The Award Tally
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Wolfson History Prize

Wolfson Foundation

An annual British prize awarded to works of history that combine excellent scholarship with readability for a general audience, established in 1972 and administered by the Wolfson Foundation.

Search through 1,818 books

2025

  1. Survivors: The Lost Stories of the Last Captives of the Atlantic Slave Trade

    Hannah Durkin

    Won
  2. Embers of the Hands: Hidden Histories of the Viking Age

    Eleanor Barraclough

    Shortlisted

  3. Multicultural Britain: A People's History

    Kieran Connell

    Shortlisted

  4. The Eagle and the Hart: The Tragedy of Richard II and Henry IV

    Helen Castor

    Shortlisted

  5. The Gravity of Feathers: Fame, Fortune and the Story of St Kilda

    Andrew Fleming

    Shortlisted

  6. The Mysterious Case of the Victorian Female Detective

    Sara Lodge

    Shortlisted

2024

  1. Shadows at Noon: The South Asian Twentieth Century

    Joya Chatterji

    Won
  2. Courting India: England, Mughal India and the Origins of Empire

    Nandini Das

    Shortlisted

  3. Our NHS: A History of Britain’s Best-Loved Institution

    Andrew Seaton

    Shortlisted

  4. Out of the Darkness: The Germans, 1942-2022

    Frank Trentmann

    Shortlisted

  5. Traders in Men: Merchants and the Transformation of the Transatlantic Slave Trade

    Nicholas Radburn

    Shortlisted

  6. Winnie & Nelson: Portrait of a Marriage

    Jonny Steinberg

    Shortlisted

2023

  1. Resistance: The Underground War in Europe 1939-1945

    Halik Kochanski

    Won
  2. African and Caribbean People in Britain: A History

    Hakim Adi

    Shortlisted

  3. Portable Magic: A History of Books and their Readers

    Emma Smith

    Shortlisted
  4. The Perils of Interpreting: The Extraordinary Lives of Two Translators Between Qing China and the British Empire

    Henrietta Harrison

    Shortlisted

  5. The World the Plague Made: The Black Death and the Rise of Europe

    James Belich

    Shortlisted

  6. Vagabonds: Life on the Streets of Nineteenth Century London

    Oskar Jensen

    Shortlisted

2022

  1. Devil-Land: England Under Siege, 1588–1688

    Clare Jackson

    Won
  2. Fallen Idols: Twelve Statues That Made History

    Alex von Tunzelmann

    Shortlisted

  3. God: An Anatomy

    Francesca Stavrakopoulou

    Shortlisted

  4. Going to Church in Medieval England

    Nicholas Orme

    Shortlisted

  5. The Ottomans: Khans, Caesars and Caliphs

    Marc David Baer

    Shortlisted

  6. The Ruin of All Witches: Life and Death in the New World

    Malcolm Gaskill

    Shortlisted

2021

  1. Black Spartacus: The Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture

    Sudhir Hazareesingh

    Won
  2. Atlantic Wars: From the Fifteenth Century to the Age of Revolution

    Geoffrey Plank

    Shortlisted
  3. Burning the Books: A History of Knowledge Under Attack

    Richard Ovenden

    Shortlisted
  4. Double Lives: A History of Working Motherhood

    Helen McCarthy

    Shortlisted
  5. Ravenna: Capital of Empire, Crucible of Europe

    Judith Herrin

    Shortlisted
  6. Survivors: Children's Lives After the Holocaust

    Rebecca Clifford

    Shortlisted

2020

  1. The Boundless Sea: A Human History of the Oceans

    David Abulafia

    Won
  2. A Fistful of Shells: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution

