The shortlist for the 2025 Cundill History Prize has been revealed, with eight books in contention for the annual award to a book that “embodies historical scholarship, originality, literary quality, and broad appeal.”
Greg Grandin made the shortlist for America, América: A New History of the New World, which covers 500 years in the history of North and South America. The book is a finalist for this year’s Kirkus Prize.
Marlene L. Daut’s The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe was named to the shortlist, alongside Emily Callaci’s Wages for Housework: The Feminist Fight Against Unpaid Labor; Kornel Chang’s A Fractured Liberation: Korea Under US Occupation; and Benjamin Nathans’ To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement.
Also making the shortlist were Lyndal Roper’s Summer of Fire and Blood: The German Peasants’ War; Sophia Rosenfeld’s The Age of Choice: A History of Freedom in Modern Life; and Martha A. Sandweiss’ The Girl in the Middle: A Recovered History of the American West.
Ada Ferrer, the chair of the prize’s jury, said in a statement, “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. The committee is so proud to present this slate of eight books to the world.”
The Cundill History Prize, administered by McGill University in Montreal, was established in 2008. Previous winners include Anne Applebaum for Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944–1956 and Kathleen DuVal for Native Nations: A Millennium in North America.
The winner of this year’s award will be announced on October 30.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
