Hakim Adi, the first British person of African heritage to become a professor of history in the UK, has been shortlisted for a prestigious history writing prize. This comes after Adi was made redundant by the University of Chichester when it cut a course he founded.
Adi has made the shortlist for the Wolfson history prize for his 2022 book, African and Caribbean People in Britain: A History. The winner of the prize, announced in November, will receive £50,000.
“It’s a wonderful, wonderful feeling especially in the current circumstances,” Adi said.
The master’s degree Adi founded, which focused on the history of Africa and the African diaspora, was cancelled last week after a review by the university’s curriculum planning committee. The professor had worked at the institution for over a decade.
“I think it shows that the decision that the University of Chichester made was extremely misguided, shortsighted; some people have called it an act of educational vandalism,” said Adi. “It was always inexplicable, but it’s even more – it just flies in the face of everything that people need and people want. So I think being shortlisted for the prize shows that certainly Wolfson think that this kind of history is important, think that my work is important.”
More than 12,000 people signed a petition to reverse the university’s decisions, and Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy tabled an early day motion in parliament expressing disappointment at the announcement. Adi said that the public response was “amazing” and that support came in from “all over the world – literally every continent”. The university said that the cost of delivering the course outweighed the income received from fees.
Adi’s shortlisted book “tells the history of Britain from the earliest times up until 2020, Black Lives Matter”, explained the author. “But it tells it from the perspective of those of African and Caribbean heritage. All the latest research shows that Africans have been here for at least 2,000 years, and unfortunately that important history has very often been neglected. It’s still neglected in schools and universities, and in the media more generally. So the book tries to redress that imbalance.”
Wolfson judges described Adi’s book as “timely”, “comprehensive” and possessing an “epic narrative”. Other shortlisted titles include The World the Plague Made: The Black Death and the Rise of Europe by James Belich, The Perils of Interpreting: The Extraordinary Lives of Two Translators between Qing China and the British Empire by Henrietta Harrison, Vagabonds: Life on the Streets of Nineteenth Century London by Oskar Jensen, Resistance: The Underground War in Europe 1939-1945 by Halik Kochanski and Portable Magic: A History of Books and their Readers by Emma Smith. All shortlisted authors will receive £5,000 each.
Adi said his shortlisting was “an award not just for me, but for my students, for everybody who thinks that history matters, and particularly the history of Africa and the African diaspora. It’s come at a wonderful moment, and I look forward to celebrating.”
The judging panel for this year’s competition is made up of the historians Mary Beard, Sudhir Hazareesingh, Richard Evans, David Cannadine, Carole Hillenbrand and Diarmaid MacCulloch. The prize seeks to recognise works that are both excellently researched and accessible for the non-specialist.
The Wolfson prize was founded in 1972. Previous winners include Simon Schama, Eric Hobsbawm, Amanda Vickery, Antony Beevor, and Antonia Fraser.
African and Caribbean People in Britain by Hakim Adi (Penguin Books Ltd, £30). To support The Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
