The Wolfson History Prizes are literary awards given annually in the United Kingdom to promote and encourage standards of excellence in the writing of history for the general public. Prizes are given annually for two or three exceptional works published during the year, with an occasional oeuvre prize (a general award for an individual's distinguished contribution to the writing of history). They are awarded and administered by the Wolfson Foundation, with winning books being chosen by a panel of judges composed of eminent historians.
In order to qualify for consideration, a book must be published in the United Kingdom and the author must be a British subject at the time the award is made and normally resident in the UK. Books should be readable and scholarly and be accessible to the lay reader. Prizes are awarded in the summer following the year of the books' publication; however, until 1987 prizes were awarded at the end of the competition year.
Established in 1972 by the Wolfson Foundation, a UK charitable foundation, they were originally known as the Wolfson Literary Awards.
(Until 1987, prizes were awarded at the end of the competition year. However, subsequent prizes were awarded in the summer following the year of the books' publication. Accordingly, there is no prize listed for 1988.)
2016Robin Lane Fox,
Augustine: Conversions and Confessions (Basic Books)Nikolaus Wachsmann,
KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps (Little, Brown)
2015Richard Vinen,
National Service: Conscription in Britain, 1945-1963 (Allen Lane, Penguin Books)Alexander Watson,
Ring of Steel: Germany and Austria-Hungary at War, 1914-1918 (Allen Lane, Penguin Books)
2014Cyprian Broodbank,
The Making of the Middle Sea (Thames & Hudson) Catherine Merridale,
Red Fortress: The Secret Heart of Russia's History (Allen Lane, Penguin Books)
2013Christopher Duggan,
Fascist Voices: An Intimate History of Mussolini’s Italy (Boydell Press) Susan Brigden,
Thomas Wyatt: The Heart’s Forest (Faber & Faber)
2012Susie Harries,
Nikolaus Pevsner: The Life (Chatto & Windus)Alexandra Walsham,
The Reformation of the Landscape (Oxford University Press)
2011Ruth Harris,
The Man on Devil's Island: The Affair that Divided France (Allen Lane, Penguin Books)Nicholas Thomas,
Islanders: The Pacific in the Age of Empire (Yale University Press)
2010Dominic Lieven,
Russia Against Napoleon: The Battle for Europe, 1807–1814 (Allen Lane: Penguin Press)Jonathan Sumption,
Divided Houses: The Hundred Years War (Vol. 3) (Faber & Faber)
2009Mary Beard,
Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town (Profile Books)Margaret M. McGowan,
Dance in the Renaissance: European Fashion, French Obsession (Yale University Press)
2008John Darwin,
After Tamerlane: The Global Story of Empire (Allen Lane)Rosemary Hill,
God’s Architect: Pugin & the Building of Romantic Britain (Allen Lane)
2007Adam Tooze,
The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy (Allen Lane: Penguin Press)Christopher Clark,
Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600–1947 (Allen Lane: Penguin Press)Vic Gatrell,
City of Laughter: Sex and Satire in Eighteenth-Century London (Atlantic Books)
2006Evelyn Welch,
Shopping in the Renaissance (Yale University Press)Christopher Wickham,
Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean, 400-800 (Oxford University Press)
2005David Reynolds,
In Command of History: Churchill Fighting and Writing the Second World War (Allen Lane: Penguin Press)Richard Overy,
The Dictators: Hitler's Germany; Stalin's Russia (Allen Lane: Penguin Press)
2004Diarmaid MacCulloch,
Reformation: Europe's House Divided 1490-1700 (Allen Lane: Penguin Press)Frances Harris,
Transformations of Love: The Friendship of John Evelyn and Margaret Godolphin (Oxford University Press)Julian T. Jackson,
The Fall of France: The Nazi Invasion of 1940 (Oxford University Press)
2003Robert Gildea,
Marianne in Chains: In Search of the German Occupation (Macmillan)William Dalrymple,
White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth-century India (HarperCollins)
2002Barry Cunliffe,
Facing the Ocean: The Atlantic and Its Peoples (Oxford University Press)Jerry White,
London in the 20th Century: A City and Its Peoples (Viking)
2001Ian Kershaw,
Hitler, 1936–1945: Nemesis (Allen Lane)Mark Mazower,
The Balkans (Weidenfeld & Nicholson)Roy Porter,
Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World (Allen Lane)
2000Andrew Roberts,
