UCL Press title shortlisted for Royal Historical Society First Book Prize 2026
Posted on 18th May, 2026
We’re delighted to announce that Between Feast and Famine: Food, Health, and the History of Ghana’s Long Twentieth Century by John Nott has been shortlisted for the Royal Historical Society’s First Book Prize 2026.
Moving between the dry Northern savannah, the mineral-rich and food-secure Southern rainforest, and the youthful, ever-expanding cities, Between Feast and Famine is a comparative history of nutrition in Ghana since the end of the nineteenth century. At the heart of this story is an analysis of how an uneven capitalist transformation variously affected the lives of women and children. It traces the change from sporadic periods of hunger in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, through epidemics of childhood malnutrition during the twentieth century, and into emergent epidemics of diet-related non-communicable disease in the twenty-first century. Employing a novel, critical approach to historical epidemiology, John Nott argues that detailing the co-production of science and its subjects in the past is essential for understanding and improving health in the present.
The prize recognises first, sole-authored monographs published in 2025 by early career historians. This year’s shortlist of eight titles was selected following an open call, and the shortlisted titles span a wide range of subjects, periods and geographies. Two winners will be selected from the shortlist and announced in July 2026. Each will receive a prize of £1,000.
Links
- Read and download Between Feast and Famine free: https://uclpress.co.uk/book/between-feast-and-famine/
- Royal Historical Society announcement: https://blog.royalhistsoc.org/2026/05/18/royal-historical-society-first-book-prize-2026-shortlisted-titles/
- Image: Cuadro de comedor by José Agustín Arrieta. Public domain. Available from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cuadro_de_comedor_basket.jpg
