2026 Winner
John Doe Chinaman: A Forgotten History of Chinese Life under American Racial Law
Beth-Lew Williams | Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
“In John Doe Chinaman, Beth Lew-Williams unravels the paradoxes of anti-Chinese racial laws in the American West from the 1850s to the 1920s, analysing the intentions of these laws, their effects, and how Chinese migrants responded to them. Using a supple combination of data algorithms to process legal and bureaucratic records and trenchant storytelling, Lew-Williams documents the ghosting of these lives in the historical record, retrieving Chinese voices that show us some of what we are missing. This is a dazzlingly innovative and hard-hitting work.”
— Emily Greenwood, 2026 Chair of the Jury
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The Cundill History Prize 2026 Finalists
Nationalist Myth-Making, Methods of Social Control, and Strategies of Resistance
Read more here
The Cundill History Prize 2026 Shortlist:
8 books that "uncover histories that have been forgotten, silenced, or simply not intuited." — Emily Greenwood
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The 2026 Cundill History Prize Festival
22 - 23 October
Your event guide to The Cundill History Prize Lecture with Lyndal Roper, The Fringe, The Forum, and The Cundill History Prize Awards Ceremony.
Emily Greenwood, James F. Rothenberg Professor of Classics and Comparative Literature at Harvard University, will chair the 2026 jury for the US$75,000 Cundill History Prize.
Emily Greenwood said: "I’m honored to chair this year’s jury. It’s a pure, intellectual joy to get to discuss the entries in such brilliant company. My fellow jurors span diverse and immense areas of historical research and have made their own distinguished and impactful contributions to the fields of history, journalism, and literature."
2025 Winner
Summer of Fire and Blood: The German Peasants' War
Lyndal Roper | John Murray Press / Basic Books
“At the centre of her history are the peasants themselves. Roper traces the emergence, unfolding and eventual undoing of the rebellion and offers a vivid and compelling portrait of the peasants’ world. Through this lens, she delivers a history of the Reformation from the ground up—as it was lived and understood by the ordinary people, who often interpreted its message as far more radical than envisioned by its architects. Her analysis is stunning and multifaceted, seamlessly weaving together cultural, intellectual, social, economic and religious history into a rich and engaging narrative.”
— Ada Ferrer, 2025 Chair of the Jury
“The genius of Lyndal Roper is that she makes the past feel tangible. The story is fascinating in its own right, but it also offers vital context for understanding the broader history of Europe and the lasting global impact of the revolt. This is a crucial piece of history, and I’m so glad that I have had the chance to discover it.” - Afua Hirsch
