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The tribe of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, having a Jamaican Welsh identity, the idea of freedom and anti-colonial resistance, the alarming rise of youth suicide among Indigenous people in Canada and how a group of pioneering cultural anthropologists – mostly women – shaped our interpretation of the modern world: these are the topics tackled in the shortlist for the 2020 prize for a book fostering global understanding. Rana Mitter talks to the authors.

Imperial Intimacies: A Tale of Two Islands by Hazel V. Carby
Insurgent Empire – Anticolonial Resistance and British Dissent by Priyamvada Gopal
Lakota America: A New History of Indigenous Power by Pekka Hämäläinen
The Reinvention of Humanity: A Story of Race, Sex, Gender and the Discovery of Culture by Charles King
All Our Relations: Indigenous trauma in the shadow of colonialism by Tanya Talaga

The international book prize, worth £25,000, and run by the British Academy, rewards and celebrates the best works of non-fiction that have contributed to global cultural understanding, throwing new light on the interconnections and divisions shaping cultural identity worldwide. Over 100 submissions were received and the winner is announced on Tuesday 27 October.

Producer: Karl Bos

The winner in 2019 was Toby Green for A Fistful of Shells – West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution and other previous winners include Kapka Kassabova, Neil MacGregor and Karen Armstrong. You can find interviews with the winenrs and the other shortlisted authors for the 2019 prize (Ed Morales, Julian Baggini, Julia Lovell, Aanchal Malhotra and Kwame Anthony Appiah in this Free Thinking collection /programmes/p07p3nxh