1999 Winner
Stalingrad is an analysis and re-creation of the turning point of World War II. In October 1942, a panzer officer wrote "Stalingrad is no longer a town...Animals flee this hell; the hardest stones cannot bear it for long; only men endure". The battle became the focus of Hitler and Stalin's determination to win the vicious war on the eastern front. The citizens of Stalingrad endured unimaginable hardship; the battle, with fierce hand to hand fighting in each room of each building, was brutally destructive to both armies. But the eventual victory of the Red Army, and the failure of Hitler's Operation Barbarossa was the first defeat of Hitler's territorial ambitions in Europe, and the start of his decline. A story of civilian bravery, obsession, carnage and the nature of war itself, Stalingrad remembers the vital role of the soviet war effort.

https://www.thebailliegiffordprize.co.uk/books-and-authors/stalingrad-by-antony-beevor

1999 Shortlist
Shortly before his 44th birthday, John Diamond received a call from the doctor who had removed a lump from his neck. Having been assured for the previous 2 years that this was a benign cyst, Diamond was told that it was, in fact, cancerous. Suddenly, this hypochondriac was genuinely faced with mortality. Out of necessity, he wrote about his feelings in his Times column and the response was staggering. Because Cowards get Cancer Too follows Diamond's story of life with, and without, a lump - the humiliations, the ridiculous bits, the funny bits and the tearful bits.

https://www.thebailliegiffordprize.co.uk/books-and-authors/because-cowards-get-cancer-too-by-john-diamond

1999 Shortlist
This is the second volume of Richard Holmes’s classic biographies of Coleridge, the poet of Kubla Khan. This volume covers the last 30 years of Coleridge’s career (1804 to 1834) during which he travelled through the Mediterranean, returned to his old haunts in the Lake District and the West Country, and finally settled in Highgate. It was a period of domestic and professional turmoil. His marriage broke up, his opium addiction increased, he quarrelled with Wordsworth, his own son Hartley Coleridge (a gifted poet himself) became an alcoholic. And after a desperate time of transition, Coleridge re-emerged on the literary scene as a new kind of philosophical and meditative author.

https://www.thebailliegiffordprize.co.uk/books-and-authors/coleridge-by-richard-holmes

1999 Shortlist
Ian Kershaw's Hitler allows us to come closer to an understanding of the man and of the catastrophic sequence of events which allowed a misfit to climb from a Viennese dosshouse to leadership of one of Europe's most sophisticated countries. Drawing on a range of sources, Kershaw recreates the world which first thwarted and then nurtured the young Hitler. As his seemingly pitiful fantasy of being Germany's saviour attracted more and more support, Kershaw conveys why so many Germans adored Hitler, connived with him or felt powerless to resist him.

https://www.thebailliegiffordprize.co.uk/books-and-authors/hitler-1889-1936-by-ian-kershaw

1999 Shortlist
The gap between rich and poor countries is widening. In this new work, historian David Landes explores the complex, fascinating and often startling causes of the wealth and poverty of nations. The answers are found not only in the large forces at work in economies: geography, religion, the broad swings of politics, but also in the small details. In Europe, the invention of spectacles doubled the working life of skilled craftsmen, and played a prominent role in the creation of articulated machines, and in China, the failure to adopt the clock fundamentally hindered economic development. The relief of poverty is vital to the survival of us all. As Landes shows, the key to future success lies in understanding the lessons the past has to teach us.

https://www.thebailliegiffordprize.co.uk/books-and-authors/the-wealth-and-poverty-of-nations-by-david-landes

1999 Shortlist
By picking one newly discovered gene from each of the 23 human chromosomes and telling its story, Matt Ridley traces the history of our species and its ancestors. This fascinating journey shows the influence of genes, from condemning us to diseases to influencing our intelligence and guiding the development of our bodies and brains. The author explores the applications of genetics, the search for understanding and therapy, the horrors of eugenics and the paradox of free will.

1999 Shortlist
Although very little is known for certain about Pontius Pilate, the man who crucified Christ, this has not stopped writers in every age from imagining his life. Here, Ann Wroe recounts the lives of all our Pilates; among them the medieval tyrant, devoted to gambling and getting around the law, and the wriggling modern pragmatist. This is also the story of the man Pilate might have been; and the man who mirrors us.

https://www.thebailliegiffordprize.co.uk/books-and-authors/pilate-by-ann-wroe

2000 Winner
In this magnificent biography, the author describes the genesis of the famous works of Berlioz’s maturity and in particular his crowning masterpiece, The Trojans. Against the backdrop of the composer’s professional life and his struggle for artistic recognition, David Cairns traces his personal struggles in the pursuit of love and financial security, to his ultimate search for inner happiness.

https://www.thebailliegiffordprize.co.uk/books-and-authors/berlioz-by-david-cairns

2000 Shortlist
From watching the England football team play a boring match against the little known Eastern European state of Moldova, comedian Tony Hawks found himself agreeing to a friend’s bet that he couldn’t beat all eleven members of the Moldovan football team at tennis. The loser would have to strip naked on Balham High Road and sing the Moldovan national anthem. So begins the author’s hilarious travel adventure from England to Moldova to Tansnistria, Northern Ireland and Israel as he sets about fulfilling his bizarre quest.

https://www.thebailliegiffordprize.co.uk/books-and-authors/playing-moldovans-at-tennis-by-tony-hawks

2000 Shortlist
A unique biography of one of the 20th century’s literary giants. Brenda Maddox examines the virtually unknown occult adventure of Automatic Script practised by Yeat’s much younger wife, George, in the early years of their marriage. The poet’s childhood and the influence of his mother are explored before the mature Yeats, his public career in Ireland and his sexual rejuvenation are examined in relation to the triumph of his later poetry.

https://www.thebailliegiffordprize.co.uk/books-and-authors/georges-ghosts-a-new-life-of-w-b-yeats-by-brenda-maddox

2000 Shortlist
In this revealing account of International Peacekeeping since 1989, William Shawcross examines what lies behind decisions to intervene in crisis zones on humanitarian grounds and shows us the consequences when the troops and aid agencies move in. The author travelled to war zones and talked to global policy-makers, leading diplomats and key humanitarian aid officials first hand. He provides a fascinating portrait of Kofi Annan and explains the partnership between the UN and its various agencies and its troubled relationship with NATO and the United States in the ‘New World Disorder’.

https://www.thebailliegiffordprize.co.uk/books-and-authors/deliver-us-from-evil-by-william-shawcross

2000 Shortlist
For the first time, a biography of Karl Marx which reveals the human side of the man whose ideas have been amongst the most influential of the last century. From his beginnings as an obscure Prussian Jewish pauper to his adult life as an English Gentleman and devoted family man, Francis Wheen captures the political and personal life, the contradictions and complexities of the brilliant and provocative philosopher.

https://www.thebailliegiffordprize.co.uk/books-and-authors/karl-marx-by-francis-wheen