08 April 2024
The Profile Books and Alexander Aitken Ideas Prize is pleased to announce its shortlist for the best debut trade non-fiction proposal from an academic. The shortlisted authors will be receiving guidance from an agent at Aitken Alexander on the next steps of their proposals, after which the winner will be determined via a judging panel.
Aitken Alexander said: ‘We’re very excited at the range and potential of this year’s shortlist and can’t wait to work with the authors to turn these early sketches into fully-formed proposals.’
Izzy Everington, Editorial Director at Profile Books, said: ‘I am so pleased to have Anna, Antonia, Danni, and Liz on our shortlist. Their projects reflect the sheer breadth of submissions this year, each taking us on a grand tour, whether that is of ships bound for lives after battle, or of rocks into which history is carved – sometimes literally; from the realms of corruption politics to quantum physics. Congratulations to our shortlisted authors!’
Shortlisted authors and their projects are as follows:
Anna McKay for ShipShapes: The Transformation and Afterlives of Britain’s Ships
University of Liverpool
In an explosive period of development and change, wooden ships crossed oceans in the name of empire. Winding their way back home, they faced new threats: iron, steam, and a changing nation. Yet Britain’s ships were not consigned to scrap – their afterlives took them far away from the ocean, as prisons, hospitals, pubs, churches and schools. ShipShapes tells the story of the strange and inventive ways we transformed our nation’s ships – and how they steered us into a modern world.
Antonia Thomas for Following the Old Red: A Journey through Art, Archaeology and Time.
University of the Highlands and Islands
Tracking between art, archaeology, ecology and geology, Following the Old Red will take readers on a journey into the deep past, and into the deep future; from the Devonian period, hundreds of millions of years ago, to Neolithic Orkney, to the industrial revolution, and beyond. Along the way we meet Victorian fossil hunters, geologists, spies, artists and archaeologists, their biographies written into the rock. Thomas’ research into stone carving, rock art and graffiti serve as a starting point for an investigation of wider contemporary issues around the politics of heritage and the Anthropocene.
Danni Holmes for Wonders of the Quantum World
University of New South Wales
Quantum particles are rebels, popping in and out of existence and appearing in more than one place at the same time. These peculiarities of nature at the smallest scales are not just interesting quirks. Far from that, they directly impact our lives and the world around us. From key intricacies of our Universe from atoms to black holes, through the emerging field of quantum biology, to futuristic technology that humanity can harness from this most bizarre realm of science, we will explore the far-reaching and profound wonders of the quantum world.
Liz David-Barrett for Power Grab: The Rise of State Capture
University of Sussex
As 2024 dawns, the End of History and the triumph of liberal democracy hailed thirty years ago seem like a fantasy. Yet, if we, ‘the West’, had properly understood the threat posed by corruption – specifically grand corruption and its logical end point, state capture – the democratic future might not have been stolen. This book is an eye-witness account of the development of the field of corruption studies over the past thirty years: the big hopes for transition and development, the missed warning signs and the rise of state capture to centre stage.
Congratulations to those who have been shortlisted, and many thanks to all who entered.
The Ideas Prize was first launched in 2019, and offers a £25,000 book contract with Profile Books, as well as representation with Aitken Alexander Associates, to the winning book proposal.