2014 PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize Winner Announced

David Reynolds wins PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History for The Long Shadow, an assessment of the First World War’s impact on Britain

The Long Shadow: the Great War and the Twentieth Century (Simon & Schuster), David Reynolds wins the 2014 PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize 

By Martin Chilton, Culture Editor online

The Telegraph -  03 Apr 2014

David Reynolds has won the 2014 PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize for his book The Long Shadow: the Great War and the Twentieth Century.

Half of the titles on the history prize shortlist examined war and its effects and Reynolds, 62, won for his critical assessment of what the First World War has come to mean for Britain over the past century.

Reynolds argues in the book that we have “lost touch” with the Great War, in some degree because of a “peculiar British preoccupation” with the poetry rather than the history: “1914-18 has become a literary war, detached from its moorings in historical events,” he writes.

Chair Anne Chisholm, also the Chair of the Royal Society of Literature, said: "If you only read one book about the First World War in this anniversary year, read The Long Shadow. David Reynolds writes superbly and his analysis is compelling and original."

Reynolds is Professor of International History and a Fellow of Christ's College. His visiting positions include posts at Harvard, Nihon University in Tokyo and Sciences Po in Paris. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2005 and a member of the Society of American Historians in 2011. The Long Shadow will be a major four-part BBC series in 2014.

The prize, which was launched in 2002, is named after former PEN member Marjorie Hessell-Tiltman, who died in 1999, bequeathing £100,000 to the PEN Literary Foundation to found a new prize. It is open to non-fiction books of historical content covering periods up to and including the Second World War. Last year’s winner was Keith Lowe for Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of WWII.

The £2,000 prize will be presented to Reynolds on Thursday April 10 at the London Book Fair.


The highly commended 2014 shortlist was:
Empires of the Dead: How One Man’s Vision led to the Creation of WWI’s World Graves by David Crane (William Collins)
Return of a King: the Battle for Afghanistan by William Dalrymple (Bloomsbury)
The First Bohemians: Life and Art in London’s Golden Age by Vic Gatrell (Allen Lane)
Under Another Sky: Journeys in Roman Britain by Charlotte Higgins (Jonathan Cape)
The Undiscovered Country: Journeys Among the Dead by Carl Watkins (Bodley Head)

This year’s Hessell-Tiltman judges were Anne Chisholm (Chair), Michael Prodger and Anna Whitelock.