US$75k Cundill History Prize shortlist announced

The shortlist for the 2022 Cundill History Prize, which rewards ‘the best history writing in English’, have been announced.

The shortlisted titles are:

• In the Forest of No Joy: The Congo-Océan Railroad and the tragedy of French colonialism (J P Daughton, W W Norton)
• Cuba: An American history (Ada Ferrer, Scribner)
• The Perils of Interpreting: The extraordinary lives of two translators between Qing China and the British Empire (Henrietta Harrison, Princeton University Press)
• Aftermath: Life in the fallout of the Third Reich (Harald Jähner, trans by Shaun Whiteside, Ebury)
• All That She Carried: The journey of Ashley’s sack, a Black family keepsake (Tiya Miles, Random House)
• The Chinese Question: The gold rushes and global politics (Mae Ngai, W W Norton)
• Not One Inch: America, Russia, and the Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate (M E Sarotte, Yale University Press)
• Collapse: The fall of the Soviet Union (Vladislav M Zubok, Yale University Press).

The winner, awarded US$75,000 (A$114,800), will be announced on 1 December. Two runners-up will each receive US$10,000 (A$11,480).

Administered by McGill University in Montreal, the Cundill Prize is awarded annually to an individual from any country for a book that has had or is likely to have ‘a profound literary, social and academic impact in the area of history’. For more information about the prize, visit the website here.

Category: International news