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2021
Shortlist
Eat the Buddha - The Story of Modern Tibet Through the People of One Town by Barbara Demick
The History of Magic: From Alchemy to Witchcraft, from the Ice Age to the Present by Chris Gosden
Double Lives: A History of Working Motherhood by Helen McCarthy
Dresden: The Fire and the Darkness by Sinclair McKay
Waves Across the South: A New History of Revolution and Empire by Sujit Sivasundaram
Metropolis by Ben Wilson
Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art by Rebecca Wragg Sykes
2020
Winner
The Patient Assassin: A True Tale of Massacre, Revenge, and the Raj by Anita Anand

Shortlist
Time Song: Searching for Doggerland by Julia Blackburn
Imperial Intimacies: A Tale of Two Islands by Hazel Carby
A Fistful of Shells: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution  by Toby Green
A House in the Mountains: The Women Who Liberated Italy from Fascism by Caroline Moorehead
The Brothers York: An English Tragedy by Thomas Penn
Chinese Thought: From Confucius to Cook Ding by Roel Sterckx
2019
Winner
The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books: Young Columbus and the Quest for a Universal Library by Edward Wilson-Lee
2018
​Winner
Russia in Revolution: An Empire in Crisis, 1890 – 1928 by SA Smith

Shortlist
London's Triumph: Merchant Adventure and the Tudor City by Stephen Alford
Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine by Anne Applebaum
The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia by Masha Gessen
The Making of Black Lives Matter: A Brief History of an Idea by Christopher J Lebron
The Tiger in the Smoke: Art and Culture in Post-War Britain by Lynda Nead
2017
Winner
Black And British: A Forgotten History by David Olusoga

Shortlist
At The Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails by Sarah Bakewell
This Orient Isle: Elizabethan England and the Islamic World by Jerry Brotton
The Good Occupation: American Soldiers and the Hazards of Peace by Susan L Carruthers
Spitalfields: The History of a Nation in a Handful of Streets by Dan Cruickshank
The Cultural Revolution: A People's History, 1962–1976 by Frank Dikotter
Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World by Tim Whitmarsh
2016
Winner
The German War: A Nation Under Arms, 1939-45 by Nicholas Stargardt

Shortlist
SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard
The Silk Roads: A New History of the World by Peter Frankopan
If This is A Woman – Inside Ravensbruck: Hitler's Concentration Camp for Women by Sarah Helm
The Farthest Field: An Indian Story of the Second World War by Raghu Karnad
1606: William Shakespeare and the Year of Lear by James Shapiro
2015
Winner
God’s Traitors: Terror and Faith in Elizabethan England by Jessie Childs

Shortlist
The Fateful Year: England 1914 by Mark Bostridge
Pagan Britain by Ronald Hutton
The English and Their History by Robert Tombs
In These Times: Living in Britain through Napoleon's Wars by Jenny Uglow
2014
Winner
The Long Shadow: The Great War and the Twentieth Century by David Reynolds

Shortlist
Empires of the Dead: How One Man's Vision Led to the Creation of WW1's War Graves by David Crane
Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan by William Dalrymple
The First Bohemians: Life and Art in London's Golden Age by Vic Gatrell
Under Another Sky: Journeys in Roman Britain by Charlotte Higgins
The Undiscovered Country: Journeys Among the Dead by Carl Watkins
2013
Winner
Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II by Keith Lowe

Shortlist
A History of the World in Twelve Maps by Jerry Brotton
The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went To War In 1914 by Christopher Clark
The Last Crusade: The Epic Voyages of Vasco da Gama by Nigel Cliff
Destiny in the Desert: The Road to El Alamein by Jonathan Dimbleby
Governing the World: The History of an Idea by Mark Mazower
2012
Winner
The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood by James Gleick

Shortlist
The Taste of War: World War II and the Battle for Food by Lizzie Collingham
Norman Davies, Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe by Norman Davies
Britain's War Machine: Weapons, Resources and Experts in the Second World War by David Edgerton
To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914–1918 by Adam Hochschild
An Empire of Ice: Scott, Shackleton, and the Heroic Age of Antarctic Science by Edward J Larson
2011
Winner
The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt: the History of a Civilisation from 3000 BC to Cleopatra by Toby Wilkinson

Shortlist
A World on Fire: an Epic History of Two Nations Divided by Amanda Foreman
Levant: Splendour and Catastrophe in the Mediterranean by Philip Mansel
Berlin at War: Life and Death in Hitler's Capital 1939–1945 by Roger Moorhouse
2010
Winner
A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years by Diarmaid MacCulloch

Shortlist
Russia against Napoleon: The Battle for Europe 1807 to 1814 by Dominic Lieven
Behind Closed Doors: at Home in Georgian London by Amanda Vickery
2009
Winner
The White War: Life & Death on the Italian Front 1915-1919 by Mark Thompson
2008
Winner
This Neutral Island by Clair Wills

Shortlist
The Vertigo Years: Change and Culture in the West 1900–1914 by Philipp Blom
The Phoenix: St Paul's Cathedral and the Men Who Made Modern London by Leo Hollis
Hitler’s Empire: Nazi Rule in Occupied Europe by Mark Mazower
The Shameful Peace: How French Artists and Intellectuals Survived the Nazi Occupation by Frederick Spotts
2007
Winner
City of Laughter: Sex and Satire in Eighteenth-Century London by Vic Gatrell

Shortlist
The Sale of the Late King's Goods: Charles I and his Art Collection by Jerry Brotton
Household Gods: The British and Their Possessions by Deborah Cohen
The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi 1857 by William Dalrymple
Empires of the Atlantic World – Britain and Spain in America, 1492–1830 by JH Elliott
The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy by Adam Tooze
2006
Winner
The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization by Bryan Ward Perkins

Shortlist
Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution by Simon Schama
Easter 1916: The Irish Rebellion by Charles Townshend
2005
Winners
The Boys’ Crusade: The American Infantry in Northwestern Europe, 1944–1945 by Paul Fussell
The Dictators: Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Russia by Richard Overy

Shortlist
Inside Hitler's Bunker: The Last Days of the Third Reich by Joachim C Fest
Salonica, City of Ghosts: Christians, Muslims and Jews, 1430–1950 by Mark Mazower
The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople by Jonathan Phillips
2004
Winner
Rubicon: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic by Tom Holland

Shortlist
Capital of the Mind: How Edinburgh Changed the World by James Buchan
Rising ’44: The Battle For Warsaw by Norman Davies
The Cross and the Crescent: The Dramatic Story of the Earliest Encounters Between Christians and Muslims by Richard Fletcher
Reformation: Europe’s House Divided 1490-1700 by Diarmaid MacCulloch
2003
Winner
The Lunar Men: The Friends Who Made the Future 1730-1810 by Jenny Uglow

Shortlist
White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century India by William Dalrymple
The Pilgrimage of Grace: The Rebellion that Shook Henry VIII's Throne by Geoffrey Moorhouse
The Fall of the French Monarchy: Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette and the Baron de Breteuil by Munro Price
The Victorians by AN Wilson
2002
Winner
Peacemakers: The Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and Its Attempt to End War by Margaret Macmillan