The Shortlist

A touching vivid portrait of the thought and times and life of one of the most important thinkers about America, whose work is still some of the most powerful and still relevant. A book that really explores the thought in the context of the life - and a careful portrait of de Tocqueville's important and difficult marriage - a stunner.

The Judges

Hugh Brogan's 'Alexis de Tocqueville: Prophet of Democracy in the Age of Revolution' is the first biography of de Tocqueville in the 'English style', which brings him alive as a person - not just an intellectual monument. A French aristocrat, liberal politician and writer of genius, his great works, 'Democracy in America' and the 'Ancien Regime', are ever more influential and discussed. He was the son of a noble family, which was nearly wiped out in the Revolution and as an ambitious politician during the July Monarchy and Second Republic, he had a front seat at the revolutionary drama of his time. Brogan has spent a life writing and thinking about de Tocqueville and this remarkable work is touching, scholarly, and insightful.

A painful, painstaking account of terrible people, doing terrible things. But all the more stilling because they were small terrible people - with a both redemptive and a desperate aftermath in the daughter who was a good but damaged person. A very steady measured account, beautifully crafted.

The Judges

'Bad Faith: A Forgotten History of Family and Fatherland' tells the story of one of history's most despicable villains and conmen - Louis Darquier 'de Pellepoix', a Nazi collaborator who managed the Vichy Government's dirty work, 'controlling' its Jewish population. As Commissioner for Jewish Affairs he was responsible, with other men of Vichy, for the dispatch of Jews to the death camps and for the confiscation of their property. Thousands of children went alone to the gas chambers. In Carmen Callil's masterful, harrowing and sometimes darkly comic account, Darquier's ascent to power during the years leading up to the Second World War mirrors the rise of French anti-semitism. Epic, elegaic, the product of extraordinary research, this is a study of powerlessness, hatred and the role of remembrance.

• Journalisted Articles written by Carmen Callil

A marvellous history which seamlessly places high, intimate political history of the 50s, nuclear planning, Suez, and its characters in the context of British holidays and ice-cream. It re-invents history, all exuberantly done in Peter's inimitable voice.

The Judges

Having It So Good: Britain in the Fifties evokes Britain emerging from the shadow of war and the privations of austerity and rationing into growing affluence. Peter Hennessy takes his readers into the front-rooms where the Coronation was watched on television, to the classrooms and now coffee bars of 1950s Britain - and also into the secret Cabinet rooms in which decisions about the British nuclear bomb were taken and plans made for the catastrophe of nuclear war. He brings to life the ageing Churchill, in his last faltering spell as Prime Minister, the highly-strung Anthony Eden taking his country to war in the teeth of American opposition and world opinion, and the rise of 'Supermac' Harold Macmillan, gliding over problems with his Edwardian insouciance. Above all, 'Having It So Good' captures the smell and the flavour of an extraordinary decade in which affluence and anxiety combined to produce their own winds of change. It weaves politics into the fabric of the nation's life - all in Hennessy's inimitable, delightful, shrewd yet generous style. Hennessy is a national treasure.

• Peter Hennessy Queen Mary, University of London

One of the most elegant, balanced, wise accounts of where our politics has arrived at and come from. Written with great brio and accomplishment but based on such a deep understanding of the forces in Conservative and Labour politics that have forged contemporary Britain - and the terrible errors the heredity has left us open to.

The Judges

The history of Britain in the last thirty years, under both Conservative and Labour governments, has been dominated by one figure - Margaret Thatcher. Her election marked a decisive break with the past and her premiership transformed not just her country, but the nature of democratic leadership.

In his 'argued history' Simon Jenkins analyses this revolution from its beginnings in the turmoil of the 1970s through the social and economic changes of the 1980s. Was Thatcherism a mere medicine for an ailing economy or a complete political philosophy? And did it eventually fall victim to the dogmatism and control which made it possible?

This is the story of the events, personalities, defeats and victories which will be familiar to all those who lived through them, but seen through a new lens. It is also an argument about how Thatcher's legacy has continued down to the present. Not just John Major, but Tony Blair and Gordon Brown are her heirs and acolytes. And as the Conservative party reinvents itself as a viable political force once again, is the age of Thatcher finally over?

• Journalisted Articles by Simon Jenkins

Both very funny and very appalling - a Catch 22 or Evelyn Waugh account of how the whole system of supply and contract has most importantly let the British Army down. An absurd story written again by an insider with an unparalleled grasp of the lunacies of the situation. An indictment of a process and an almost surreal sense of blunder built on incompetence built on ridiculousness.

The Judges

Lewis Page's cover story in Prospect on the armed forces' most useless and expensive hardware set off a firestorm of controversy, back pedalling, and accusations. In this irreverent and provocative book, he gives us the full story: how British soldiers are sent off to war with some of the worst guns around, how the MOD keeps financing useless toys (at huge expense to taxpayers), and how decisions seem to be made with an eye, above all, for the interests of British Aerospace. He shows how politicians and the top brass are hopelessly entrenched in yesterday's wars and pouring their talents and energies into making sure that money is wasted right, left and centre. Lions, Donkeys and Dinosaurs does for the armed forces what Not on the Label did for supermarkets - it takes us behind the scenes and exposes the real ingredients whipped up in the name of ‘defence’.

• Lewis Page Blog

A buccaneering and brilliant evocation of life in Iraq. Not the usual bewailing something, far more revealing for an insider to attempt. A book from the heart of the war - not just an observer's book but with a confident, witty, intellectual mastery. A tremendous read.

The Judges

At the age of thirty, Rory was appointed coalition deputy Governor of two provinces in the Marsh region of southern Iraq. He kept a journal of his experiences struggling to control assassinations and tribal conflict, rebuild the region's infrastructure and establish a new Iraqi government before the hand over of power in June 2004. His time in the Marsh region culminated in a terrifying siege during which he and his team were under sustained attack by insurgents. Haunted by his previous work and travels in Asia, Rory brings a unique sensitivity and perspective to the daily interactions between Iraqis and the coalition and to the perils and even comedy of foreign occupation. His luminous, sharp edged prose reveals a different Iraq to the one familiar to us from print and broadcast journalism and provides a nuanced and sympathetic picture of individuals, both Iraqi and foreign, struggling to manage the collapse of a state.

• Journalisted Articles by Rory Stewart