October 3rd 2024 in News

Native Nations, African American legal lives and Asia on Trial: Finalists for the 2024 Cundill History Prize Announced

The Cundill History Prize, the world’s leading prize for a work of history written or translated into English, has named its 2024 finalists.

Challenging dominant narratives, these ground-breaking writers provide new ways of seeing and understanding both our history and the present day.

• Judgement at Tokyo: World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia by Gary J. Bass – A landmark history of the post-World War II trials of Japan’s leaders as war criminals, which has shaped relationships throughout modern Asia.

• Native Nations: A Millennium in North America by Kathleen DuVal – A sweeping 1000-year history of the power of Indigenous North America, from ancient cities to fights for sovereignty that continue today.

• Before the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights by Dylan C. Penningroth – Stretching from the last decades of slavery to the 1970s, Before the Movement is an account of Black legal lives that looks beyond the Constitution and the criminal justice system, to recover a rich, broader vision of Black life.

Chair of the jury, historian and BBC broadcaster, Rana Mitter said: “The fierce urgency of history: that’s the force that runs through all three of our Cundill finalists. Each one is a brilliantly crafted, deeply researched work of historical scholarship. But each also speaks to issues that are still very much with us in the world of the 21st century – tense geopolitics, questions of law, rights, and society, and above all, the complex and often counterintuitive interactions of human beings in the past that illuminate the present.”

After a summer of intense reading and re-reading, Mitter was joined by 2024 jurors Nicole Eustace (New York University), Stephanie Nolen (The New York Times), Moses Ochonu (Vanderbilt University) and Rebecca L. Spang (Indiana University-Bloomington) to deliberate and decide which three books on their shortlist of eight best met the Cundill History Prize’s key criteria: craft, communication, and consequence.

Operating at the cutting edge of their practice, historians recognized by the Cundill History Prize show a commitment to historiographic innovation, drawing on a compelling range of sources, and continually redefining what constitutes a work of history. While demonstrating academic excellence, these writers offer unique ways of understanding our collective history and the modern world, bringing to life these fascinating stories in beautifully written, accessible books.

All three finalists will travel to Montreal for the Cundill History Prize Festival, taking place on the McGill campus, in Montreal, October 29-30, where they will appear on a panel together for the Cundill Forum.

The winner, who will see their prize money topped up to become US $75,000, will be announced at a ceremony in Montreal on October 30.

The Cundill History Prize is open to books from anywhere in the world, regardless of the author’s nationality, as well as works translated into English. This year, over 400 titles were submitted by trade and academic publishers from around the world.

The 2024 winner will join an exceptional alumni list of world-class historians: 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).