Congratulations to Professor Nandini Das whose book Courting India: England, Mughal India and the Origins of Empire has been shortlisted for the 2024 Wolfson History Prize. First awarded by the Wolfson Foundation in 1972, the Wolfson History Prize recognises and celebrates books which combine excellence in research with readability.
Professor Nandini Das commented: “I am both delighted and honoured to be part of this wonderfully wide-ranging, stellar shortlist. Courting India was a labour of love, and an attempt to recover something of the early history of the deeply fraught, deeply complicated relationship between the two countries I am fortunate to call home, so this recognition means even more to me.”
The overall winner will be selected by a judging panel which includes David Cannadine, Mary Beard, Richard Evans, Sudhir Hazareesingh, Carole Hillenbrand and Diarmaid MacCulloch. The judges describe Courting India as: "Illuminating, compelling and wonderfully rich in detail. This book is a startlingly original account of the early diplomatic encounter between Britain and precolonial India."
The other books in the 2024 shortlist are as follows:
Shadows at Noon: The South Asian Twentieth Century by Joya Chatterji (The Bodley Head)
Traders in Men: Merchants and the Transformation of the Transatlantic Slave Trade by Nicholas Radburn (Yale University Press)
Our NHS: A History of Britain’s Best-Loved Institution by Andrew Seaton (Yale University Press)
Winnie & Nelson: Portrait of a Marriage by Jonny Steinberg (William Collins)
Out of the Darkness: The Germans, 1942-2022 by Frank Trentmann (Allen Lane)
The winner of the Wolfson History Prize 2024 will be announced on Monday 2 December 2024.
Find out more about the prize and read an interview with Professor Das on the Wolfson History Prize website.
