The CEH Prize Competition is open for submissions.

The editorial team of Contemporary European History is very happy to announce the 2021 CEH Prize winner, Matt Myers, postdoctoral associate at St. John’s College, Oxford University, for his article submission, “Experiences of Time and the Decline of Social Conflict in Late Twentieth Century Italy (Fiat, 1979-1980).”  Myers’s work excavates how the subjective shock of the end of a long-standing model of the organized industrial workplace in Italy manifested as a disruption of people’s sense of temporal continuity. Myers also shows how this operated at the level of memory, with the moment of major strikes in the late 1970s marking a caesura in expectations of economic stability and the steady improvement of life conditions. At a time when we are all experiencing a similar sense of epochal rupture, it was especially fascinating to revisit an earlier moment of sudden change. We would like to congratulate Myers on winning this prize, especially in light of the high quality of the submissions we received. 

We would also like to give Honourable Mention to Adrian Pole, a doctoral student at the University of Edinburgh, for his submission ‘‘Soldiers of Culture’ and their ‘Little Comrades’: The International Brigades and the Children of Civil War Spain’. The committee was impressed by Pole’s original take on the history of the International Brigades, which explores their little-known encounters with Spanish children. These children, Pole argues, were central to many of their activities, and crucially gave the foreign volunteers a unique sense of their own mission. This piece will make a rich contribution to the history of childhood, as well as the Spanish Civil War.

We would also like to take a moment to thank all those who submitted articles for the prize. It was an honour to read the work of so many enthusiastic and innovative young scholars, and also deeply inspiring to see so much intellectual energy in the field of European history at a time of global crisis. We look forward to working with many of you in the future.

The CEH Prize is open for submissions   

The editors of Contemporary European History have established this prize with the aim of encouraging, recognizing and promoting high-quality research among postgraduate and early career scholars.

The winner’s prize will consist of:

• Publication of the winning submission in Contemporary European History
• £400 worth of CUP books

Other entries of quality may be invited to publish their submissions in the journal.

Find out more