Strachan wins $100k Pritzker Award

Historian, author and military strategist Hew Strachan has been named the 10th recipient of the $100,000 (£67,944.02) Pritzker Military Museum & Library Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing.

The Pritzker Literature Award—which includes a medallion, citation, and $100,000 honorarium—recognizes and honours the contributions of a living author for a body of work dedicated to enriching the understanding of military history and affairs.

Strachan said: “Winning the Pritzker Literature Award means a great deal to me. I have given my lifetime to the study of military history, and the Pritzker award is a recognition of a lifetime achievement. So, for me, this is a form of validation of something to which I have dedicated many, many years of time and effort.”

Strachan is the author of 14 publications including the first installment of his three-volume work on World War I, The First World War: A New History (Simon & Schuster UK). His research interests centre on the military history and strategic studies, with particular interest in World War I and the history of the British Army. Strachan served as chair of Imperial War Museum’s academic advisory committee for its new World War I galleries and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s 2014-18 committee.

The Pritzker Museum & Library founder and chair, Jennifer N. Pritzker, said: "As we are now in the midst of the centennial of World War I – 1914-1918 – I could think of no one more appropriate than Hew Strachan to provide a global view of a war of 100 years ago that still deeply affects the lives of all of us.”

Now in its 10th year, the Pritzker Literature award was first presented to historian James McPherson in 2007. Past recipients – several of whom served as members of the award’s 2016 screening committee – are Allan Millett, Gerhard Weinberg, Rick Atkinson, Carlo D’Este, Sir Max Hastings, Tim O’Brien, Antony Beevor, and David Hackett Fischer.

A graduate of Cambridge University, Strachan is professor of International Relations at the University of St. Andrews, a life fellow of Corpus Christi College of Cambridge, and emeritus fellow of All Souls College of Oxford University.

Renowned for his expertise in military history, Strachan is also a respected advisor on contemporary military affairs in the United Kingdom. He is a member of the chief of defense staff’s Strategic Advisory Panel, the Defense Academy Advisory Board, and was a specialist advisor to the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the National Security Strategy. His services to the Ministry of Defense earned him a knighthood in 2013.

Strachan is a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Historical Society.

Pritzker will formally present Strachan with the award at the organisation’s annual Liberty Gala on 5th November at the Hilton Chicago, where he will be joined by past recipients.

The Pritzker Literature Award is sponsored by the Tawani Foundation.