Ancient history book wins major UK prize

More than 350 nonfiction books competed for the Baillie Gifford Prize, but only one secured the 50,000 pound ($67,000) award announced in London on Wednesday. The winner, Edmund Richardson's "Alexander: God, King, Man," represents a first for the competition. It is the first work of ancient history to take home the honor.

Richardson, a classics professor at Durham University in England, spent ten years researching the Macedonian conqueror. He described the process as going down "far too many rabbit holes." The book includes translations of sources in 12 ancient languages. Richardson argued that Alexander's military campaigns changed human reality more profoundly than almost any other historical event.

He noted that no one called Alexander the Great during his lifetime. Inheritance of a debt-ridden kingdom at age 20 did not make him the main event. He was viewed as a tributary rather than a primary power. Yet his conquests stretched from Greece to India before his death at age 32.

Kirsty Lang, chair of the judging panel, praised the book for its readability. She said it reads like a novel and allows readers to feel present on battlefields in Central Asia and Egypt. Lang highlighted that the work contains substantial new research. She linked the book's appeal to a recent surge in public interest for ancient Greek classics, partly driven by Christopher Nolan's film adaptation of "The Odyssey."

The judges described the winning book as a love letter to the humanities. This recognition arrives while university funding cuts in the U.K. and elsewhere put pressure on historical and archaeological disciplines. The prize, founded in 1999, covers categories including history, science, and biography.

Richardson beat five other finalists to win the award. The shortlist included Patrick Radden Keefe's "London Falling," Nicholas Boggs' biography of James Baldwin, and Matthew Sweet's profile of Barbara Cartland. Andrea Wulf's "The Traveler" and Anand Gopal's "Days of Love and Rage" also made the final cut.

Last year, Australian writer Helen Garner won the prize for her collected diaries, "How to End a Story." The Baillie Gifford Prize continues to bring diverse fact-based writing to a wider audience through its annual selection process.