Lyndal Roper

Lyndal Roper has won this year’s $75,000 (U.S.) Cundill History Prize.

The prize, administered by McGill University, is awarded annually to a book published in English that embodies historical scholarship, originality, literary quality, and broad appeal.

Roper, Reguis professor of history at the University of Oxford, won the award for Summer of Fire and Blood: The German Peasants’ War (John Murray Press/Hachette Book Group).  Roper is the first woman and the first Australian to hold the Reguis Chair in history.

Roper was one of three authors named finalists for this year’s prize last month. The winner was named at a gala dinner in Montreal on Oct. 30. Finalists Marlene L. Daut and Sophia Rosenfeld each receive $10,000 (U.S.).

The books under consideration for this year’s award were chosen by a jury comprised of chair – and 2022 Cundill finalist – Ada Ferrer and historians and writers Sunil Amrith, François Furstenberg, Afua Hirsch, and Francesca Trivellato.

In her citation, Ferrer called Summer of Fire and Blood “a gripping history” of the peasant rebellions in Germany in 1524-1525 that marked the largest popular uprising in Europe before the French Revolution.

“[Roper] delivers a history of the Reformation from the ground up—as it was lived and understood by the ordinary people, who often interpreted its message as far more radical than envisioned by its architects,” Ferrer said.

Previous winners of the Cundill prize include Anne Applebaum, Tiya Miles, and last year’s winner, Kathleen DuVal.