    Toby Green

    Shortlisted
  3. A History of the Bible: The Book and Its Faiths

    John Barton

    Shortlisted
  4. Chaucer: A European Life

    Marion Turner

    Shortlisted
  5. Cricket Country: An Indian Odyssey in the Age of Empire

    Prashant Kidambi

    Shortlisted
  6. The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper

    Hallie Rubenhold

    Shortlisted

2019

  1. Birds in the Ancient World: Winged Words

    Jeremy Mynott

    Won
  2. Building Anglo-Saxon England

    John Blair

    Won
  3. Empress: Queen Victoria and India

    Miles Taylor

    Won
  4. Oscar: A Life

    Matthew Sturgis

    Won
  5. Reckonings: Legacies of Nazi Persecution and the Quest for Justice

    Mary Fulbrook

    Won
  6. Trading in War: London's Maritime World in the Age of Cook and Nelson

    Margarette Lincoln

    Won

2018

  1. A Deadly Legacy: German Jews and the Great War

    Tim Grady

    Won
  2. Black Tudors: The Untold Story

    Miranda Kaufmann

    Won
  3. Heligoland: Britain, Germany and the Struggle for the North Sea

    Jan Ruger

    Won
  4. Heretics and Believers: A History of the English Reformation

    Peter Marshall

    Won
  5. Out of China: How the Chinese Ended the Era of Western Domination

    Robert Bickers

    Won
  6. The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine

    Lindsey Fitzharris

    Won

2017

  1. Henry IV

    Chris Given-Wilson

    Won
  2. Henry the Young King, 1155–1183

    Matthew Strickland

    Won
  3. Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet

    Lyndal Roper

    Won
  4. Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts: Twelve Journeys into the Medieval World

    Christopher de Hamel

    Won
  5. Sleep in Early Modern England

    Sasha Handley

    Won
  6. The House of The Dead: Siberian Exile Under the Tsar

    Daniel Beer

    Won

2016

  1. Augustine: Conversions and Confessions

    Robin Lane Fox

    Won
  2. KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps

    Nikolaus Wachsmann

    Won

2015

  1. National Service: Conscription in Britain, 1945–1963

    Richard Vinen

    Won
  2. Ring of Steel: Germany and Austria-Hungary at War, 1914-1918

    Alexander Watson

    Won

2014

  1. Red Fortress: The Secret Heart of Russia's History

    Catherine Merridale

    Won
  2. The Making of the Middle Sea

    Cyprian Broodbank

    Won

2013

  1. Fascist Voices: An Intimate History of Mussolini's Italy

    Christopher Duggan

    Won
  2. Thomas Wyatt: The Heart's Forest

    Susan Brigden

    Won

2012

  1. Nikolaus Pevsner: The Life

    Susie Harries

    Won
  2. The Reformation of the Landscape

    Alexandra Walsham

    Won

2011

  1. Islanders: The Pacific in the Age of Empire

    Nicholas Thomas

    Won
  2. The Man on Devil's Island: The Affair that Divided France

    Ruth Harris

    Won

2010

  1. Divided Houses: The Hundred Years War. Vol. 3

    Jonathan Sumption

    Won
  2. Russia Against Napoleon: The Battle for Europe, 1807–1814

    Dominic Lieven

    Won

2009

  1. Dance in the Renaissance: European Fashion, French Obsession

    Margaret M. McGowan

    Won
  2. Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town

    Mary Beard

    Won

2008

  1. After Tamerlane: The Global Story of Empire

    John Darwin

    Won
  2. God's Architect: Pugin & the Building of Romantic Britain

    Rosemary Hill

    Won

2007

  1. City of Laughter: Sex and Satire in Eighteenth-Century London

    Vic Gatrell

    Won
  2. Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600–1947

    Christopher Clark

    Won
  3. The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy

    Adam Tooze

    Won

2006

  1. Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean, 400–800

    Christopher Wickham

    Won
  2. Shopping in the Renaissance

    Evelyn Welch

    Won

2005

  1. In Command of History: Churchill Fighting and Writing the Second World War

    David Reynolds

    Won
  2. The Dictators: Hitler's Germany; Stalin's Russia

    Richard Overy

    Won

2004

  1. Reformation: Europe's House Divided 1490–1700

    Diarmaid MacCulloch

    Won
  2. The Fall of France: The Nazi Invasion of 1940

    Julian T. Jackson

    Won
  3. Transformations of Love: The Friendship of John Evelyn and Margaret Godolphin

    Frances Harris

    Won

2003

  1. Marianne in Chains: In Search of the German Occupation

    Robert Gildea

    Won
  2. White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth-century India

