Here are the finalists for the 2024 Cundill History Prize. ‹ Literary Hub

Here are the finalists for the 2024 Cundill History Prize. ‹ Literary Hub

Literary Center

October 3, 2024, 7:52 am

Today, McGill University announced the finalists for the 2024 Cundill History Prize, which recognizes books that “address important contemporary issues.” The finalists will each receive $10,000; The winner, judged on “historical scholarship, originality, literary quality and diverse appeal,” will receive a $75,000 prize.

“The great urgency of history: This is the force that runs through all three of our Cundill finalists,” said historian Rana Mitter, chair of the jury, in a press release. “Each is a brilliantly crafted, deeply researched work of history. But each also addresses issues that still concern us in the 21st century world – tense geopolitics, questions of law, rights and society and, above all, the complex and often counterintuitive interactions of people in the past illuminating the present.”

The winner will be announced at a ceremony in Montreal on October 30. In the meantime, congratulations to the three finalists:

Gary J. Bass, Tokyo Verdict: World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia
(Picador, Pan Macmillan)

Kathleen DuVal, Native Nations: A Millennium in North America
(Penguin Random House)

Dylan C. Penningroth, Before the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights
(Liveright Publishing)