Hessell-Tiltman Prize
Marjorie Hessell-Tiltman was a member of PEN during the '60s and '70s. On her death in 1999 she bequeathed £100,000 to the PEN Literary Foundation to found a prize in her name.
This prize of £3,000 is awarded annually for a non-fiction book of specifically historical content. Entrants, which may include first British translations, are to be books of high literary merit - that is, not primarily written for the academic market - and can cover all historical periods up to and including the Second World War.
Publishers are invited to draw attention to a maximum of two books on their lists, but neither authors nor publishers can make submissions to the Judges.
This year’s winner of the Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History is A History of Christianity by Diarmaid MacCulloch, published by Penguin.
Diarmaid MacCulloch said: ‘I am delighted and honoured to have been awarded this prize, especially considering the formidable competition. I have always written to entertain myself, aware of my own low boredom threshold, and it pleases me greatly that the book has crept over the boredom threshold of others too.’
This year’s judging committee was comprised of distinguished historian Andrew Roberts (Chair), historian and broadcaster Lisa Hilton and historian and Chair of the Society of Authors, Tom Holland. The choice of winner was a unanimous decision from, say the judges, a Catholic, an Anglican and an agnostic. The judges felt the book was important in its subject and coverage. It was ambitious but entirely successful in making a case for Christianity in the modern world. It was meticulously researched, beautifully written and entirely readable by a general audience. It was, said Andrew Roberts, Chair of the Judges, ‘a fluent and thought-provoking read’.
The highly commended books were Amanda Vickery’s Behind Closed Doors: at Home in Georgian London' and Dominic Lieven’s Russia Against Napoleon. The judges felt both were outstanding in every way. The full shortlist was as follows:
Miranda Carter - The Three Emperors (Penguin Fig Tree)
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David Horspool - The English Rebel (Penguin Viking)
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Dominic Lieven - Russia Against Napoleon (Penguin)
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Diarmaid MacCullouch - A History of Christianity (Penguin)
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Josiah Ober: Democracy and Knowledge - Innovation and Learning in Classical Athens (Princeton)
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Timothy Ryback - Hitler's Private Library (Bodley Head)
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Jonathan Sumption - Hundred Years War: Vol III Divided Houses (Faber)
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Amanda Vickery - Behind Closed Doors: At Home in Georgian London (Yale)
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Christopher Wickham - The Inheritance of Rome (Penguin)
2008/09
Mark Thompson was awarded the 2008/9 Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History for The White War: Life & Death on the Italian Front 1915-1919 published by Faber & Faber. The 2008 judges were Professor Blair Worden (Chair), Professor Jeremy Catto and Geoffrey Wheatcroft.
The other shortlisted writers were:
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Mark Mazower - Hitler's Empire: Nazi Rule in Occupied Europe (Allen Lane)
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Philipp Blom - The Vertigo Years: Change and Culture in the West 1900-1914 (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
Leo Hollis - The Phoenix: St Paul's Cathedral and the Men Who Made Modern London (Weidenfeld & Nicolson) -
Frederick Spotts - The Shameful Peace: How French Artists and Intellectuals Survived the Nazi Occupation (Yale University Press)
2007/08
Clair Wills was awarded the 2007/8 Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History for That Neutral Island published by Faber. The Chair, Anthony Howard, felt he had learnt a great deal from the book and all three judges agreed that it had been an unexpected 'page turner'. The 2008 judges were: Anthony Howard (Chair), Gillian Tindall and Juliet Gardiner.
The runner up was:
Mark Mazower - Hitler's Empire: Nazi Rule in Occupied Europe (Allen Lane)
The other shortlisted writers were:
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Philipp Blom - The Vertigo Years: Change and Culture in the West 1900-1914 (W&N)
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Leo Hollis - The Phoenix: St Paul's Cathedral and the Men Who Made Modern London (W&N)
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Frederick Spotts - The Shameful Peace: How French Artists and Intellectuals Survived the Nazi Occupation (Yale)
2006/07
Vic Gatrell was awarded the 2006/7 Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History for City of Laughter: Sex and Satire in Eighteenth-Century London, published by Atlantic Books. Vic Gatrell said: 'I am delighted that the judges found City of Laughter an accessible book of some literary merit, since I firmly believe that it is the academic historian's obligation to write for more than a couple of hundred people, and to add more than a jargon-laden footnote to our understanding of the past.' The judges for the 2007 prize were David Gilmour (Chair) Alice Rawsthorn and Peter Furtado.
The other shortlisted writers were:
Jerry Brotton - The Sale of the Late King's Goods: Charles I and His Art Collection (Pan Macmillan)
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Deborah Cohen - Household Gods: The British and Their Possessions (Yale)
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William Dalrymple - The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi 1857 (Bloomsbury)
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J. H. Elliott - Empires of the Atlantic World - Britain and Spain in America, 1492-1830 (Yale University Press)
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Adam Tooze - The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy (Allen Lane)
2005/06
Bryan Ward Perkins was awarded the 2006 Hesell-Tiltman Prize for History for The Fall of
The other shortlisted writers were:
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Charles Townshend - Easter1916: The Irish Rebellion (Allen Lane Penguin Press)
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Simon Schama - Rough Crossings:
2004/05
Paul Fussell and Richard Overy were jointly awarded the 2005 Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History. The award went to Paul Fussell for The Boys' Crusade (Weidenfeld and Nicholdon) and to Richard Overy for The Dictators: Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia (Allen Lane/Penguin). The judges for the 2005 prize were: Raleigh Trevelyan (Chair), Caroline Moorehead and Adam Nicolson.
The other shortlisted writers were:
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Joachim Fest - Inside Hitler's Bunker - The Last Days of the Third Reich (Macmillan)
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Mark Mazower - Salonica, City of Ghosts: Christians, Muslims and Jews, 1430-1950 (Harper Collins)
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Jonathan Phillips - The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople (Jonathan Cape)
2004
Tom Holland won the 2004 Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History for Rubicon. The judges for the Hessell-Tiltman Prize in 2004 were Sir Peter Stothard (Chair), Eric Christianson and Jane Dunn.
The other shortlisted writers were:
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James Buchan - Capital of the Mind: How Edinburgh Changed the World (John Murray)
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Norman Davies - Rising'44: 'The Battle for Warsaw' (Macmillan)
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Richard Fletcher - The Cross and the Crescent: the dramatic story of the earliest encounters between Christians and Muslims (Penguin)
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Diarmaid MacCulloch - Reformation: Europe's House Divided 1490-1700 (Penguin)
2003
Jenny Uglow won the Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History 2003 for The Lunar Men (Faber). The Prize, £3000 plus a silver S.T.Dupont pen, was presented at International Writers' Day 2003 on 7th June at Senate House, University of London.
The other shortlisted writers were:
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William Dalrymple - White Mughals - Love and Betrayal in 18th Century India (HarperCollins/Flamingo)
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Geoffrey Moorehouse - The Pilgrimage of Grace - The Rebellion that Shook Henry VIII's Throne (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
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Munro Price - The Fall of the French Monarchy - Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette and the Baron de Breteuil (MacMillan)
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A N Wilson - The Victorians (Random House/Hutchinson)
2002
Margaret Macmillan won the inaugural Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History - £3000 plus a silver Dupont Pen - for Peacemakers (John Murray). "Peacemakers is a splendid history of the Versailles Conference, where the glitterers included Queen Marie of Roumania who arrived with a large entourage, a huge wardrobe, and demands for about half of Hungary," said Sir Stephen Tumim, Chair of the Panel of Judges, presenting the prize. Peacemakers also won the 2002 Samuel Johnson Award.