UK Historian: Serious history books will soon become a rarity

Serious history books could soon become a “rarity” due to the pressure on academics to churn out short articles to meet funding quotas, the winner of the prestigious Wolfson History Prize has said.

Professor Catherine Merridale , one of two recipients of the £25,000 prize this year, warned academics are going to have “a lot of trouble writing serious books” in the future.

Her book on Russian history, Red Fortress, was awarded the Wolfson History Prize, along with Professor Cyprian Broodbank’s The Making of the Middle Sea.

Prof Merridale told the Telegraph academics are going to struggle to write such thorough books in the future, with the best-researched tomes carrying the same weight as short peer-reviewed journal articles under a new funding assessment framework...