2020 Winner A Fistful of Shells: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution by Toby Green
Shortlist Big Sister, Little Sister by Jung Chang The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company by William Dalrymple The Scoundrel Harry Larkyns and his Pitiless Killing by the Photographer Eadweard Muybridge by Rebecca Gowers Burning Down the Haus by Tim Mohr The Regency Revolution by Robert Morrison
Longlist Accursed Tower by Roger Crowley The Beauty and the Terror by Catherine Fletcher Shakespeare in a Divided America by James Shapiro The Russian Job by Douglas Smith Michael Tippett: The Biography by Oliver Soden Chaucer: A European Life by Marion Turner
2019 Winner The Spy and the Traitor by Ben Macintyre
Shortlist Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham How to Hide an Empire: A Short History of the Greater United States by Daniel Immerwahr I Am Dynamite!: A Life of Friedrich Nietzsche by Sue Prideaux The Race to Save the Romanovs by Helen Rappaport The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold Longlist ‘Cherry’ Ingram: The Englishman Who Saved Japan’s Blossoms by Naoko Abe The Restless Kings: Henry II, His Sons and the Wars for the Plantagenet Crown by Nick Barratt Japan Story: In Search of a Nation, 1850 to the Present by Christopher Harding The Royal Art of Poison: Fatal Cosmetics, Deadly Medicines and Murder Most Foul by Eleanor Herman Devices and Desires: Bess of Hardwick and the Building of Elizabethan England by Kate Hubbard The Real Lolita: The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel that Scandalized the World by Sarah Weinman
2018 Winner White King: Charles I – Traitor, Martyr, Murderer by Leanda de Lisle
Shortlist A History of Rome in Seven Sackings by Matthew Kneale The Fear and the Freedom: How the Second World War Changed Us by Keith Lowe Pie and Mash Down the Roman Road by Melanie McGrath The Debatable Land: The Lost World Between Scotland and England by Graham Robb Six Minutes in May: How Churchill Unexpectedly Became Prime Minister by Nicholas Shakespeare
Longlist Napoleon: The Spirit of the Age by Michael Broers Black Tudors: The Untold Story by Miranda Kaufmann Lady Fanshawe’s Receipt Book: An Englishwoman’s Life During the Civil War by Lucy Moore The Women Who Flew for Hitler: A True Story of Soaring Ambition And Searing Rivalry by Clare Mulley Hearts And Minds: The Untold Story of the Great Pilgrimage and How Women Won the Vote by Jane Robinson Houses of Power: The Places that Shapes the Tudor World by Simon Thurley