Stephen R. Bown (Canada’s National History Society)

Author Stephen R. Bown has been named the recipient of the 2024 Governor General’s History Award for Popular Media.

The $5,000 Pierre Berton Award, as it is also known, is administered by Canada’s National History Society. Bown is one of 11 recipients being honoured by this year’s history awards, which recognize excellence in five categories: teaching, museums, scholarly research, community programming, and popular media.

Bown is a Canmore, Alberta-based award-winning writer who has published 12 popular history books, several about the history of Canada, including his most recent bestsellers, Dominion: The Railway and the Rise of Canada and The Company: The Rise and Fall of the Hudson’s Bay Empire, which won the 2021 National Business Book Award. Both titles are published by Anchor Canada. His 2008 biography of Captain George Vancouver (Madness, Betrayal and the Lash, Douglas & McIntyre) won the 2009 Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice Award.

“Stephen Bown makes the stories of our past human,” Melony Ward, president and CEO of Canada’s National History Society, said in a press release. “His books remind us that the story of Canada is made up of the stories of individuals. They are gripping reads—thoughtful, deeply researched, and inclusive.”

Wendell Nii Laryea Adjetey, an associate professor and William Dawson scholar at McGill University, was named the recipient of the award for scholarly research for Cross-Border Cosmopolitans: The Making of a Pan-African North America (University of North Carolina Press).

Bown, Adjetey, and the other 2024 recipients will receive their awards from Governor General Mary Simon at an upcoming ceremony.