called The Man Who Invented History, by Justin Marozzi. The book was published here in the states under the title The Way of Herodotus: Travels with the Man Who Invented History (Da Capo, 9780306816215), to glowing reviews. (The LA Times, for example, called it "one of the year's best and most engaging travel books." Personally, I think that undersells the book; it's as much a meditation on history, history writing, and cultural difference as it is a travel book.)The Samuel Johnson Prize is the richest non-fiction prize in the UK, and aims "to reward the best of non-fiction and is open to authors of all non-fiction books in the areas of current affairs, history, politics, science, sport, travel, biography, autobiography and the arts." Mr. Marozzi's book is in exalted company - others on the long list include David Grann's The Lost City of Z, Alexander Waugh's The House of Wittgenstein, and Alain de Botton's The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work. It truly is an accomplishment to be grouped together with those (and the rest of the finalists), and I wish him well as the judges deliberate.
The short list will be announced later this month, and the winner will be declared in a televised ceremony on June 30. Hopefully, we'll be able to put a fancy "winner" badge on the paperback, which is on this fall's list and due for publication in February 2010.
(Oh, and a backlist opportunity: if you'd like to check out Mr. Marozzi's
chops as a more conventional historian, I highly recommend his earlier book, Tamerlane: Sword of Islam, Conqueror of the World. It's available in paperback (9780306815430), and an excellent contribution to western scholarship on the history of the Muslim world - an area in which I'm pleased to say the Perseus Books Group has been publishing strongly. More on that later, perhaps; for the moment I'll just say that Mr. Marozzi's skills as a writer - vivid descriptions and characterizations, strong narrative drive - are equally evident here.)
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