ltmurnau | History Writing Prize

Former Montrealer sets up $75,000 prize for history writing
Last Updated: Friday, April 18, 2008 | 10:12 AM ET

A former Montrealer has established a lucrative new literary honour designed to shine a light on the genre of non-fiction history writing.

London-based investment manager Peter Cundill, a graduate of McGill University, has unveiled the $75,000 US Cundill International Prize in History.

McGill officials and the Cundill Foundation officially announced the new prize in Montreal on Thursday, with the inaugural winner to be named at a reception on Nov. 25. A short list will be revealed in October.

The new award "highlights the importance of looking to the past so that we may chart the best course for the future," Heather Munroe-Blum, McGill's principal and vide-chancellor, said in a statement.

Cundill, who graduated from McGill in 1960 and has lived in London for three decades, described a link between the world of finance and the study of history.

"Both study the past to understand the present and predict the future," he said.

In addition to presenting one author with $75,000 US for publishing a historical book (published in English or French) deemed "to have a profound literary, social and academic impact," the prize will also offer two "recognition of excellence" awards of $10,000 US each.

An independent jury will select each year's winners, with the first panel to include Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation president Timothy Aitken, Canadian writer Denise Chong, Canadian Senator Serge Joyal, professors Angela Shottenhammer (Munich), Roger Chartier (Paris) and Natalie Zemon Davis (Toronto).

About bloody time!
I haven't read any new good fiction in years, except maybe William Gibson. Yet non-fiction writing continues to improve. Most new books I buy these days are non-fiction, usually history.
But I acknowledge I am in the minority.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

That's fabulous.
I mostly read history books too - with a smattering of fiction for when I am sleepy or otherwise braindead.

What are some of your standout recent titles? What would you recommend?

Demon under the microscope, Devil in the White City (plus the two others by that author), and the Ghost Map were all quite good (for me).

Hm, I have picked up some recent things and I lack only the time and consciousness to read them. If I could shut my sleep centre down for a week or three, I could get caught up.

But seriously, I mostly do military history. Recently published titles I've picked up include two by Niall Ferguson (The War of the World and The Pity of War). Not everyone likes him but I like the way he is prepared to "go counterfactual" and explore alternatives.
Also:
- Anthony Beevor's The Battle for Spain, a new one on the Spanish Civil War (as I am gearing up to write an article on that war),
- a new biography of Zhou Enlai by Wenqian Gao (Zhou Enlai: The Last Perfect Revolutionary),
- Jun Chang's Mao: The Unknown Story, and
- MacFarquhar's Mao's Last Revolution. (gearing up to write about the Sino-Japanese War too).

I don't know anything about the jury members, but I would like to see the shortlist when it comes out.

I got the press release for this today - they haven't selected the shortlist or Jury yet, as the award will be awarded every October.

But when I hear developments, I'll share them.

Oh, and I've really beefed up our militaria sections (U/V) - totally updated the reference collection and added loads to the main stacks... not *just* for you, but you might find something good in there.

I also buy for History and Medieval studies, so keep those rec's coming, okay? I find them very useful.

Wow, thanks! The military history section has been looking a bit squeezed in recent years. The ones I've named are ones I own, so here are two books I would find interesting but haven't beena ble to find locally:

Hammes, Thomas X. The Sling and the Stone, don't know the ISBN - More has been written about guerrilla warfare, terrorism and "low-intensity-conflict" in the past seven years than in the 27 previous to that, and most of it is crap. This book isn't, from the excerpts I have been able to read.

Dunnigan, James (with Albert Nofi). Victory and Deceit: Deception and Trickery at War, 2nd edition, Writers Club Press, 2001. ISBN 0-595-18405-7. Can't find this one anywhere.

Ooh, thanks. I've just ordered both of these. Both were labelled "popular" by their publishers so they never made it onto my academic book selection lists. Figures.

So many books on these topics DO turn out to be crap,so I love the rec from someone more in the know than I.

We still have two professors of military history, but neither of them are much involved with the library, unfortunately. But I knew that U and V were out of date and awful, and had complaints even - so I've been working hard on it.

And I don't take care of Poli Sci anymore, but the new guy buys on Security and whatnot - the hard part's been weeding that section of all the outdated awful donated-in-the-70s crap. Still have LOTS of weeding to do.

See? I'm responsive to the community. :)

Thanks very much for this!
Stupid question: is there a classification for "Security and whatnot" that's distinct from "military and whatnot?"

Here are some more useful items:

FM 3-24, the Army's new manual on counterinsurgency - I got my copy at Munro's! The first Army manual with an annotated bibliography for further reading - I will post its contents later. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0226841510/

Networks Terror and Global INsurgency: some good writing on the topic.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0415348196/

Brave New War: havent' read it but it is getting good buzz.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471780790

No such thing as a stupid question! Yes. Post 9/11 especially, security is more political science (governments decide things), whereas military studies is what the actual military does, or decides to do, etc. I think that makes sense? You see older stuff classified slightly differently (80s and before) where anything to do with security operations would be U, but now that the US has all kinds of agencies doing security stuff, not just the military, it's expanded broadly.

There's also a whole category for border security, which hasn't really been a topic of interest until recently, and for multinational cooperation for security. Crazy.

So if a book is mostly about military affairs or actions or outcomes, it'll go in the U (v for navy) section - if it's about government debating or taking action etc. for security stuff, it'll go in the Js. Could also go into H for sociology (military life and culture is always H, as is women in combat, dependants, leadership, etc.).

I'm going to send our Poli Sci guy the list of books from the Army Manual bibliography, and see if he'll buy any of that for me. For that matter, see if he'll buy the manual, too.

You probably want "Security Dimensions -- International" which is JZ5688.2. But there are bits scattered around the whole Js... as well as loads that make it into the UV still.

That's what I suspected (the political/military decision split), but I wasn't sure where to look. Thanks!

A lot of the language in the LC classification is outdated, so I actually found some books on the topic and noted where they were housed, and then tracked that back to the LC manual... but ultimtely, I used the LC manual index.

No heading for 'counterinsurgency' though - but there is Guerrilla warfare and terrorism galore.

PS both of there are listed on Amazon.ca, if you want your own. :) That's the first place I look if it's not in our huge vendor database and I dont know the publisher.

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