Here are the finalists for the 2025 Cundill History Prize.

Today, McGill University announced the finalists for the 2025 Cundill History Prize, which honors history writing that “demonstrates excellence across the prize’s guiding criteria: craft, communication and consequence.” The winner, who will be announced at the Cundill Festival in Montreal on Thursday, October 30, will take home a prize of $75,000; each runner-up will receive $10,000.

“It was not easy to get from a list of eight truly excellent books to a slate of only three finalists,” said Jury Chair Ada Ferrer in a statement. “The books we selected speak to the extraordinary range and vibrancy of historical writing today. From a pathbreaking biography of a little understood Haitian King, to a masterful recreation of the German Peasants’ War of 1524, the largest popular uprising in Western Europe before the French Revolution, to an innovative exploration of how the idea and practices of choice have come to dominate modern life, all three books combine remarkable creativity, rigorous research, and engaging prose. These are wonderful books that deserve our attention and that will, I think, stand the test of time.”

Here are the finalists:

Marlene L. Daut, The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe