Aztec history wins major book prize

A study of the lives of the Aztecs that draws on their own records has been announced as the winner of this year’s Cundill History Prize.

Camilla Townsend’s Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs was revealed as the recipient of the $75,000 award in an online event in December. The distinguished professor of history at Rutgers University triumphed ahead of fellow finalists William Dalrymple, for The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company, and Vincent Brown, for Tacky’s Revolt: The Story of an Atlantic Slave War. The decision was made by chair of the jury Peter Frankopan and jurors Anne Applebaum, Lyse Doucet, Eliga Gould and Sujit Sivasundaram.

Fifth Sun explores more than 300 years of history, from the years before 1299 to the changes that took place after the Spanish invasion in 1519–21. Focusing on the lives of individual Aztec people, it considers that conquest as part of a wider story that continues to have resonance in the region today.

“Fifth Sun is one of those books that, when you’re reading it, you sometimes put down and pause for a moment to absorb the beauty of the words and the imagery,” said Doucet. “This is history at its best: taking us back [to a past] we thought that we understood but now realise that we’re only just beginning to scratch the surface.”

Our website, HistoryExtra, is a media partner of the prize, and you can hear Townsend discuss her book on our daily podcast. You can find that at historyextra.com/podcast