Books by Sudhir Hazareesingh
Sudhir Hazareesingh was born in Mauritius. He has been a Fellow and Tutor in Politics at Balliol College, Oxford, since 1990. He has written extensively about French intellectual and cultural history; among his books are The Legend of Napoleon, In the Shadow of the General and How the French Think. He won the Prix du Mémorial d’Ajaccio and the Prix de la Fondation Napoléon for the first of these, a Prix d’Histoire du Sénat for the second, and the Grand Prix du Livre d’Idées for the third. He won the Wolfson History Prize in 2021 for Black Spartacus: The Epic life of Toussaint Louverture.
Black Spartacus: The Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture
by Sudhir Hazareesingh
***Winner of the 2021 Wolfson History Prize***
Black Spartacus tells the extraordinary story of Toussaint Louverture, general and leader of a successful slave revolt in what is now Haiti. He was fighting—at various times—the Spanish, the British and the French. But beyond that, the book goes into detail about his worldview and how he drew on European Enlightenment ideas, but was also strongly influenced by Christianity and beliefs and cultural practices from Africa.
“This book is not hagiography at all. It’s very easy to look for a great liberation hero. But this book shows a deeply flawed man who clearly didn’t make the lives of those who became free, all that much freer. He wanted hard work. There’s a certain ‘Animal Farm-ness’ about the story. And yet, what an achievement it was for this little island to stand up to one of the great powers of 18th century Europe and create the first predominantly Black-run republic in the world. It’s extraordinary.” Read more...
The Best History Books: The 2021 Wolfson Prize Shortlist
Diarmaid MacCulloch, Theologians & Historians of Religion
Interviews with Sudhir Hazareesingh
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1
The World the Plague Made: The Black Death and the Rise of Europe
by James Belich -
2
Resistance: The Underground War in Europe, 1939-1945
by Halik Kochanski -
3
Portable Magic: A History of Books and Their Readers
by Emma Smith -
4
The Perils of Interpreting: The Extraordinary Lives of Two Translators between Qing China and the British Empire
by Henrietta Harrison -
5
African and Caribbean People in Britain: A History
by Hakim Adi -
6
Vagabonds
by Oskar Jensen
The Best History Books of 2023: The Wolfson History Prize, recommended by Sudhir Hazareesingh
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.
The best books on Charles de Gaulle’s Place in French Culture, recommended by Sudhir Hazareesingh
Hazareesingh’s book choices include de Gaulle’s “very readable” war diaries. In books of condolences after the leader’s death, people wrote things like, “Goodbye Charles, you were greater than Napoleon”
Interviews where books by Sudhir Hazareesingh were recommended
The best books on Charles de Gaulle’s Place in French Culture, recommended by Sudhir Hazareesingh
Hazareesingh’s book choices include de Gaulle’s “very readable” war diaries. In books of condolences after the leader’s death, people wrote things like, “Goodbye Charles, you were greater than Napoleon”
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1
Survivors: Children’s Lives after the Holocaust
by Rebecca Clifford -
2
Black Spartacus: The Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture
by Sudhir Hazareesingh -
3
Ravenna: Capital of Empire, Crucible of Europe
by Judith Herrin -
4
Double Lives: A History of Working Motherhood
by Helen McCarthy -
5
Burning the Books: A History of the Deliberate Destruction of Knowledge
by Richard Ovenden -
6
Atlantic Wars: From the Fifteenth Century to the Age of Revolution
by Geoffrey Plank
The Best History Books: The 2021 Wolfson Prize Shortlist, recommended by Diarmaid MacCulloch
The Best History Books: The 2021 Wolfson Prize Shortlist, recommended by Diarmaid MacCulloch
Every year the Wolfson History Prize seeks out books that combine careful research with good writing, aimed at the general reader. Here, Diarmaid MacCulloch, historian and chair of the judges, talks us through the outstanding history books that made the 2021 shortlist, and why, in his view, they’re all must-reads.
