Wolfson History Prize
The Wolfson History Prize is an annual literary award in the United Kingdom which is intended to promote and encourage 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. They are awarded and administered by the Wolfson Foundation, with winning books being chosen by a panel of judges composed of 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.
Honourees
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
2010s
Awards after 2016 have a winner and shortlist of five.| Year | Author | Title | Publisher | |
| 2010 | Russia Against Napoleon: The Battle for Europe, 1807–1814 | Allen Lane, Penguin Press | ||
| 2010 | Divided Houses: The Hundred Years War. Vol. 3 | Faber and Faber | ||
| 2011 | ' | Allen Lane, Penguin Press | ||
| 2011 | Islanders: The Pacific in the Age of Empire | Yale University Press | ||
| 2012 | Nikolaus Pevsner: The Life | Chatto & Windus | ||
| 2012 | ' | Oxford University Press | ||
| 2013 | Thomas Wyatt: The Heart's Forest | Faber and Faber | ||
| 2013 | Fascist Voices: An Intimate History of Mussolini's Italy | Boydell Press | ||
| 2014 | ' | Thames & Hudson | ||
| 2014 | Red Fortress: The Secret Heart of Russia's History | Allen Lane, Penguin Books | ||
| 2015 | National Service: Conscription in Britain, 1945–1963 | Allen Lane, Penguin Books | ||
| 2015 | Ring of Steel: Germany and Austria-Hungary at War, 1914-1918 | Allen Lane, Penguin Books | ||
| 2016 | Augustine: Conversions and Confessions | Basic Books | ||
| 2016 | KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps | Little, Brown and Company | ||
| 2017 | ' | Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts: Twelve Journeys into the Medieval World | Allen Lane | |
| 2017 | ' | Penguin Books | ||
| 2017 | Henry IV | Yale University Press | ||
| 2017 | Sleep in Early Modern England | Yale University Press | ||
| 2017 | Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet | Vintage | ||
| 2017 | Henry the Young King, 1155–1183 | Yale University Press | ||
| 2018 | ' | Heretics and Believers: A History of the English Reformation | Yale University Press | |
| 2018 | Out of China: How the Chinese Ended the Era of Western Domination | Penguin Books | ||
| 2018 | The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine | Farrar, Straus and Giroux | ||
| 2018 | ' | Yale University Press | ||
| 2018 | Black Tudors: The Untold Story | Oneworld Publications | ||
| 2018 | Heligoland: Britain, Germany and the Struggle for the North Sea | Oxford University Press | ||
| 2019 | ' | Reckonings: Legacies of Nazi Persecution and the Quest for Justice | Oxford University Press | |
| 2019 | Building Anglo-Saxon England | Princeton University Press | ||
| 2019 | Trading in War: London's Maritime World in the Age of Cook and Nelson | Yale University Press | ||
| 2019 | Birds in the Ancient World: Winged Words | Oxford University Press | ||
| 2019 | Oscar: A Life | Head of Zeus | ||
| 2019 | Empress: Queen Victoria and India'' | Yale University Press |
2020s
List of winners of the Oeuvre Prize
- 2005 – Christopher Bayly
- 2002 – Roy Jenkins
- 2000 – Asa Briggs
- 1997 – Eric Hobsbawm
- 1982 – Steven Runciman
- 1981 – Owen Chadwick
- 1978 – Howard Colvin