• The Best History Books of 2023: The Wolfson History Prize - The World the Plague Made: The Black Death and the Rise of Europe by James Belich
  • The Best History Books of 2023: The Wolfson History Prize - Resistance: The Underground War in Europe, 1939-1945 by Halik Kochanski
  • The Best History Books of 2023: The Wolfson History Prize - Portable Magic: A History of Books and Their Readers by Emma Smith
  • The Best History Books of 2023: The Wolfson History Prize - The Perils of Interpreting: The Extraordinary Lives of Two Translators between Qing China and the British Empire by Henrietta Harrison
  • The Best History Books of 2023: The Wolfson History Prize - African and Caribbean People in Britain: A History by Hakim Adi
  • The Best History Books of 2023: The Wolfson History Prize - Vagabonds by Oskar Jensen

The Best History Books of 2023: The Wolfson History Prize, recommended by Sudhir Hazareesingh

The Wolfson History Prize is the UK’s most prestigious history book prize. The judges, all professional historians, pick out books that combine excellence in research with readability. Oxford University historian Sudhir Hazareesingh, one of the Wolfson judges and author of Black Spartacus, talks us through the six terrific books that made the 2023 shortlist, from the Black Death and its critical impact on economic development to the magic of our relationship with books. Read more history book recommendations on Five Books