The Lionel Gelber Prize, a Canadian award that celebrates the best English-language non-fiction on foreign affairs, has released its shortlist for books published in 2011. This year’s finalists are:

• Amanda Foreman, A World on Fire: Britain’s Crucial Role in the American Civil War (Random House)
• Frederick Kempe, Berlin 1961: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Most Dangerous Place on Earth (G.P. Putnam’s Sons/Penguin)
• Ezra F. Vogel, Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China (Belknap/Harvard University Press)
• John Lewis Gaddis, George F. Kennan: An American Life (Penguin)
• Henry Kissinger, On China (Penguin)

The winner of the $15,000 prize, founded in memory of Canadian diplomat Lionel Gelber and co-presented by Foreign Affairs magazine, will be announced Feb. 27. The award ceremony and a free public lecture will take place at the Munk School of Global Affairs in Toronto on March 15.

[This post has been updated from its original version]