The British Academy book prize has been won by a woman for the first time - Elizabeth Cowling, of Edinburgh University, for Picasso: Style and Meaning.

After months of reading and debate by this year's judging panel, the chairwoman, Dame Gillian Beer, former vice-president of the British Academy and emeritus professor of English at Cambridge University, said to write a comprehensive study of the 20th century's most notorious and productive artist required "both courage and a good measure of determination". She added: "Elizabeth Cowling has worked on Picasso for more than 20 years and 10 years have gone into the preparation of this splendid book.

"In fact, Elizabeth Cowling has enabled us for the first time to see the main phases of Picasso's early and middle career not as a series of abrupt and brilliant initiatives, but as consistent search for 'style and meaning' informed by a constant recourse to the great works of the past. The author's role has been marvellously productive here, since she has placed us in the mind of Picasso, just at the point where his alchemy of artistry begins, and then she has triumphantly revealed the results."

The British Academy book prize, now in its third year, aims to increase the public appreciation of the humanities and social sciences by celebrating scholarly works that are accessible to the non-specialist. Picasso: Style and Meaning is published by Phaidon Press.

The other short-listed entries were:
Timothy Blanning, The Culture of Power and the Power of Culture, Oxford University Press
Janet Browne, Charles Darwin Volume II: The Power of Place, Jonathan Cape
John Butt, Playing with History: the historical approach to musical performance, Cambridge University Press
Robert Gildea, Marianne in Chains: in search of German occupation, 1940 - 1945 Pan MacMillan
Peter Spufford, Power and Profit: the merchant in medieval Europe, Thames and Hudson.