Samuel Johnson Prize

The Samuel Johnson Prize is one of the world's most prestigious awards for non-fiction writing. It was founded in 1999 based on an anonymous donation and is managed by BBC 4. Each winner receives £30000 and each finalist £2500.

The prize is named after Samuel Johnson.

Past Winners:

2003

Winner:

• T.J. Binyon Pushkin

Shortlist:

• Orlando Figes, Natasha's Dance: A Cultural History of Russia
• Aminatta Forna, The Devil that Danced on the Water: A Daughter's Memoir of her Father, her Family, her Country and a Continent
• Olivia Judson, Dr Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation
• Claire Tomalin, Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self *Edgar Vincent, Nelson: Love and Fame

2002

Winner

• Margaret Macmillan, Peacemakers: The Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and Its Attempt to End War

Shortlist

• Eamon Duffy, The Voices of Morebath
• William Fiennes, The Snow Geese
• Richard Hamblyn, The Invention of Clouds: How an Amateur Meteorologist Forged the Language of the Skies
• Roy Jenkins, Churchill: a Biography
• Brendan Simms, Unfinest Hour: Britain and the Destruction of Bosnia

2001

Winner

• Michael Burleigh, The Third Reich

Shortlist

• Richard Fortey, Trilobite! Eyewitness to Evolution
• Catherine Merridale, Night of Stone
• Graham Robb, Rimbaud
• Simon Sebag Montefiore, Prince of Princes: The Life of Potemkin
• Robert Skidelsky, John Maynard Keynes

2000

Winner

• David Cairns, Berlioz: Volume 2

Shortlist

• Tony Hawks, Playing the Moldovans at Tennis
• Brenda Maddox, Yeats's Ghosts
• Matt Ridley, Genome
• William Shawcross, Deliver Us From Evil
• Francis Wheen, Karl Marx

1999

Winner

• Samuel Johnson Prize: Antony Beevor, Stalingrad

Shortlist

• Ian Kershaw, Hitler
• Ann Wroe, Pilate
• John Diamond, C: Because Cowards Get Cancer Too
• Richard Holmes, Coleridge: Darker Reflections
• David Landes, Wealth and Poverty of Nations

See also

• List of prizes
• Prizes named after people