McGill University’s Faculty of Arts has announced the finalists for the sixth annual Cundill Prize in Historical Literature.

The winner will be awarded $75,000 U.S. (the largest international prize for non-fiction writing), with each runner-up receiving a “Recognition of Excellence” award of $10,000.

The finalists are:

• Anne Applebaum, Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-1956 (McClelland & Stewart)
• Christopher Clark, The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 (HarperCollins)
• Fredrik Logevall, Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam (Random House)

This year’s jury is composed of Brown-Forman Corporation executive vice-president Garvin Brown; Queen’s-Blyth Education Program executive director Anthony Cary; University of Turin modern history professor (and 2011 Cundill Prize winner) Sergio Luzzatto; University of Massachusetts professor and public history program director Marla R. Miller; and Trent University founding president and professor emeritus Thomas H.B. Symons. The finalists were selected from a shortlist, culled from 116 international historical non-fiction titles published in or translated into English.

The winner will be revealed at an awards ceremony on Nov. 20 in Toronto.