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About the Prize
Duff Cooper, statesman, diplomat and author, was born in 1890. He won the DSO as a second lieutenant in the First World War, and pursued a successful political career until 1938 when, as First Lord of the Admiralty, he resigned in protest at the Munich Agreement. Called back to office in 1940, his wartime career culminated in his appointment as Ambassador to France. Among his best-known books are Talleyrand, Sergeant Shakespeare and his autobiography, Old Men Forget.
After Duff Cooper's death in 1954, a group of his friends decided to form a Trust to endow a literary prize in his memory. Since then, it has been given annually for a book of history, biography, politics or (very occasionally) poetry. Two of the five judges appointed by the Trust are ex-officio: the Warden of New College, Oxford (represented by Dr Michael Burden), and a member of Duff Cooper's family (Artemis Cooper). The other three judges serve for five years and appoint their own successors. At present they are the biographer Anne Chisholm, biographer and novelist Joanathan Keates, and the political historian Dr Margaret Callaghan.
The prize was first awarded in 1956 to Alan Moorehead for Gallipoli, and has been going ever since. The last Duff Cooper Prize, for 2004, was awarded on 2 March 2005 to Mark Mazower for his book Salonica: City of Ghosts. The Prize for 2005 will be awarded in February 2006.