Christmas Shopping for Historians

(Clio - Muse of History)

Cundill History Prize

     I happened to notice recently this headline: “British Historian Daniel Beer Wins 2017 Cundill History Prize” (by Chris Hampton in the Globe and Mail, Nov. 16, 2017). I did not know about this prize, nor did I know that it is the richest one in the world that is awarded for a work of non-fiction ($75,000 real dollars). Since it is the 10th anniversary of the award and since we should all be shopping I thought I would learn a little more about it while perhaps finding out about some good history books to buy as gifts.

     McGill University administers the Cundill History Prize which “recognizes and rewards the best history writing in English.” At the site linked above you will find a list of the past prize winners as well as the other contenders. The winner this year is The House of the Dead: Siberian Exile Under the Tsars by Daniel Beer. The runners-up are: Vietnam: A New History and The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century.

     F. Peter Cundill graduated from McGill and was a successful investor. He died in 2011. If you are more interested in Mr. Cundill and investing than in history you could have a look for his intriguingly titled biography: Routines and Orgies: The Life of Peter Cundill by Christopher Risso-Gill.  Mr. Risso-Gill also wrote, There's Always Something to Do: The Peter Cundill Investment Approach.

    If you require more choices for good history books, or if you are, like me, simply trying to avoid shopping then go to this omnibus site where you can spend the rest of your day: American Historical Association Announces 2017 Winners. Here are some of the awards listed along with the historical category:

The Herbert Baxter Adams Prize for an author’s first book in European history from 1815 through the 20th century

The George Louis Beer Prize in European international history since 1895

The Jerry Bentley Prize in world history

The Albert J. Beveridge Award on the history of the United States, Latin America, or Canada, from 1492 to the present

The James Henry Breasted Prize in any field of history prior to CE 1000

The John H. Dunning Prize for an author’s first or second book on any subject relating to United States history

The Morris D. Forkosch Prize in the field of British, British imperial, or British Commonwealth history since 1485

The Leo Gershoy Award in the fields of 17th- and 18th-century western European history

The John K. Fairbank Prize for East Asian history since 1800

    The winner of this prize is Vietnam: A New History by Christopher Goscha (Univ. du Québec à Montréal). As noted, this book was a Cundill finalist this year.

Post Script:

   Apart from the usual sources see also:

“Peter Cundill, a Canadian investment star, dies at 72:The Cundill Value Fund, started in 1974, still boasts a double-digit return after a lost decade for global stocks.” by Ellen Roseman, Toronto Star, Jan 28, 2011.

“Peter Cundill found wealth where others feared to tread,” Philip Fine, G&M, Feb. 17, 2011.

 And here is the usual bonus information:

Mr. Cundill was a proponent of ‘Value Investing’, a subject of interest to some at the Ivey Business  School at Western University where you can find a video by Mr. Cundill. 

And if you think it unusual that someone in commerce could be interested in history, see my earlier post about the “Schulich-Woolf Rare Book Collection”.