English PEN announced today, Thursday 16 July 2026, that Peacemakers by Margaret MacMillan has won the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize “Winner of Winners” award, a special anniversary edition of the Prize for historical non-fiction, marking its 25th and final year.
Peacemakers (John Murray), which explores the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, was the winner of the inaugural PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize in 2002. The Prize of £2,000 has been awarded annually since then. It was established through a generous bequest from former PEN member Marjorie Hessell-Tiltman, who provided £100,000 in 1999 to the PEN Literary Foundation to found a prize in her name.
The “Winner of Winners” was chosen from previous Prize-winning titles, by returning judges from past years: critic and broadcaster Shahidha Bari; historian, academic, and critic Kathryn Hughes; and the Migration Museum’s artistic director Aditi Anand, with Isabelle Hessell-Tiltman acting as non-voting Chair – the first time a member of the Hessell-Tiltman family has been a part of the Prize.
Isabelle Hessell-Tiltman said: “Peacemakers was the very first winner of the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize. Twenty-five years later, its selection as ‘Winner of Winners’ is a testament to the book’s enduring quality and relevance. Through meticulous research and exceptional storytelling, Margaret MacMillan brought a pivotal moment in international diplomacy to life for a wide readership, creating a work that continues to resonate today.”
Daniel Gorman, Director, English PEN said: “We are honoured to present the final PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize to Margaret MacMillan, our first ever winner in 2002. It has been a privilege for English PEN to administer the Prize for more than two decades, celebrating outstanding works of historical non-fiction. We extend our heartfelt thanks to this year’s judges, as well as to all the judges and winners who have contributed to the Prize’s remarkable legacy and helped to enrich the field of historical non-fiction – over 100 writers, critics and literary colleagues who have permanently shifted our literary landscape for the better.”
Aditi Anand said: “Peacemakers takes hold of you from the very first page, immersing you in the personalities and idiosyncrasies that shaped a pivotal moment in history. Brimming with witty details and revealing quotes, the book effortlessly combines original scholarship with literary flair, resulting in a deeply engrossing read. Remarkably fresh even 25 years after publication, it avoids polemics while offering profound insights into our present moment and how we got here.”
Shahidha Bari said: “25 years on since its publication, Margaret MacMillan’s Peacemakers remains a model for history writing: immensely readable, radical in its challenge to orthodoxies and vividly alive with the personalities and politics it brings to life. Both serious and gossipy, in the best ways, MacMillan is a fearsomely knowledgeable and marvellously companionable guide to this pivotal moment in the twentieth century, whose consequences we continue to live out. How is it that such a complex story can be told with such crystal clarity? An astonishing achievement.”
Kathryn Hughes said: “Peacemakers is that extraordinary thing, a book which transcends its moment to become a bona fide classic. It speaks to that extraordinary moment in 1919 when the great powers met to put the world back together again after the most devastating conflict in human history. But it also offers a stark reminder to us today of what we are close to losing unless wiser and cooler heads prevail. And it does it all with a unique combination of rigorous scholarship and emotional generosity. Peacemakers is, in short, a blueprint for humanity in the twenty first century.”
The judges appeared at a special event in conversation with previous winners MacMillan, Anita Anand, Kojo Koram, Keith Lowe, Diarmaid MacCulloch, David Olusoga, Richard Overy, David Reynolds, Avi Shlaim, Stephen A Smith, Francesca Stavrakopoulou, Jenny Uglow, Edward Wilson-Lee, and Rebecca Wragg Sykes, at Foyles Charing Cross on 16 July to consider the past, present, and future of historical non-fiction, asking: what is its role in an era of instability and disinformation? Through which lenses and voices should we analyse global events? And what can books do when history seems to be repeating itself?
Following the conversation, MacMillan’s Peacemakers was announced as the “Winner of Winners” live at the event by Isabelle Hessell-Tiltman.
Margaret MacMillan is an emeritus Professor of History at the University of Toronto and emeritus Professor of International History, and former Warden of St. Antony’s College at the University of Oxford. Her books include Paris 1919: Six Months that Changed the World (2001, 2002); Nixon in China: Six Days that Changed the World (2006, 2007); and The War that Ended Peace (2014). Her most recent book is War: How Conflict Shaped Us (2020).
She gave the CBC’s Massey lectures in 2015 and the BBC’s Reith lectures in 2018. She is a Trustee of the Imperial War Museum, of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and the Institute of Human Sciences (Vienna). She contributes to and comments frequently on the media both in Canada and abroad.
The PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize of £2,000 has been awarded annually since 2002 for a non-fiction book of specifically historical content. Entrants are books of high literary merit – that is, not primarily written for the academic market – and can cover all historical periods. Marjorie Hessell-Tiltman was a member of PEN during the 1960s and 1970s. On her death in 1999 she bequeathed £100,000 to the PEN Literary Foundation to found a prize in her name.