Longlist
Beyond the Wall East Germany, 1949-1990
Katja Hoyer
Travels with Herodotus
Justin Marozzi
Herodotus is known as the Father of History, but he was much more than that. He was also the world's first travel writer, a pioneering geographer, anthropologist, explorer, moralist, tireless investigative reporter and enlightened multiculturalist before the word existed. He was at once learned professor and tabloid journalist, with an unfailing eye for fabulous material to inform and amuse, to titillate, horrify and entertain.
In his masterpiece the Histories, tall stories of dog-headed men, gold-digging ants and flying snakes jostle for space within a mesmerising narrative of the Persian Wars, from which Greece emerged triumphant in 5 BC to give birth to Western civilisation.
Using the effervescent and profoundly modern Herodotus as his guiding light, Justin Marozzi takes the reader back to his world with eclectic travels to Greece, Turkey, Egypt and war-torn Iraq.
Justin Marozzi is a travel writer and historian. A former Financial Times foreign correspondent, he is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and has written widely on the Muslim world, travel and exploration. His previous two books are Barbary and Tamerlane. He is married and lives in Norfolk and London.
Longlist
Katja Hoyer
Longlist
David Grann
Shortlist
Jeremy Eichler
Shortlist
Christopher Clark