Zubok, Ferrer and Miles named $75k Cundill History Prize finalists

Vladislav M Zubok, Ada Ferrer and Tiya Miles have been announced as finalists for the $75,000 (£54,500) Cundill History Prize, the highest value non-fiction award in the world.

The announcement was made by J R McNeill, chair of the jury, across the social media channels of the prize.

Jurors selected a trio of titles that explore themes of revolution, resilience and independence.

In Collapse (Yale University Press), which explorers the demise of the Soviet Union, Zubok, professor of international history at the London School of Economics, sheds light on Russian democratic populism, the Baltic struggle for independence, the crisis of Soviet finances and the fragility of authoritarian state power. 

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for History, Ferrer’s Cuba: An American History (Scribner) provides an analysis of the evolution of the modern nation, with its record of conquest and colonisation, slavery, independence and revolutions.

In All That She Carried (Penguin Random House), Miles, professor of history at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute, traces the life of a single object handed down through three generations of Black women to “craft an extraordinary testament to people who are left out of the archives”, the judges said. “It honours the creativity and fierce resourcefulness of people who preserved family ties even when official systems refused to do so.”

Juror Misha Glenny said: “These titles speak to the extraordinary innovation we are seeing in history writing. But their conclusions demonstrate that if we are to overcome the immense political, social and economic challenges we currently face, we need to seek the advice of great historians. Their research methods are uniformly thorough and in each case innovative. Their narrative drive is spirited and their conclusions revelatory.”

McNeill said: “Arriving at a list of three superb finalists from the shortlist of eight excellent books required making difficult judgements and fine distinctions. Still harder judgements remain, as these three books differ markedly from the other two in scope and approach. What they share is the imagination, craft, and modulated passion that underlie all lasting creative achievement.”

Juror Kenda Mutongi added: “We read many fantastic books and it was extremely difficult to narrow them down to the final three. The finalist books are both methodologically innovative and a joy to read. They are also distinguished by the rigour and breath of their research, and by the wit and imagination with which their authors conceived and executed them.”

The winner will be announced on 1st December.