The Lionel Gelber Prize is a literary award for English non-fiction books on foreign policy. Founded in 1989 by Canadian diplomat Lionel Gelber, the prize honors "the world's best non-fiction book in English on foreign affairs that seeks to deepen public debate on significant international issues." A prize of , is awarded to the winner. The award is presented annually by the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy at the University of Toronto.
Recipients are judged by an international jury of experts. In 1999, The Economist called the award "the world's most important award for non-fiction". Past winners have included, Lawrence Wright, Jonathan Spence, David McCullough, Kanan Makiya, Michael Ignatieff, Eric Hobsbawm, Robert Kinloch Massie, Adam Hochschild (a two-time winner), Robert Skidelsky, Baron Skidelsky, Walter Russell Mead, Chrystia Freeland, and Steve Coll.
Lionel Gelber Lionel Gelber was a Canadian author, scholar, historian, and diplomat. During his career, he wrote eight books and many articles on foreign relations, including The Rise of Anglo-American Friendship: a Study of World Politics 1898 to 1906, which examined the "rise of American global power, with all the risk, hope and complexity such a geopolitical shift entailed at the beginning of the 20th Century." He followed this work with Peace by Power: The Plain Man's Guide to the Key Issues of the War and the Post-War World in 1942 and America in Britain's Place in 1961. Gelber studied at Upper Canada College and the University of Toronto before winning the Rhodes Scholarship and beginning his studies at Balliol College, Oxford. In 1989, the Lionel Gelber prize was created to honor works published in Gelber's field.
Recipients +Award winnersYearAuthorTitleResult1990Winner1991Code of Peace: Ethics and Security in the World of Warlord StatesWinner1992TrumanWinner1993Cruelty and Silence: War, Tyranny, Uprising and the Arab WorldWinner1994Blood and Belonging: Journeys Into the New NationalismWinner1995The Age of Extremes: The Short 20th Century, 1914–1991Winner1996 and Constantine PleshakovInside the Kremlin's Cold War: From Stalin to KhrushchevWinner1997Aftermath: The Remnants of WarWinner1998Loosing the Bonds: The United States and South Africa In the Apartheid YearsWinner1999King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism In Colonial AfricaWinner2000Winner2001John Maynard Keynes, Fighting for Britain 1937-1946Winner2002Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the WorldWinner2003 and James M. LindsayAmerica Unbound: The Bush Revolution in Foreign PolicyWinner2004Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001Winner2006Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's SlavesWinner2007Winner2008Winner2009Winner2010Winner2011Polar Imperative: A History of Arctic Sovereignty in North AmericaWinnerYalta: The Price of Peace ShortlistWhy the West Rules—For Now ShortlistArrival City: The Final Migration and our Next World ShortlistShortlist2012Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of ChinaWinnerShortlistBerlin 1961: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Most Dangerous Place on Earth ShortlistGeorge F. Kennan: An American LifeShortlistOn ChinaShortlist2013Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone ElseWinnerIron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-1956ShortlistShortlistGhosts of Empire: Britain’s Legacies in the Modern WorldShortlistFrom the Ruins of Empire: The Intellectuals Who Remade AsiaShortlist2014WinnerThose Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America’s Fight Over World War II, 1939—1941ShortlistCommand and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of SafetyShortlistEurope: The Struggle for Supremacy, from 1453 to the PresentShortlist Shortlist2015Winner2016Objective Troy: A Terrorist, A President, and the Rise of the DroneWinnerHall of Mirrors: The Great Depression, the Great Recession, and the Uses – and Misuses – of HistoryShortlistKissinger 1923–1968: The Idealist ShortlistShortlistShortlist2017WinnerHow Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything: Tales from the PentagonShortlistIslamic Exceptionalism: How the Struggle Over Islam Is Reshaping the WorldShortlistShortlistChildren of Paradise: The Struggle for the Soul of IranShortlist2018Red Famine: Stalin's War on UkraineWinnerDestined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? ShortlistShortlist and Scott J. Shapiro ShortlistAsia’s Reckoning: China, Japan, and the Fate of U.S. Power in the Pacific Century Shortlist2019Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the WorldWinnerNo Turning Back: Life, Loss, and Hope in Wartime SyriaShortlistShortlist and Daniel Ziblatt How Democracies DieShortlistShortlist2020 and Stephen HolmesWinner2021 and Michael PettisTrade Wars Are Class Wars: How Rising Inequality Distorts the Global Economy and Threatens International PeaceWinner2022WinnerTo End a Plague: America's Fight to Defeat AIDS in AfricaShortlistShortlistDoom: The Politics of CatastropheShortlistIn the Midst of Civilized Europe: The Pogroms of 1918–1921 and the Onset of the Holocaust Shortlist2023Overreach: How China Derailed Its Peaceful RiseWinnerChip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology Shortlist and Lucan Way Revolution and Dictatorship: The Violent Origins of Durable Authoritarianism ShortlistSlouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century Shortlist and Daniel Treisman Spin Dictators: The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st Century Shortlist2024Homelands: A Personal History of EuropeWinner and Simon Johnson Power and Progress: Our 1000-year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity Shortlist and Abraham NewmanUnderground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy ShortlistSeven Crashes: The Economic Crises that Shaped Globalization ShortlistWe, The Data: Human Rights in the Digital Age Shortlist2025To Run the World: The Kremlin's Cold War Bid for Global Power WinnerDollars and Dominion: U.S. Bankers and the Making of a Superpower ShortlistShortlistShortlistTo the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement Shortlist
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