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Journalism of Courage
William Dalrymple and Sunil Amrith, two historians whose works trace India’s global influence and humanity’s fraught relationship with the environment, have been shortlisted for the 2025 British Academy Book Prize.
Dalrymple, a bestselling author and historian, was recognised for The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World, a sweeping study of how Indian science, art, architecture and religious thought shaped civilizations across Asia and beyond. Judges praised the book as “vivid in detail, lively in description and dazzling in range,” calling it a “powerful case” for understanding the millennium-spanning reach of an “Indosphere” that continues to resonate today.
Amrith, a Harvard-based historian of South Asian descent who grew up in Singapore, was honoured for The Burning Earth: An Environmental History of the Last 500 Years. Drawing on two decades of research, Amrith argues that the environment must be seen as central to global history, inseparable from questions of power, inequality and justice. His work, the judges said, combines “deep scholarship and clear writing” with urgency in tracing the roots of today’s climate crisis.
The £25,000 (Rs 26 lakh) prize, now in its 13th year, celebrates works of nonfiction rooted in the humanities and social sciences. Each shortlisted author receives £1,000 (Rs 1 lakh).
The Baton and The Cross: Russia’s Church from Pagans to Putin by Lucy Ash
Africonomics: A History of Western Ignorance by Bronwen Everill
Sick of It: The Global Fight for Women’s Health by Sophie Harman
Sound Tracks: A Musical Detective Story by Graeme Lawson
Rebecca Earle, professor of history at the University of Warwick and chair of the judging panel, said the six books “offer an acute diagnosis of how we got to where we are,” whether through the spread of Indian mathematics across Asia, the Russian Orthodox Church’s fraught political ties, or the structural forces that continue to shape women’s health worldwide.
The winner will be announced at a ceremony in London on October 22, 2025.
