March 27th 2025 in News

2025 Cundill History Prize Jury announced as record number of submissions received

Leading international historians and writers Sunil Amrith, François Furstenberg, Afua Hirsch and Francesca Trivellato join chair Ada Ferrer to complete the 2025 Cundill History Prize jury, deliberating over 400 submissions from across the globe including Canada, US and the UK in a record year.

Specialising across a breadth of historical periods and subjects, from the movements of people and the ecological processes that have connected South and Southeast Asia; to early modern European history, identity and belonging in contemporary Britain; to Latin America and the Caribbean, and the United States and the Atlantic World in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the 2025 jury bring a wealth of expertise.

Ada Ferrer said regarding the selection of her fellow jurors: “What a privilege and treat it will be to talk about history writing with these colleagues! Representing an array of fields and perspectives, they will be ideal partners in this endeavour to select the best history books of the year and to bring those books to the attention of a wider public. The world needs good history now as much as ever.”

Sunil Amrith, Renu and Anand Dhawan Professor of History at Yale University, said: “It is a privilege and a pleasure to be joining such a wonderful group of writers and historians on the Cundill Prize jury this year. I am eager to delve into this year’s submissions, and excited to have the opportunity to celebrate rigorous, innovative, brave, and engaging works of history. We have never needed them more than we do in these turbulent and dangerous times.”

François Furstenberg, Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies at John Hopkins University said: “One of the aspects I appreciate most about the historical discipline is its tendency to resist hard borders. Its tentacles stretch across the human and social sciences, its methods borrowing from them all. Some of the most influential works stretch beyond the academy itself: as much scholarship as literature. The Cundill Prize recognizes these aspects of great history: helping readers think differently about the familiar, and bringing richer perspectives to bear on the current world. I’m honored to be a part it.”

Writer, bestselling author, filmmaker, and journalist, Afua Hirsch said: “It has never been more crucial to engage wider and diverse audiences with insights and knowledge about history. I am in awe of writers who reel us into unfamiliar eras and places through a combination of deeply grounded research and creative, immersive storytelling. I’m thrilled to be part of a prize so that so brilliantly shines a light on books that deserve our recognition and most of all, to be widely read.”

Francesca Trivellato, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Early Modern European History at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, said: “It’s one thing to say that “history matters,” it’s another to show how and why. The Cundill History Prize plays a vital role in highlighting this distinction both within and beyond the academy, and I am honored to have the opportunity to serve on its jury.”

Last year, Kathleen DuVal, professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, was named the winner for her ‘unexpected’ history of 1,000 years in North America Native Nations (Random House USA). DuVal will deliver the Cundill Lecture this October as part of the Cundill History Prize Festival in Montreal.

Along with Kathleen DuVal (2024), this year’s winner will join the prize’s alumni of world-class historians, including 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), and Stuart B. Schwartz (2008).

The winner will be announced at the Cundill History Prize gala held in Montreal on Thursday, October 30, and the progress of jury deliberations and announcements will be shared to an ever-growing audience through a network of partners, which last year included CBC Ideas, Literary Hub, History Hit, BBC History Extra and Literary Review of Canada.