Duff Cooper Prize shortlist announced

The judges of the Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize are delighted to announce their shortlist of non-fiction books published in 2022. The winner will be announced on 6th March 2023. 

The Shortlist

Straits: Beyond the Myth of Magellan - Felipe Fernández-Armesto (Bloomsbury)

Conspiracy on Cato Street: A Tale of Liberty and Revolution in Regency London - Vic Gatrell (Cambridge University Press)

Constable: A Portrait - James Hamilton (Weidenfeld & Nicholson)

The Restless Republic: Britain without a Crown - Anna Keay (HarperCollins)

Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne - Katherine Rundell (Faber & Faber)

Beyond Measure: The Hidden History of Measurement - James Vincent (Faber & Faber)

'A good non-fiction book plunges you into its world. However familiar you are with the story, it must feel fresh and exciting, revealing things you didn’t know, illuminating aspects you hadn’t thought of. Every one of the books on our shortlist achieves these things and I know they will be read and enjoyed not just this year, but for decades to come.'

- Artemis Cooper, chair of the jury

The Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize celebrates the best in non-fiction writing. The first award was made in 1956, and it has been given annually ever since. 

The prize, worth £5,000, was set up in memory of Alfred Duff Cooper, 1st Viscount Norwich, GCMG, DSO (1890-1954), and is generously supported by Pol Roger. It is run by the Duff Cooper Memorial Fund, a charity based at New College, Oxford. 

Duff Cooper was a politician, diplomat, and author, whose courage in resigning from Cabinet over the Munich Agreement and consistency in working for closer diplomatic ties with France were complemented by his skill as a historian and his talent for friendship. 

Pol Roger has supported the Prize for may years: it contributes £1,000 of the award money and a magnum of Champagne to the winner. Maison Pol Roger has been producing exceptional Champagne for over 170 years and is currently in the hands of the fifth and sixth generations of the founder's family. 

The Duff Cooper - Pol Roger connection dates back to November 1945, when, as Ambassador to France, Duff held an Armistice dinner attended by Winston Churchill, whom he seated next to Odette Pol-Roger. The two struck up an instant rapport and became lifelong friends. 

Mme Pol Roger donated the Champagne for the Duff Cooper Prize celebrations for the first twenty years of its existence, and the association was re-established in 2007.

New College is the home of the Duff Cooper Memorial Fund, the charity responsible for the Prize. Duff Cooper read History at the College between 1908 and 1911, and benefited from its culture of tolerance, its remarkable library, and the wide learning of its tutors. 

The Warden is among the Prize's five judges.