Image: Cundill History Prize
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
Craft, Communication, and Consequence
Having begun with an initial pool of more than 400 submissions—which the program reports is a record—Canada’s Cundill History Prize today (September 2) is announcing an eight-book slate of shortlisted titles.
Handsomely endowed and based at Montreal’s McGill University, the Cundill honors its winner with a substantial purse paid out in American currency: US$75,000 (CAN$103,110) to its laureate. Two eventual runners-up receive US$10,000 each (CAN$13,749).
Three key criteria for consideration in this competition are “craft, communication, and consequence.”
Amid current social and political dynamics, the Cundill team is telling members of various news media that the awards goal is “to highlight books that uncover neglected histories and speak to our current context of conflict, protest, and the concern with freedom across the world.”
Last year’s Cundill winner, Kathleen DuVal, is to give her Cundill Lecture on October 29 during the festival. DuVal’s 2024 win was for Native Nations: A Millennium in North America from Penguin Random House.
The Cundill, unlike other programs of its kind, has what is effectively a set of double shortlists. After the longlist announcement of July 28 and today’s announcement of eight shortlistees, the program expects to name three “finalists” on September 30.
The winner is then to be named a month later, on October 30 as part of an annual Cundill History Prize Festival, set in Montreal.
The Cundill History Prize 2025 Shortlist
Among publishers, Princeton University Press and Penguin Random House lead the shortlist, with three titles each. Harvard University Press has one shortlisted nominee, as does Hachette UK.
| Author | Title | Publisher / Imprint |
| Emily Callaci | Wages for Housework: The Story of a Movement, an Idea, a Promise | Penguin Random House / Allen Lane |
| Kornel Chang | A Fractured Liberation: Korea Under US Occupation | Harvard University / Belknap Press |
| Marlene L. Daut | The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe | Penguin Random House / Alfred A. Knopf |
| Greg Grandin | America, América: A New History of the New World | Penguin Random House / Penguin Press |
| Benjamin Nathans |
To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement |
Princeton University Press |
| Lyndal Roper |
Summer of Fire and Blood: The German Peasants’ War |
Hachette UK / John Murray Press |
| Sophia Rosenfeld | The Age of Choice: A History of Freedom in Modern Life | Princeton University Press |
| Martha A. Sandweiss | The Girl in the Middle: A Recovered History of the American West | Princeton University Press |
Commentary from Jurors
Ada Ferrer, the jury chair, is the Dayton-Stockton professor of history at Princeton University and a 2022 Cundill History Prize finalist.
She’s quoted in today’s announcement, saying, “The eight books on our list are all quite different from one another, but all share some essential characteristics: analytical sharpness, engaging writing, and a firm belief that what the past reveals must be urgently understood.”
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François FurstenbergJuror François Furstenberg, professor of history and director of undergraduate studies at John Hopkins University, says, “This year’s Cundill History Prize shortlist demonstrates that great works of history come in many forms. Some approach their subjects biographically, while others offer vast geographic or thematic frames. Some use tiny details to make monumental claims, while others offer fresh interpretations of well-known historical events. All are brilliantly written. All break new ground. None will fail to impress.”
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Francesca TrivellatoJuror Francesca Trivellato, the Andrew W. Mellon professor of early modern European history at Princeton’s Institute of Advanced Study, says, “Reading each of the eight books on this year’s Cundill History Prize shortlist is an enriching experience. Some are sweeping in scope, while others dissect the lives of obscure figures or take tiny objects as their starting point. Curiously, more than one book demonstrates the significance of minority movements that did not quite achieve their stated goals and yet influenced the course of history in myriad other ways.”
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Sunil AmrithJuror Sunil Amrith, the Renu and Anand Dhawan professor of history at Yale, says, “The brilliant books on this year’s shortlist range in scale from the intimate to the epic, and in time from a single event to several centuries. What they share is an exquisite level of craft, and a sense of intellectual urgency.”
Previous Winning Authors of the Cundill History Prize
- Kathleen DuVal (2024)
- Tania Branigan (2023)
- Tiya Miles (2022)
- Marjoleine Kars (2021)
- Camilla Townsend (2020)
- Julia Lovell (2019)
- Maya Jasanoff (2018)
- Daniel Beer (2017)
- Thomas W. Laqueur (2016)
- Susan Pedersen (2015)
- Gary Bass (2014)
- Anne Applebaum (2013)
- Stephen Platt (2012)
- Sergio Luzzatto (2011)
- Diarmaid MacCulloch (2010)
- Lisa Jardine (2009)
- Stuart B. Schwartz (2008)
More from Publishing Perspectives on the Cundill History Prize is here. More on the international industry’s publishing and book awards is here, more on the Canadian book market is here, and more on nonfiction is here.
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