The Longlist

Charles Allen's account of Rudyard Kipling's formative years in India, from 1865-1900. Charting the writer's childhood, late teens and early career - all of which had a profound influence on his subsequent work.

Charles Allen was born in India, where six generations of his family served under the British Raj. He is the author of several books on colonial and imperial history.

Daily Telegraph correspondent Tim Butcher's description of his journey in the footsteps of Henry Morton Stanley. Despite warnings that his plan was ‘suicidal’, Butcher travelled from Congo's eastern border to the Atlantic ocean, and frames his experience in the political and social history of this war torn country.

Born in 1967, Tim Butcher has worked for the Daily Telegraph since 1990 as foreign affairs leader writer, defence correspondent and Africa Bureau Chief. He is currently living in Jerusalem where he is the Telegraph’s Middle East correspondent.

Alastair Campbell’s daily diaries of The Blair Years in which Campbell charts the rise of New Labour and the tumultuous years of Tony Blair’s leadership.

Alastair Campbell was born in Keighley, Yorkshire in 1957. He worked as a journalist for many years, principally with the Daily Mirror, before becoming Tony Blair's press secretary. He then worked for the Prime Minister as official spokesman and director of communications and strategy from 1994 to 2003.

Nick Cohen argues that the liberal-Left of the 20th century has lost its way. So much so that, Cohen suggests, it now shares some of its political views with the 21st century far Right.

Nick Cohen is a columnist for the Observer and New Statesman. He does occasional pieces for many other publications, including the London Evening Standard and New Humanist. Cruel Britannia, a collection of his journalism, was published by Verso in 1999, and Pretty Straight Guys, a history of Britain under Tony Blair, was published by Faber in 2003.

• Read the first chapter of What's Left?

Drawing on a significant range of sources - letters, memoirs, conversations - Orlando Figes tells the story of how Russians tried to endure life under Stalin.

Orlando Figes is Professor of History at Birkbeck College, University of London. He is also the author of A People’s Tragedy (1997), Natasha's Dance (2003).

Roy Foster’s book examines the upheavals in economics, North-South attitudes, international relations, demography, gender roles, sexual mores, culture and religion which accompanied the newfound prosperity of Ireland since 1970.

Roy Foster was born in Waterford, Ireland, in 1949. In 1991 he became the first Carroll Professor of Irish History at the University of Oxford and was elected a Fellow of Hertford College. His previous books include Charles Stewart Parnell: The Man and His Family (1976), Lord Randolph Churchill: A Political Life (1981), Modern Ireland 1600-1972 (1988), and the two-volume authorised biography of W. B. Yeats (1997, 2003).

Jay Griffiths describes her journeys to wildernesses of earth, ice, water and fire in order to explore the words and meanings which shape our ideas and our experience of our own wildness.

Jay Griffiths' writing has appeared in the London Review of Books, the Guardian, the Observer, The Ecologist and Resurgence magazine.

William Hague's account of William Wilberforce's turbulent life and career, from the politician's birth in Yorkshire in 1759 through his 20-year-campaign to abolish the Atlantic slave trade, to its final enactment as he lay dying in 1833.

William Hague is Conservative MP for Richmond (Yorks) and Shadow Foreign Secretary. His previous book, William Pitt the Younger, was published in 2004.

• Read the first chapter of William Wilberforce

Ed Husain's autobiographical exploration of why young British Muslims are turning to extremism. Husain describes his own experiences inside extremist groups, the reasons he joined them and why he left.

Ed Husain was born, raised, and educated in London. He has lived and travelled extensively in the Middle East and worked for the British Council in Damascus and Jeddah.  He is conducting doctoral research on Arab experiences of secularism, and is deputy director of the Muslim think-tank, The Quilliam Foundation.

• First chapter An extract from Ed Husain's 'The Islamist', about radical Islam in Britain. Shortlisted for the Orwell Prize 2008.

Yasmin Khan examines the context, execution, and aftermath of the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947. Drawing together fresh information from an array of sources, Khan describes the catastrophic human cost of partition and argues that the repercussions still resound today.

Yasmin Khan was born in London and educated at St. Peter's College and St. Antony's College, Oxford. She is currently Lecturer in Politics in the Politics Department, Royal Holloway, University of London.

