Running on a different timetable to previous years, the Wolfson History Prize shortlist has now been announced. The Prize is an important contributor to marking the significance of historical scholarship and writer. The winner will be announced in November.

Bringing new stories from history to light, and challenging readers to rethink accepted historical narratives, the topical Wolfson History Prize shortlist explores themes that are pertinent to current world events. Spanning centuries and continents, political and personal histories, the Wolfson History Prize 2023 shortlist takes readers from the plague-ridden streets of 14th-century Europe to the densely populated alleyways of Dickensian London, travels to the court of 18th-century China and the underground resistance movements of Nazi-occupied Europe, and journeys through the history of African and Caribbean people in Britain, via the history of the book itself. Celebrating books that combine excellent research with readability, the books shortlisted for the Wolfson History Prize 2023 are:

• African and Caribbean People in Britain: A History by Hakim Adi (Allen Lane)
• The World the Plague Made: The Black Death and the Rise of Europe by James Belich (Princeton University Press)
• The Perils of Interpreting: The Extraordinary Lives of Two Translators between Qing China and the British Empire by Henrietta Harrison (Princeton University Press)
• Resistance: The Underground War in Europe 1939-1945 by Halik Kochanski (Allen Lane)
• Vagabonds: Life on the Streets of Nineteenth Century London by Oskar Jensen (Duckworth Books)
• Portable Magic: A History of Books and their Readers by Emma Smith (Allen Lane)