2025

The 2025 winners, as selected by judges Hugh St Aubyn, Gavin Francis and Durre Shahwar were:

• £10,000 – Rogelio Luque-Lora – LAND: A History of Belonging (Manchester University Press)
• £5,000 – Brigid Lowe – Shiver: The Lessons of the Lochs (Elliott and Thompson)
• £2,500 – Grace Jackson – Beautiful Island: A Journey Through Time in Taiwan (John Murray)

   

2024

The 2024 winners, as selected by judges Cal Flyn, Madhumita Murgia and Hugh St Aubyn, were:

• £10,000 – Seán Columb – My Scar Still Bleeds: A Journey into the Black-Market Trade in Organs (Guardian Faber)
• £5,000 – Louise Brangan – The Fallen: Ireland and the Magdalene Laundries (Vintage, The Bodley Head)
• £2,500 – Dorothy Wade – Altered States (Profile Books)

 

2023

The 2023 winners, as selected by judges Tom Burgis, Fiona St Aubyn and Leila Aboulela, were:

• £10,000 – Oliver Basciano – Outcast: A History of Us Through Leprosy (Faber & Faber)
• £5,000 – Taj Ali – Come What May, We’re Here to Stay: A Story of South Asian Resistance (Manchester University Press)
• £2,500 – Katherine Dunn – Right Here, Right Now: The Hidden History of How the Global Positioning System Shaped the Modern World (Mudlark, Harper Collins)

 

2022

The 2022 winners, as selected by judges Homi K. Bhahba, Fiona St Aubyn and Violet Moller, were:

• £10,000 – Nuzha Nuseibeh – Namesake  (Canongate, 2023)
• £5,000 – Ellen Atlanta – Pixel Flesh: Modern Beauty Culture and The Women It Harms (Headline, Hachette, 2023)
• £2,500 – Malachi McIntosh – A Revolutionary Consciousness: Black Britain, Black Power, and the Caribbean Artists Movement (Faber, 2025)
  

 

2021

The 2021 winners, as selected by judges Gwen Adshead, Fiona Boyle and Clive Myrie, were:

• £10,000 –Tomiwa Owolade – This is Not America (Atlantic Books, 2022)
• £5,000 – Tom Ireland – The Good Virus (Hodder & Stoughton, 2022)
• £2,500 – David Veevers – A New History of the World at the Dawn of British Expansion (Penguin Random House/Ebury, 2022)

 

2020

The 2020 winners, as selected by judges Damian Le Bas, Ramita Navai and Fiona St Aubyn, were:

• £10,000 –Doreen Cunningham – Soundings: A Journey with Whales (Virago, 2022)
• £5,000 – Alice Sherwood – The Authenticity Playbook (Harper Collins, 2022)
• £2,500 – Danny Lavelle – Down and Out: A Journey Through Homelessness (Wildfire, 2022)

 

2019

The 2019 winners, as selected by judges Fiona St Aubyn (Chair), Rachel Hewitt and Kenan Malik, were:

• £10,000 – Harry Davies – Operation Information (The Bodley Head, 2021)
• £5,000 – Olive Heffernan – The High Seas: The Race to Save the Earth’s Last Wilderness (Profile Books, 2021)
• Judges’ Special Commendation – Rebecca Fogg – Beautiful Trauma (Granta, 2022)

 

2018

The 2018 winners, as selected by judges Iain Sinclair (Chair), Laura Bates, Aida Edemariam and Fiona St Aubyn, were:

• £10,000 – Laurence Blair – Lost Countries of South America: Travels in a Continent’s Past and Present (The Bodley Head, 2020)
• £5,000 – Lily Le Brun – Looking to Sea: Britain Through the Eyes of its Artists (Hodder and Stoughton, 2020)
• Judges’ Special Commendation – Paul Craddock – Dragon in a Suitcase: A Cultural History of the Art of Transplant (Fig Tree, 2020)

 

2017

The 2017 winners, as selected by judges Richard Holmes (Chair), Afua Hirsch and Fiona St Aubyn, were:

• £10,000 –David Farrier – Footprints: In Search of Future Fossils (4th Estate, 2019)
• £5,000 – Lisa Woollett –Scavenging (John Murray, 2019)
• Judges’ Special Commendation – Joanna Jolly – Red River Girl: The Life and Death of Tina Fontaine  (Virago, 2019).