaw2001
The Balkans: A Short History by Mark Mazower2001
Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World by Roy Porter2001
An Intimate History of Killing: Face-to-Face Killing in Twentieth-Century Warfare by Joanna Bourke2000
Salisbury: Victorian Titan by Andrew Roberts2000
Stalingrad by Antony Beevor1999
The Gentleman's Daughter: Women's Lives in Georgian England by Amanda Vickery1999
The Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century by John Brewer1998
Jennie Lee: A Life by Patricia Hollis1998
Natasha's Dance: A Cultural History of Russia by Orlando Figes1997
A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891-1924 by Orlando Figes1997
Gladstone: 1875-1898 by H. C. G. Matthew1996
William Morris: A Life for Our Time by Fiona MacCarthy1995
The Kaiser and his Court: Wilhelm II and the Government of Germany by John C. G. Röhl1995
The Making of Europe by Robert Bartlett1994
Living and Dying in England, 1100-1540: The Monastic Experience by Barbara Harvey1994
Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707–1837 by Linda Colley1993
John Maynard Keynes, Vol. 2: The Economist as Saviour, 1920-1937 by Robert Skidelsky1993
Giordano Bruno and the Embassy Affair by John Bossy1992
Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives by Alan Bullock1992
The Architecture of Medieval Britain: A Social History by Colin Platt1991
The Quest for El Cid by Richard Fletcher1990
How War Came: The Immediate Origins of the Second World War by Donald Cameron Watt1990
Death in Hamburg: Society and Politics in the Cholera Years, 1830-1910 by Richard J. Evans1989
The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers by Paul Kennedy1989
The Age of Conquest: Wales 1063-1415 by R. R. Davies1987
The Mediterranean Passion: Victorians and Edwardians in the South by John Pemble1987
The Count-Duke of Olivares: The Statesman in an Age of Decline by J. H. Elliott1986
European Jewry in the Age of Mercantilism, 1550-1750 by Jonathan I. Israel1986
Dudley Docker: The Life and Times of a Trade Warrior by R. P. T. Davenport-Hines1985
Lloyd George: From Peace to War 1912 - 1916 by John Grigg1985
The Weaker Vessel by Antonia Fraser1984
Chivalry by Maurice Keen1984
Winston S. Churchill: Finest Hour, 1939-1941 (Volume VI) by Martin Gilbert1983
King George V by Kenneth Rose1983
Death and the Enlightenment: Changing Attitudes to Death among Christians and Unbelievers in Eighteenth-Century France by John McManners1982
A Liberal Descent: Victorian historians and the English past (Cambridge Paperback Library) by J. W. Burrow1981
The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1550-1700: An Interpretation by Robert John Weston Evans1981
Culture and Anarchy in Ireland, 1890-1939 by F. S. L. Lyons1980
Death in Paris, 1795-1801 by Richard Cobb1979
The Foundations of Modern Political Thought by Quentin Skinner1979
Clementine Churchill by Mary Soames1979
A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962 by Alistair Horne1978
Mussolini's Roman Empire by Denis Mack Smith1977
Patriots and Liberators: Revolution in the Netherlands, 1780-1813 by Simon Schama1977
A History of Building Types by Nikolaus Pevsner1976
The Eastern Front, 1914-1917 by Norman Stone1976
Edward VIII by Frances Lonsdale Donaldson1975
The Poor of Eighteenth-Century France, 1750-1789 by Olwen H. Hufton1975
The Ancient Economy by M. I. Finley1974
Ambition, Love, and Politics by Theodore Zeldin1974
Henry II by W. L. Warren1973
The Rosicrucian Enlightenment by Frances A. Yates1973
Grand Strategy, Vol. 4 (History of Second World War / U.K. Military History) by Michael Howard1972
Religion and the Decline of Magic : Studies in popular beliefs in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England by Keith Thomas1972

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