Reynolds wins PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize

Cambridge professor David Reynolds has won the 2014 PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History with his book The Long Shadow: the Great War and the Twentieth Century (Simon & Schuster).

He was up against a shortlist dominated by war titles, including David Crane’s Empires of the Dead (William Collins), about the man who established World War One’s war graves, and William Dalrymple’s account of the first Anglo-Afghan war, Return of a King (Bloomsbury).

The Prize was awarded by judges Anne Chisholm (chair), Michael Prodger and Anna Whitelock. Chisholm, also the chair of the Royal Society of Literature, said of the winning title: "If you only read one book about the First World War in this anniversary year, read The Long Shadow. David Reynolds writes superbly and his analysis is compelling and original."
                                                                                               
In The Long Shadow, Reynolds seeks to re-address our overriding sense of the First World War as a futile bloodbath. Exploring themes such as democracy and empire, nationalism and capitalism and re-examining the differing impacts of the War on Britain, Ireland and the United States, the book demonstrates that it is a conflict that Britain, more than any other nation, is still struggling to comprehend.

Reynolds is professor of international history and a gellow of Christ's College. He was elected a gellow of the British Academy in 2005 and a member of the Society of American Historians in 2011. The Long Shadow will be a major 4-part BBC series in 2014.
 
The £2,000 PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize is awarded annually for titles of high literary merit covering historical periods until the end of the 1960s. The PEN Hessell-Tiltman 2014 Prize for History will be presented to Reynolds on Thursday 10th April at 4pm on the PEN Literary Salon at London Book Fair, Earls Court.