Salisbury: Victorian Titan (Weidenfeld & Nicholson)Joanna Bourke,
An Intimate History of Killing (Granta Books)
1999Antony Beevor,
Stalingrad (Viking)Amanda Vickery,
The Gentleman's Daughter: Women's Lives in Georgian England (Yale University Press)
1998John Brewer,
Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century (HarperCollins)Patricia Hollis
Jennie Lee: A Life (Oxford University Press)
1997Orlando Figes,
A People's Tragedy: A History of the Russian Revolution (Jonathan Cape)
1996H. C. G. Matthew,
Gladstone 1875–1898 (Oxford University Press)
1995Fiona MacCarthy,
William Morris: A Life for Our Time (Faber & Faber)John C. G. Rohl
The Kaiser and His Court: Wilhelm II and the Government of Germany (Cambridge University Press)
1994Barbara Harvey,
Living and Dying in England, 1100–1540: The Monastic Experience (Oxford University Press)Robert Bartlett,
The Making of Europe: Conquest, Colonization and Cultural Change, 950–1350 (Viking)
1993Robert Skidelsky,
John Maynard Keynes: The Economist as Saviour, 1920–1937 (Pan Macmillan)Linda Colley,
Britons: Forging the Nation 1707-1837 (Yale University Press)
1992Alan Bullock,
Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives (Harper Collins)John Bossy,
Giordano Bruno and the Embassy Affair (Yale University Press)
1991Colin Platt,
The Architecture of Medieval Britain: A Social History (Yale University Press)
1990Donald Cameron Watt,
How War Came: The Immediate Origins of the Second World War, 1938–1939 (William Heinemann)Richard A. Fletcher,
The Quest for El Cid (Huchinson)
1989Paul Kennedy,
The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 To 2000 (Unwin Hyman)Richard Evans,
Death in Hamburg: Society and Politics in the Cholera Years, 1830–1910 (Oxford University Press)
1987R. R. Davies,
Conquest, Coexistence, and Change: Wales, 1063–1415 (Oxford University Press)John Pemble,
The Mediterranean Passion: Victorians And Edwardians in the South (Oxford University Press)
1986J.H. Elliott,
The Count-Duke Of Olivares: The Statesman In An Age Of Decline (Yale University Press)Jonathan Israel,
European Jewry in the Age of Mercantilism, 1550–1750 (Oxford University Press)
1985John Grigg,
Lloyd George, From Peace To War 1912–1916 (Methuen)Richard Davenport-Hines,
Dudley Docker: The Life and Times of a Trade Warrior (Cambridge University Press)
1984Antonia Fraser,
The Weaker Vessel (Weidenfeld & Nicholson)Maurice Keen,
Chivalry (Yale University Press)
1983Martin Gilbert,
Winston S. Churchill: Finest Hour, 1939–1941 (Heinemann)Kenneth Rose,
George V (Weidenfeld & Nicholson)
1982John McManners,
Death and the Enlightenment: Changing Attitudes to Death Among Christians and Unbelievers in Eighteenth-Century France (Oxford University Press)
1981John Wyon Burrow,
A Liberal Descent: Victorian Historians and the English Past (Cambridge University Press)
1980F. S. L. Lyons,
Culture and Anarchy in Ireland, 1890–1939 (Oxford University Press)Robert Evans,
The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1550–1700: An Interpretation (Oxford University Press)
1979Richard Cobb,
Death in Paris: The Records of the Basse-Geôle de la Seine, October 1795 – September 1801, Vendémiaire Year IV-Fructidor Year IX (Oxford University Press)Mary Soames,
Clementine Churchill: The Biography of a Marriage (Cassell)Quentin Skinner,
The Foundations of Modern Political Thought (Cambridge University Press)
1978Alistair Horne,
A Savage War of Peace : Algeria, 1954–1962 (Macmillan)
1977Denis Mack Smith,
Mussolini's Roman Empire (Longman & Co)Simon Schama,
Patriots and Liberators: Revolution in the Netherlands 1780–1813 (Collins)
1976Nikolaus Pevsner,
A History of Building Types (Thames & Hudson)Norman Stone,
The Eastern Front: 1914–17 (Hodder & Stoughton)
1975Frances Donaldson,
Edward VIII (Weidenfeld & Nicholson)Olwen Hufton,
The Poor of Eighteenth-century France 1750–1789 (Oxford University Press)
1974Moses Finley,
The Ancient Economy (Chatto & Windus)Theodore Zeldin,
France, 1848–1945: Ambition, Love and Politics (Oxford University Press)
1973Frances Yates,
The Rosicrucian Enlightenment (Routledge & Keegan Paul)W. L. Warren,
Henry II (Eyre & Spottiswoode)
1972Michael Howard,
The Grand Strategy: August 1942 – September 1943 (Her Majesty's Stationery Office)Keith Thomas,
Religion and the Decline of Magic (Weidenfeld & Nicholson)
2005 – Christopher Bayly2002 – Roy Jenkins2000 – Asa Briggs1997 – Eric Hobsbawm1982 – Steven Runciman1981 – Owen Chadwick1978 – Howard Colvin