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Dissertation Prize

The Maxine Berg Prize for Best Dissertation in the Field of Global History is for final year undergraduate students in the History Department. The prize is awarded by a panel made up of members of the Global History and Culture Centre, in recognition of outstanding research and academic achievement.
Professor Maxine Berg FBA taught in the History Department at Warwick from 1978 until her retirement in 2022. She has published many influential books, including The Machinery Question (1981), The Age of Manufactures (1985) and A Woman in History: Eileen Power 1889-1940. She has also edited books on consumption and luxury, on global history and on goods from the East. She trained many PhD students, and loved teaching undergraduates and MA students. She was instrumental in setting up our second-year global history modules: Caravans and Traders, and Galleons and Galleys. In 2007, she founded the Warwick Global History and Culture Centre, and served as its first director. It was the first Global History centre in the UK, and enjoys a world-wide reputation. Her work has inspired many students and colleagues to consider global approaches in their research.

Prize winners

  • 2024: Sara Akhavan-Malayeri, “The Fight over the Five ‘Soviet-born Wives of British Subjects’: the Impact of Anglo-Soviet Marriages in Early Cold War Britain”.
  •  2023: Michelle Tsang, “A picture speaks a thousand words: How postcards from the British and Japanese sphere of influence in Asia were used as a form of propaganda in the first half of the 20th century”.
  • 2022: Sam Matthews Boehmer, “An examination of British policy towards South Africa during the apartheid era from 1960 to 1990, with particular focus on the motivations underlying these relations”.

Dissertation prize winner Sara Akhavan-Malayeri with Prof. Maxine Berg at the Warwick History graduation, 16 July 2024