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PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize

The PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize is awarded to the best work of non-fiction of historical content covering a period up to and including World War II, and published in the year of the award. The books are to be of high literary merit, but not primarily academic. The prize is organized by the English PEN. Marjorie Hessell-Tiltman was a member of PEN during the 1960s and 1970s; on her death in 1999 she bequeathed £100,000 to the PEN Literary Foundation to found a prize in her name. Each year's winner receives £2,000.

Winners and shortlist
A blue ribbon () denotes the winner. 2000s 2002Margaret MacMillan, Peacemakers: The Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and Its Attempt to End War 2003William Dalrymple, White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in 18th Century IndiaGeoffrey Moorhouse, ''The Pilgrimage of Grace: The Rebellion That Shook Henry VIII's Throne'' • Munro Price, The Fall of the French Monarchy: Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette and the Baron de BreteuilJenny Uglow, The Lunar Men: The Friends Who Made the Future 1730–1810A.N. Wilson, The Victorians 2004James Buchan, Capital of the Mind: How Edinburgh Changed the WorldNorman Davies, ''Rising '44: The Battle for Warsaw'' • Richard A. Fletcher, The Cross and the Crescent: The Dramatic Story of the Earliest Encounters Between Christians and MuslimsTom Holland, Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman RepublicDiarmaid MacCulloch, ''Reformation: Europe's House Divided 1490–1700'' 2005Joachim Fest, ''Inside Hitler's Bunker: The Last Days of the Third Reich'' • Paul Fussell, ''The Boys' Crusade: The American Infantry in Northwestern Europe, 1944–1945'' (joint winners) • Mark Mazower, Salonica, City of Ghosts: Christians, Muslims and Jews, 1430–1950Richard Overy, ''The Dictators: Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia'' (joint winners) • Jonathan Phillips, The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople 2006Charles Townshend, Easter 1916: The Irish RebellionSimon Schama, Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American RevolutionBryan Ward-Perkins, The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization 2007Jerry Brotton, ''The Sale of the Late King's Goods: Charles I and His Art Collection '' • Deborah Cohen, Household Gods: The British and Their PossessionsWilliam Dalrymple, The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi 1857J. H. Elliott, Empires of the Atlantic World – Britain and Spain in America, 1492–1830Vic Gatrell, City of Laughter: Sex and Satire in Eighteenth-Century LondonAdam Tooze, The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy 2008Philipp Blom, The Vertigo Years: Change and Culture in the West 1900–1914Leo Hollis, ''The Phoenix: St Paul's Cathedral and the Men Who Made Modern London '' • Mark Mazower, ''Hitler's Empire: Nazi Rule in Occupied Europe'' • Frederick Spotts, The Shameful Peace: How French Artists and Intellectuals Survived the Nazi OccupationClair Wills, That Neutral Island: A cultural history of Ireland during the Second World War 2009Mark Thompson, The White War: Life & Death on the Italian Front 1915–1919 2010s 2010Dominic Lieven, Russia Against Napoleon: The Battle for Europe, 1807 to 1814Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand YearsAmanda Vickery, Behind Closed Doors: at Home in Georgian London 2011Amanda Foreman, A World on Fire: an Epic History of Two Nations DividedPhilip Mansel, Levant: Splendour and Catastrophe in the MediterraneanRoger Moorhouse, ''Berlin at War: Life and Death in Hitler's Capital 1939–1945'' • Toby Wilkinson, The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt: the History of a Civilisation from 3000 BC to Cleopatra 2012Lizzie Collingham, The Taste of War: World War II and the Battle for FoodNorman Davies, Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten EuropeDavid Edgerton, ''Britain's War Machine: Weapons, Resources and Experts in the Second World War'' • James Gleick, The Information: A History, a Theory, a FloodEdward J. Larson, An Empire of Ice: Scott, Shackleton, and the Heroic Age of Antarctic ScienceAdam Hochschild, To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914–1918 2013Jerry Brotton, A History of the World in Twelve MapsChris Clark, The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914Nigel Cliff, The Last Crusade: The Epic Voyages of Vasco da GamaJonathan Dimbleby, Destiny in the Desert: The Road to El AlameinKeith Lowe, Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War IIMark Mazower, Governing the World: The History of an Idea 2014David Crane, ''Empires of the Dead: How One Man's Vision Led to the Creation of WWI's World Graves'' • William Dalrymple, Return of a King: The Battle for AfghanistanVic Gatrell, ''The First Bohemians: Life and Art in London's Golden Age'' • Charlotte Higgins, Under Another Sky: Journeys in Roman BritainDavid Reynolds, The Long Shadow: The Great War and the Twentieth CenturyCarl Watkins, The Undiscovered Country: Journeys Among the Dead 