By Erin L. Cox, Publisher | @erinlcox
Today, the Cundhill History Prize, administered by Magill University in Montreal, announced the eight titles on the shortlist.“I feel a great sense of excitement and conviction about this shortlist. Each book on this list invites readers into an absorbing prose world and leaves them with a different reckoning of history. Taken together, they uncover histories that have been forgotten, silenced, or simply not intuited because we lacked the evidence and interpretative frameworks to grasp unobvious connections and to question settled accounts,” said Emily Greenwood, Chair of the Jury and James F. Rothenberg Professor
of Classics at Harvard University.
“Crucially, each shortlisted work encompasses different domains of history and evinces subtle, interdisciplinary ways of knowing the past and how we relate to it, blending fresh archival research, deep historical acumen, and strong narrative verve.”
From the central role of Christianity in North Korea’s Kim Dynasty to how the world’s only edible orchid – vanilla – became so crucial to the international culinary and cultural landscape, the eight shortlisted titles showcase the breadth of history writing and publishing today.
These titles were selected from almost 400 international submissions – with the prize open to any book of nonfiction published in English from any country, by a writer living anywhere in the world.
Chaired by Greenwood, the 2026 jury includes leading historians and writers Ned Blackhawk, Howard R. Lamar Professor of History at Yale University; Fergal Keane, award-winning BBC journalist and author; and Barbara Weinstein, Silver Professor of History at New York University and past President of the American Historical Association.
The 2026 Cundill History Prize Shortlist
Louise Brangan — The Fallen: The Magdalene Laundries and Ireland’s Legacy of Silence (Bodley Head)
Jonathan Cheng — Korean Messiah: Kim Il Sung and the Christian Roots of North Korea’s Personality Cult (Knopf)
Sam Dalrymple — Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia (William Collins)
Linford D. Fisher — Stealing America: The Hidden Story of Indigenous Slavery in US History (Liveright/W.W. Norton)
Eric T. Jennings — Vanilla: The History of an Extraordinary Bean (Yale University Press)
Alexander Lee — The First Ghetto: Venice and the Jews (Picador)
Jill Lepore — We The People: A History of the US Constitution (Liveright/John Murray Press)
Beth Lew-Williams — John Doe Chinaman: A Forgotten History of Chinese Life Under American Racial Law (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press)
“Through their deliberations the Cundill Jury has arrived at a fantastic shortlist that highlights the human experience in a changing world, whether those changes involve the development of new commodities or shifts in political power and emerging nations,” said Lisa Shapiro, Dean of Arts at McGill University.
“These eight books reflect outstanding history writing that affords fresh insights on the world around us. The jurors now turn to settling first on the finalists and then ultimately the winner. We are looking forward to engaging with those books and authors in a packed calendar of events in October at the Cundill History Prize Festival and winner announcement in Montreal.”
The three finalists will be announced on September 30th and the winner on October 23rd as part of the Cundill History Prize Festival in Montreal. The two runners-up will each receive US$10,000 while the winner will receive the US$75,000 prize. The Cundill Lecture, delivered by last year’s winner Lyndal Roper, is scheduled for the evening of October 22nd.