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The BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction is one of the UK’s most prestigious literary prizes. Worth £20,000 to the winning author, it is the 13th year of the prize which aims to reward the best non-fiction published in the UK, from biography, travel and popular science to the arts and current affairs.

The panel for the 2011 Prize is chaired by author and Times journalist Ben Macintyre, the panel consists of Prospect’s editor-at-large David Goodhart; journalist and author Sam Leith;prize-winning biographer Brenda Maddox; and best-selling historian, writer and broadcaster Amanda Vickery.

Ben Macintyre, “The wealth of superb non-fiction writing is so great at the moment that we expect the task of selecting an overall winner to be demanding and hotly-debated, but also tremendously enjoyable.”