2015Mark Bostridge, The Fateful Year: England 1914 • Jessie Childs, ''God's Traitors: Terror and Faith in Elizabethan England'' • Ronald Hutton, Pagan BritainRobert Tombs, The English and Their HistoryJenny Uglow, ''In These Times: Living in Britain Through Napoleon's Wars'' 2016Mary Beard, SPQR: A History of Ancient RomePeter Frankopan, The Silk Roads: A New History of the WorldSarah Helm, ''If This Is a Woman – Inside Ravensbruck: Hitler's Concentration Camp for Women'' • Raghu Karnad, The Farthest Field: An Indian Story of the Second World WarJames S. Shapiro, 1606: William Shakespeare and the Year of LearNicholas Stargardt, The German War: A Nation Under Arms, 1939–1945 2017 The shortlist was announced 7 June 2017. The winner was announced 10 July. • Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot CocktailsJerry Brotton, This Orient Isle: Elizabethan England and the Islamic WorldSusan L. Carruthers, The Good Occupation: American Soldiers and the Hazards of PeaceDan Cruickshank, Spitalfields: The History of a Nation in a Handful of StreetsFrank Dikötter, ''The Cultural Revolution: A People's History, 1962–1976'' • David Olusoga, Black and British: A Forgotten HistoryTim Whitmarsh, Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World 2018 The shortlist was announced 22 March 2018. The winner was announced 24 June 2018. • Stephen Alford, ''London's Triumph: Merchant Adventurers and the Tudor City'' • Anne Applebaum, ''Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine'' • Masha Gessen, The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed RussiaChristopher J. Lebron, The Making of Black Lives Matter: A Brief History of an IdeaLynda Nead, The Tiger in the Smoke: Art and Culture in Post-War BritainS. A. Smith, Russia in Revolution: An Empire in Crisis, 1890–1928 2019 The winner was announced 4 December 2019. • Edward Wilson-Lee, The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books: Young Columbus and the Quest for a Universal Library 2020s 2020 The shortlist was announced on 29 October 2020. The winner was announced on 1 December 2020. • Anita Anand, The Patient Assassin: A True Tale of Massacre, Revenge, and the RajJulia Blackburn, Time Song: Searching for DoggerlandHazel Carby, Imperial: A Tale of Two IslandsToby Green, A Fistful of Shells: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of RevolutionCaroline Moorhead, A House in the Mountains: The Women Who Liberated Italy from FascismThomas Penn, The Brothers York: An English TragedyRoel Sterckx, Chinese Thought: From Confucius to Cook Ding 2021 The shortlist was announced on 14 October 2021 and the winner on 7 December. • Barbara Demick, Eat the Buddha: Life and Death in a Tibetan TownChris Gosden, The History of Magic: From Alchemy to Witchcraft, from the Ice Age to the PresentHelen McCarthy, Double Lives: A History of Working MotherhoodSinclair McKay, Dresden: The Fire and the DarknessSujit Sivasundaram, Waves Across the South: A New History of Revolution and Empire • Ben Wilson, ''Metropolis: A History of the City, Humankind's Greatest Invention'' • Rebecca Wragg Sykes, Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art 2022 The shortlist was announced on 7 October 2022. • Rebecca Birrell, This Dark Country: Women Artists, Still Life and Intimacy in the Early Twentieth CenturyRaphael Cormack, ''Midnight in Cairo: The Female Stars of Egypt's Roaring '20s'' — honourable mentionAmitav Ghosh, ''The Nutmeg's Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis'' • Julie Kavanagh, The Irish Assassins: Conspiracy, Revenge and the Murders That Stunned an EmpireLouis Menand, The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold WarIan Sanjay Patel, ''We're Here Because You Were There: Immigration and the End of Empire'' • Francesca Stavrakopoulou, God: An Anatomy 2023 The shortlist was announced on Thursday, November 2nd, 2023. • Aviah Sarah Day and Shanice Octavia McBean, Abolition Revolution (Pluto Press) • Anna Della Subin, Accidental Gods: On Men Unwittingly Turned Divine (Granta) • Calum Jacobs, A New Formation: How Black Footballers Shaped the Modern Game (Merky Books) • Philippe Sands,''The Last Colony: A Tale of Exile, Justice and Britain's Colonial Legacy'' (Weidenfeld and Nicolson) • Julieann Campbell,On Bloody Sunday: A New History of the Day and Its Aftermath by Those Who Were There (Monoray) • Kojo Koram, Uncommon Wealth: Britain and the Aftermath of Empire (John Murray Press) 2024 The shortlist was announced on 14 November 2024. • Caroline Dodds Pennock, On Savage Shores: How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe (W&N) • Robert Gildea, Backbone of the Nation: Mining Communities and the Great Strike of 1984–85 (Yale University Press) • Katja Hoyer, Beyond the Wall: East Germany 1949–1990 (Allen Lane) • Ian Rutledge, Sea of Troubles: The European Conquest of the Islamic Mediterranean and the Origins of the First World War (Saqi Books) • Avi Shlaim, Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab-Jew (Oneworld) • Maria Smilios, The Black Angels: The Untold Story of the Nurses Who Helped Cure Tuberculosis (Virago) ==See also==
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