A British author has scooped an international history book prize worth more than £58,000.

Julia Lovell has been named the winner of the 2019 Cundill History Prize for Maoism: A Global History.

The British historian, China expert and translator of Chinese literature was awarded the 75,000 dollars prize (£58,414) at a gala at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in Canada.

Alan Taylor, chair of the jury, called the book “an exceptional work of history.”

Julia Lovell
Julia Lovell (Cundill History Prize)

“Her book will dazzle readers with lucid and vivid insights into the power of a protean, and often deadly, ideology – and its enduring impact on our world today,” he said.

The international prize, run by McGill University in Canada, relaunched three years ago.

Lovell is Professor of modern China at Birkbeck College, University of London.

Harvard Professor Maya Jasanoff won the award for The Dawn Watch in 2018, and the British historian Daniel Beer for The House Of The Dead in 2017.