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2002 - The Winner
Peacemakers - Margaret
MacMillan
Margaret
MacMillan became tonight (Monday 24 June) the first woman
to win the BBC Four Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction
for her outstanding book, Peacemakers,
published by John Murray.
MacMillan’s Peacemakers thoroughly captures
the personalities, ideals and prejudices of the people who
shaped the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, after ‘the
war to end all wars’. She argues that the peacemakers
have been unfairly made scapegoats for the mistakes of those
who came later. Described by Andrew Roberts in The Sunday
Telegraph as ‘splendidly revisionist and daringly
politically incorrect,’ Margaret MacMillan’s Peacemakers offers
a view of the moment when much of the modern world was first
sketched out.
David Dimbleby, Chair of the Judges, made the announcement
live on BBC Four from a dinner held at London’s One
Great George Street. He commented:
“The judges felt they had a shortlist of great quality
and diversity – a major work of modern history, of
biography, of science, of Tudor history, of travel writing
and of contemporary polemic. After a vigorous debate,
our choice was Peacemakers by Margaret MacMillan,
a book which challenges the conventional view of the Versailles
Conference, whilst bringing vividly to life an extraordinary
event which shaped the 20th century and still resonates today.”
Now in its fourth year, The BBC Four Samuel Johnson Prize
is the only major prize to celebrate the full variety and
originality of non-fiction publishing today. Named
in honour of the great critic, essayist, lexicographer, poet
and biographer, the BBC Four Samuel Johnson Prize is the
UK's richest prize for non-fiction. It aims to recognise
and reward the very best works of non-fiction published in
English in the UK, regardless of the nationality of the author.
The winning book was chosen from a shortlist of six, announced
last month. The winner receives a cheque for £30,000,
and each of the shortlisted authors receives a cheque for £1,000.
The panel of judges for the 2002 BBC Four Samuel Johnson
Prize for Non-Fiction was: David Dimbleby (Chair);
Richard Fortey, scientist and 2001 shortlisted author; Caroline
Gascoigne, Literary Editor of the Sunday Times;
Bonnie Greer, writer and broadcaster; and Robert Harris,
best selling novelist and journalist.
In its brief history, the prize has been awarded to an impressive
roll-
call of winners - Antony Beevor for Stalingrad (1999);
David Cairns for Berlioz (2000); and Michael Burleigh for The Third
Reich (2001)
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