Timothy Garton Ash wins Lionel Gelber Prize for book on modern European history

TORONTO — A modern history of eastern and central Europe has won this year’s $50,000 Lionel Gelber Prize

Jurors awarded the prize to Oxford University professor Timothy Garton Ash, for his book “Homelands: A Personal History of Europe.”

The book charts Europe’s recent history, including Garton Ash’s firsthand accounts of course-changing events.

Presented by the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs, the Lionel Gelber Prize is handed out annually to the world’s top English non-fiction book on international affairs.

This year’s short list also included Canadian scholar Wendy Wong’s “We, the Data: Human rights in the digital age” and “Seven Crashes: The economic crises that shaped globalization” by Harold James.

Also nominated were “Underground Empire: How America weaponized the world economy” by Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman, and “Power and Progress: Our 1,000-year struggle over technology and prosperity” by Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 6, 2024.

The Canadian Press