The Royal Historical Society is very pleased to announce the winners of its 2025 prizes, for early career articles and first books written by early career historians. This year’s winners were announced at the Society’s annual Prothero Lecture which took place on 2 July and was attended by all four of this year’s recipients.
The two winners for each category are as follows:
Early Career Article Prize
- William Jones, “You are going to be my Bettman”: Exploitative Sexual Relationships and the Lives of the Pipels in Nazi Concentration Camps’, published in The Journal of Holocaust Research (2024)
- Michaela Kalcher, ‘The Self in the Shadow of the Guillotine: Revolution, Terror and Trauma in a Parisian Diary‘, published in History Workshop Journal (2024)
The Society’s Early Career Article Prize is awarded for an article published in 2024 by an early career historian who is either studying for a doctorate or is within three years of completing a PhD at a university in the UK or Republic of Ireland. Both winners receive a prize of £250.
First Book Prize
- Royal Justice and the Making of the Tudor Commonwealth, 1485-1547, by Laura Flannigan (Cambridge University Press, 2024)
- Segregated Species: Pests, Knowledge, and Boundaries in South Africa, 1910–1948, by Jules Skotnes-Brown (Johns Hopkins University Press 2024)
The Society’s First Book Prize is awarded for a first history monograph, published in 2024, written by a PhD graduate of a university in the UK or Republic of Ireland. Both winners receive a prize of £1,000.
This year’s prizes invited eligible authors to submit an article or monograph for consideration. More than 65 titles were submitted for each category.
In their citation for Michaela Kalcher’s article, ‘The Self in the Shadow of the Guillotine’, this year’s judges praised:
A beautifully written, psychologically rich analysis of trauma, identity, and diary writing. Combining microhistory with theoretical depth, this compelling article will likely become a key part of the historiography of the French Revolution on account of its provocations and highly intelligent construction.
Commenting on William Jones’s article, ‘“You are going to be my Bettman”’, the judges commended:
A groundbreaking and sensitive study of sexual violence during the Holocaust. This is an article that balances theoretical nuance with survivor testimony, offering a new conceptual framework that is both meaningful and analytically sharp. In the extensive historiography of the Holocaust, William Jones has something new and important to say.
In their citation for Laura Flannigan’s monograph, Royal Justice and the Making of the Tudor Commonwealth, the judges congratulated:
An impressive, conceptually adept and ambitiously argued book. This is a study grounded in extraordinarily deep archival research on a previously neglected judicial court that was established in the late fifteenth century. The rich quantitative data yields intriguing vignettes that give wonderful colour to institutional history. Royal Justice and the Making of the Tudor Commonwealth is clearly written and structured, as well as being cleverly and convincingly argued.
In their citation for Jules Skotnes-Brown’s book, Segregated Species, the panel praised:
A fascinating, original, highly engaging, conceptually smart and extremely well-written interdisciplinary study that combines the history of science with its much wider social, political and racial context. This rich book is impressively researched, nimble in its analysis, successfully experimental at times in its approach and superbly written.
Full citations for our two early career article prizes are available here; those for the winners of this year’s book prize are available here.
Our congratulations to the four winners in 2025, and the twelve additional authors whose work was shortlisted for this year’s early career article and first book prizes.
IMAGE: left to right: William Ross Jones, Jules Skotnes-Brown, Laura Flannigan, Lucy Noakes (President of the Royal Historical Society), and Michaela Kalcher, 2 July 2025