David Kynaston's history of the Attlee post-war years, told from the ground up. Kynaston references masses of contemporary voices to provide a detailed portrait of life in Britain in the six seminal years following the Second World war.

David Kynaston was born in Aldershot in 1951. He has been a professional historian since 1973 and has written fifteen books, including The City of London, and W.G.’s Birthday Party, an account of the Gentleman vs. the Players at Lord’s in July 1898. He is currently a visiting professor at Kingston University.

Marina Lewycka's novel tells the story of Ukrainian, Polish, Chinese and Malawian strawberry pickers, living in two caravans in the English countryside.

Marina Lewycka was born of Ukrainian parents in a refugee camp in Kiel, Germany, at the end of the war, and grew up in England. She teaches at Sheffield Hallam University. Her first novel is the bestselling A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian (2005).

• Read the first chapter here Two Caravans
• Watch an exclusive interview An interview with Marina Lewycka, author of 'A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian' and 'Two Caravans', shortlisted for the Orwell Prize 2008.

Six Degrees refers to the possibility - cited by the IPCC - that average temperatures will rise by up to six degrees within the next hundred years. Mark Lynas examines would would happen to the environment for each degree the planet gets hotter.

Lynas has worked for nearly a decade as a specialist on climate change, and is author of two previous books on the subject – High Tide: News from a warming world (2004), and Carbon Calculator (2007). He writes a fortnightly column for the New Statesman magazine, and is a regular contributor to the Guardian.

Andrew Marr's history of Britain from 1945 to the present day. Marr's book charts Britain's shift from New Jerusalem to a culture of consumerism, celebrity and self-gratification. The book accompanies a five-part documentary series for BBC television.

Andrew Marr was born in Glasgow and has worked as a political journalist for the Scotsman, the Independent, the Economist, the Express, the Observer, and the BBC. He presents Start the Week on Radio 4 and The Andrew Marr Show on BBC One.

Tim Phillips' book tells the human story of the siege of Beslan, when terrorists took over a Russian school for two days in 2004. The siege ended in the deaths of at least 330 parents and children. Phillips also looks at the authorities' response to the siege and sets the events in their wider context.

Tim Phillips was born and grew up in Northern Ireland. In 2005 he completed a doctoral thesis on the role of the holiday resort in Russian culture, particularly in the Caucasus. He has studied at the universities of Oxford and Helsinki and has travelled widely in the former Soviet Union, including in the Caucasus. He has worked extensively as a translator and was the principal translator for the BBC on their Beslan documentaries. This is his first book.

Raja Shehadeh navigates recent Palestinian history by walking from Ayn Kenya to the Shukba Caves, the Ramallah hills and the Dead Sea.

Raja Shehadeh is the author of the When the Bulbul Stopped Singing and Strangers in the House. He is a Palestinian lawyer and writer who lives in Ramallah. He is a founder of the human rights organisation, Al-Haq, an affiliate of the International Commission of Jurists, and the author of several books about international law, human rights and the Middle East.

• First chapter The first chapter of Raja Shehadeh's 'Palestinian Walks', shortlisted for the Orwell Prize 2008.

Clive Stafford Smith's first hand account of the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay and its prisoners.

Stafford Smith is a human-rights lawyer who has spent the last twenty years in the United States representing prisoners on Death Row. His clients include many detainees in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. He established the London-based human rights charity Reprieve in 1999.

• Read the first chapter here A chapter from Clive Stafford Smith's book 'Bad Men', shortlisted for the Orwell Prize 2008.
• Watch an exclusive interview A interview with Clive Stafford Smith, human rights lawyer and author of 'Bad Men', shortlisted for the Orwell Prize 2008.

Drawing on historical analogies Graham Stewart explores the question of whether friendship can survive the pressures of public life. He examines in detail three relationships from across centuries and nations to illustrate how people in power cope with the pleasures and pitfalls of friendship in public life.

Graham Stewart studied Modern History at St Andrews University before going up to St John’s College, Cambridge. He was Alan Clark's researcher on The Tories: The Conservative Party and the Nation State 1922-1997. He published his first book, Burying Caesar, a study of Churchill and Chamberlain and British politics of the 1930s, in 1999. He has also worked as a leader writer on The Times.