The world’s leading prize for a work of history written or translated into English, the Cundill History Prize today announced its 2026 longlist of 15 books, chosen from almost 400 submissions from across the world.

By Andrew Richard Albanese, Editor-in-Chief

Canada’s Cundill History Prize, awarded annually to a book that demonstrates excellence in history writing in English, has announced its 2026 longlist. This year’s roster singles out 15 books that span the globe, with titles ranging from modern South Asia, to the legacy of the Magdalene laundries in Ireland, post-Second World War colonial Africa, and the hidden story of Indigenous slavery in U.S. history. The award, administered by McGill University in Montreal and awarded by a jury, offers a $75,000 prize to the winner, and $10,000 each to three runners-up. A shortlist will be announced on Wednesday, September 2, with the winner to be announced at an event set for October 23 in Montreal.

This year’s longlist includes:

• Zara Anishanslin—The Painter’s Fire: A Forgotten History of the Artists Who Championed the American Revolution (Harvard University Press)
• Louise Brangan—The Fallen: The Magdalene Laundries and Ireland’s Legacy of Silence (Bodley Head)
• Jonathan Cheng—Korean Messiah: Kim Il Sung and the Christian Roots of North Korea’s Personality Cult (Knopf)
• Carol Chillington Rutter—Lying Abroad: Henry Wotton and the Invention of Diplomacy (Manchester University Press)
• Catherine Conybeare—Augustine the African (Liveright/Profile Books)
• Sam Dalrymple—Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia (William Collins)
• Linford D. Fisher—Stealing America: The Hidden Story of Indigenous Slavery in US History (Liveright/WW Norton)
• Howard W. French—Nkrumah, Pan-Africanism, and Global Blackness at High Tide (Liveright/WW Norton)
• Paul Gillingham—Mexico: A 500-year History (Grove Atlantic)
• Eric T. Jennings—Vanilla: The History of an Extraordinary Bean (Yale University Press)
• Alexander Lee—The First Ghetto: Venice and the Jews (Picador)
• Jill Lepore—We The People: A History of the US Constitution (Liveright/John Murray Press)
• Beth Lew-Williams—John Doe Chinaman: A Forgotten History of Chinese Life Under American Racial Law (The Belknap
Press of Harvard University Press)
• Barnaby Phillips—The African Kingdom of Gold: Britain and the Asante Treasure (Oneworld)
• Joseph Torigian—The Party’s Interests Come First: The Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping (Stanford University Press)

“We are always in history but not always conscious of it. The best analytical and interpretative historical works reveal the past to us in staggering, new ways. Not only do the fifteen works on this year’s longlist recover history through fresh archival research, but they also offer new lines of sight on matters that continue to weigh heavily on us in the present,” said jury chair Emily Greenwood, James F. Rothenberg Professor of Classics at Harvard University, in a statement.

Greenwood, who replaced Timothy Brook, Emeritus Professor at the University of British Columbia, has was forced to step down earlier this year for due to “unforeseen circumstances,” was joined by leading international historians Ned Blackhawk, Barbara Weinstein, and journalist and author Fergal Keane on this year’s jury.

More information about the award is available here.