TORONTO, Feb. 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — An international panel of practitioners, journalists and scholars has announced the shortlist for the 2026 Lionel Gelber Prize. The Prize honours the world’s best book on international affairs published in English and will be chosen from the following five titles:
- Capitalism: A Global History by Sven Beckert (Penguin Press)
- House of Huawei: The Secret History of China’s Most Powerful Company by Eva Dou (Portfolio)
- How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation and the Fate of Nations by Carl Benedikt Frey (Princeton University Press)
- King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion, and Catastrophic Miscalculation by Scott Anderson (Signal/McClelland & Stewart)
- Thinking Historically: A Guide to Statecraft and Strategy by Francis J. Gavin (Yale University Press)
“The jury’s selections explore the wide range of forces that influence human progress,” said Judith Gelber, Chair of the Lionel Gelber Prize Board. “These books show the importance of examining the past to inform possibilities for the future.”
This year’s shortlist was selected by the 2026 Lionel Gelber Prize Jury: Prof. Janice Gross Stein (Jury Chair), Prof. John Bew (London), Prof. Sergey Radchenko (Cardiff), James Steinberg (Washington) and Prof. Nina Srinivasan Rathbun (Toronto).
Winner Announcement:
The winner will be announced on March 30, 2026. The winning author will take part in a hybrid event hosted by the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy on April 15, 2026.
About The Lionel Gelber Prize:
The Lionel Gelber Prize, a literary award for the world’s best non-fiction book on international affairs published in English, was founded in 1989 by Canadian diplomat Lionel Gelber. A cash prize of $50,000 CAD is awarded to the winner. The award is presented annually by University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy. For further information, please visit: https://gelber.munkschool.utoronto.ca/ or follow @gelberprize on X and Facebook.
The 2026 Lionel Gelber Prize – Shortlisted Books and Authors
Capitalism: A Global History by Sven Beckert (Penguin Press)
Sven Beckert is the Laird Bell Professor of History at Harvard University. Holding a PhD from Columbia University, he has written widely on the economic, social, and political history of capitalism. His book Empire of Cotton won the Bancroft Prize, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and was named one of the ten best books of the year by The New York Times. An elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
House of Huawei: The Secret History of China’s Most Powerful Company by Eva Dou (Portfolio)
Eva Dou covers technology policy for The Washington Post. A Detroit native, she previously spent around a decade covering international politics and technology for the Post and the Wall Street Journal in Beijing, Seoul and Taipei. She is currently based in Washington D.C.
How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation and the Fate of Nations by Carl Benedikt Frey (Princeton University Press)
Carl Benedikt Frey is the Dieter Schwarz Associate Professor of AI and Work at the Oxford Internet Institute and Oxford Martin Citi Fellow at the Oxford Martin School, both at the University of Oxford. He is also a fellow at Mansfield College, the Institute for New Economic Thinking at Oxford, and Lund University’s Department of Economic History. His books include The Technology Trap: Capital, Labor, and Power in the Age of Automation (Princeton).
King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion, and Catastrophic Miscalculation by Scott Anderson (Signal/McClelland & Stewart)
Scott Anderson is a veteran war correspondent who has reported from Lebanon, Israel, Egypt, Northern Ireland, Chechnya, Sudan, Bosnia, El Salvador and many other strife-torn countries. A frequent contributor to the New York Times Magazine, his work has also appeared in Vanity Fair, Esquire, Harper’s and Outside. He is the author of novels Moonlight Hotel and Triage and of non-fiction books The Man Who Tried to Save the World and The 4 O’Clock Murders, and co-author of War Zones and Inside the League with his brother Jon Lee Anderson.
Thinking Historically: A Guide to Statecraft and Strategy by Francis J. Gavin (Yale University Press)
Francis J. Gavin is the Giovanni Agnelli Distinguished Professor and the director of the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. His previous books include Gold, Dollars, and Power; Nuclear Weapons and American Grand Strategy; and The Taming of Scarcity and the Problems of Plenty.
CONTACT: Lani Mae Krantz, Communications and Media Relations Specialist, Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy (647) 407-4384
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