Books on religion, data and race shortlisted for $102K historical writing prize
Zoie Karagiannis | CBC Books | Posted: October 4, 2023 5:56 PM | Last Updated: October 24, 2023
McGill University administers the Cundill History Prize, a global prize for English-language writing
Books that range in time from the ancient Mediterranean to the recent past have been shortlisted for the 2023 Cundill History Prize shortlist. From U.S. state secrets to revelations on China's Cultural Revolution, the prize celebrates books that bring history to the present.
The $75,000 US ($102,785 Cdn) prize annually recognizes the best historical nonfiction work of the year, which exhibits literary excellence and broad appeal. It is administered by McGill University in Montreal and is open to books about any historical period or subject, by authors of all nationalities from across the world.
No Canadians made the 2023 shortlist.
Dust on the Throne by Douglas Ober explores Buddhist religious dynamics in an age of expanding colonial empires, along with the histories of Buddhism produced by 19th and 20th century Indian thinkers.
Ober is a visiting assistant professor of history at Fort Lewis College and an honorary research associate in the Centre for India and South Asia Research at the University of British Columbia. He received his PhD from the University of British Columbia, where his doctoral work focused on the history and historiography of Buddhism in modern India.
Tania Branigan's Red Memory examines the Cultural Revolution and how it shaped present-day China. It shares the rarely heard stories of those who lived through Mao's decade of leadership and dissects cultural amnesia in the nation.
Branigan is the Guardian foreign leader writer and spent seven years as the China correspondent for the Guardian. Her writing has also appeared in the Washington Post and The Australian. She is based in London.
The Declassification Engine is a study of the nature of secrecy and the dire state of a nation's archives. Matthew Connelly's novel unravels the secret-industrial complex through an examination of U.S. state secrets and lost biographies.
Connelly is a professor of international and global history at Columbia University and co-director of its social science institute. He is also the author of Fatal Misconception and A Diplomatic Revolution.
The Perfection of Nature by Mackenzie Cooley explores how the concept of race moved from nonhuman to human and exposes how a complex language of race and reproduction was created. Examining the Renaissance and Spanish Empire, Cooley looks at how theories of inheritance developed through animal breeding and the desire to control the natural world.
Cooley is an assistant professor of history and director of the Latin American Studies program at Hamilton College in New York.
The complete shortlist is:
- The Huxleys: An Intimate History of Evolution by Alison Bashford
- Red Memory: Living, Remembering and Forgetting China's Cultural Revolution by Tania Branigan
- The Declassification Engine: What History Reveals About America's Top Secrets by Matthew Connelly
- The Perfection of Nature: Animals, Breeding, and Race in the Renaissance by Mackenzie Cooley
- Queens of a Fallen World: The Lost Women of Augustine's Confessions by Kate Cooper
- Dust on the Throne: The Search for Buddhism in India by Douglas Ober
- Charged: A History of Batteries and Lessons for a Clean Energy Future by James Morton Turner
- The Madman in the White House: Sigmund Freud, Ambassador Bullitt, and the Lost Psychobiography of Woodrow Wilson by Patrick Weil
The 2023 prize jury is chaired by multi-disciplinary historian Philippa Levine, who is a Walter Prescott Webb Chair in History and Ideas at the University of Texas at Austin.
"This shortlist includes heart-breaking tales from China's Cultural Revolution, biography, environmental concerns, religion, data management and much more," Levine said in a press release. "Every one of these authors advances original conceptions and tells a gripping story."
Levine is joined by jurors Marie Favereau, who is an associate professor of history at Paris Nanterre University and Adam Gopnik, an American writer and essayist. Also on the jury is cultural historian Eve Troutt Powell, Chilean historian Sol Serrano and Coll Thrush, who currently is a professor of history and Killam teaching laureate at the University of British Columbia.
Three finalists will be announced on Oct. 16 and the winner will be announced on Nov. 8 as part of the Cundill History Prize Festival in Montreal.
Two runners-up will each receive $10,000 US ($13,704 Cdn).
Last year's winner was Tiya Miles for All That She Carried.
Other previous winners also include Marjoleine Kars, Camilla Townsend, Julia Lovell and Maya Jasanoff.