TORONTO, March 30, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Judith Gelber, Chair of the Lionel Gelber Prize Board, announced today that the winner of the 2026 Lionel Gelber Prize is by Francis J. Gavin, published by Yale University Press. Chosen by a jury of international journalists, practitioners and scholars, the Lionel Gelber Prize is awarded annually to the best book on international affairs published in English. The Prize is presented by the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy. The winner will receive $50,000.
" is a book for our times. In the midst of escalating, interconnected crises that are challenging deeply embedded assumptions and creating new levels of uncertainty, Gavin shows how thinking historically helps us see some of what we otherwise would miss," said Janice Gross Stein, the Chair of the Gelber Jury.
The winning title was selected from a shortlist of books which included by Scott Anderson (Signal/McClelland & Stewart); by Sven Beckert (Penguin Press); by Eva Dou (Portfolio); by Carl Benedikt Frey (Princeton University Press).
The 2026 Lionel Gelber Prize was chosen by (Jury Chair), (London), (Cardiff), (Washington), and (Toronto).
by Francis J. Gavin (Yale University Press)
Francis Gavin has written a profound work of philosophy of history that is at the same time eminently readable. He writes not about history but rather about historical sensibility, a way of understanding and thinking about the world with all its complexities and uncertainties. Historical sensibility creates discomfort with linear reasoning and single causes. It embraces complexity, multiple chains that intersect and connect, and a story that changes with the perspective of time. In one elegant chapter after another, Gavin walks the reader through these complexities and leaves us less sure, more empathic, and wiser. is a more important book than E.H. Carr's in helping us understand the crises of our times.
The Lionel Gelber Prize ceremony and lecture will take place at .
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