The shortlist for the lucrative Cundill Prize in History at McGill has been revealed.
Selected from 143 non-fiction titles submitted by international publishers, the shortlist is:
- Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of our Nature: The Decline of Violence in History and Its Causes (Allen Lane/Penguin)
- Stephen Platt, Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, And the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War (Knopf)
- Andrew Preston, Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith: Religion in American War and Diplomacy (Knopf Canada)
This year’s jurors are Garvin Brown, executive vice-president of Brown-Forman Corporation; Charles R. Kesler, editor of the Claremont Review of Books; Vanessa Ruth Schwartz, professor of history, art history, and film at the University of Southern California; and Jeffrey Simpson, national affairs columnist at The Globe and Mail.
The winner, who will be announced on Nov. 29, will receive $75,000, making the Cundill Prize the largest non-fiction prize in the world.