    William Dalrymple

    Won

2002

  1. Facing the Ocean: The Atlantic and Its Peoples

    Barry Cunliffe

    Won
  2. London in the 20th Century: A City and Its Peoples

    Jerry White

    Won

2001

  1. Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World

    Roy Porter

    Won
  2. Hitler, 1936–1945: Nemesis

    Ian Kershaw

    Won
  3. The Balkans

    Mark Mazower

    Won

2000

  1. An Intimate History of Killing

    Joanna Bourke

    Won
  2. Salisbury: Victorian Titan

    Andrew Roberts

    Won

1999

  1. Stalingrad

    Antony Beevor

    Won
  2. The Gentleman's Daughter: Women's Lives in Georgian England

    Amanda Vickery

    Won

1998

  1. Jennie Lee: A Life

    Patricia Hollis

    Won
  2. Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century

    John Brewer

    Won

1997

  1. A People's Tragedy: A History of the Russian Revolution

    Orlando Figes

    Won

1996

  1. Gladstone 1875–1898

    H. C. G. Matthew

    Won

1995

  1. The Kaiser and His Court: Wilhelm II and the Government of Germany

    John C. G. Rohl

    Won
  2. William Morris: A Life for Our Time

    Fiona MacCarthy

    Won

1994

  1. Living and Dying in England, 1100–1540: The Monastic Experience

    Barbara Harvey

    Won
  2. The Making of Europe: Conquest, Colonization and Cultural Change, 950–1350

    Robert Bartlett

    Won

1993

  1. Britons: Forging the Nation 1707-1837

    Linda Colley

    Won
  2. John Maynard Keynes: The Economist as Saviour, 1920–1937

    Robert Skidelsky

    Won

1992

  1. Giordano Bruno and the Embassy Affair

    John Bossy

    Won
  2. Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives

    Alan Bullock

    Won

1991

  1. The Architecture of Medieval Britain: A Social History

    Colin Platt

    Won

1990

  1. How War Came: The Immediate Origins of the Second World War, 1938–1939

    Donald Cameron Watt

    Won
  2. The Quest for El Cid

    Richard Fletcher

    Won

1989

  1. Death in Hamburg: Society and Politics in the Cholera Years, 1830–1910

    Richard J. Evans

    Won
  2. The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 To 2000

    Paul Kennedy

    Won

1987

  1. Conquest, Coexistence, and Change: Wales, 1063–1415

    R. R. Davies

    Won
  2. The Mediterranean Passion: Victorians And Edwardians in the South

    John Pemble

    Won

1986

  1. European Jewry in the Age of Mercantilism, 1550–1750

    Jonathan Israel

    Won
  2. The Count-Duke of Olivares: The Statesman in an Age of Decline

    J. H. Elliott

    Won

1985

  1. Dudley Docker: The Life and Times of a Trade Warrior

    Richard Davenport-Hines

    Won
  2. Lloyd George, From Peace To War 1912–1916

    John Grigg

    Won

1984

  1. Chivalry

    Maurice Keen

    Won
  2. The Weaker Vessel

    Antonia Fraser

    Won

1983

  1. George V

    Kenneth Rose

    Won
  2. Winston S. Churchill: Finest Hour, 1939–1941

    Martin Gilbert

    Won

1982

  1. Death and the Enlightenment: Changing Attitudes to Death Among Christians and Unbelievers in Eighteenth-Century France

    John McManners

    Won

1981

  1. A Liberal Descent: Victorian Historians and the English Past

    John Wyon Burrow

    Won

1980

  1. Culture and Anarchy in Ireland, 1890–1939

    F. S. L. Lyons

    Won
  2. The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1550–1700: An Interpretation

    Robert Evans

    Won

1979

  1. Clementine Churchill: The Biography of a Marriage

    Mary Soames

    Won

  2. Death in Paris: The Records of the Basse-Geôle de la Seine, October 1795 – September 1801, Vendémiaire Year IV-Fructidor Year IX

    Richard Cobb

    Won
  3. The Foundations of Modern Political Thought

    Quentin Skinner

    Won

1978

  1. A Savage War of Peace: Algeria, 1954–1962

    Alistair Horne

    Won

1977

  1. Mussolini's Roman Empire

    Denis Mack Smith

    Won
  2. Patriots and Liberators: Revolution in the Netherlands 1780–1813

    Simon Schama

    Won

1976

  1. A History of Building Types

    Nikolaus Pevsner

    Won
  2. The Eastern Front: 1914–17

    Norman Stone

    Won

1975

  1. Edward VIII

    Frances Donaldson

    Won
  2. The Poor of Eighteenth-century France 1750–1789

    Olwen Hufton

    Won

1974

  1. France, 1848–1945: Ambition, Love and Politics

    Theodore Zeldin

    Won
  2. The Ancient Economy

    Moses Finley

    Won

1973

  1. Henry II

    W. L. Warren

    Won
  2. The Rosicrucian Enlightenment

    Frances Yates

    Won

1972

  1. Religion and the Decline of Magic

    Keith Thomas

    Won
  2. The Grand Strategy: August 1942 – September 1943

    Michael Howard

    Won