(Last updated 28 July 2024)

PRESENTATION
There are two lists:

• Laureates
• Nominees

DEFINITION
“Historians” should be understood in a broad sense as all those involved, professionally or otherwise, in the collection, creation, or transmission of history.

NOTES
Only pre–1971 data are available for nomination frequencies, making them unknown, incomplete or speculative for many nominees.

SOURCES

• This list is an update of the list first published in Antoon De Baets, “The Historian-King: Political Leaders, Historical Consciousness, and Wise Government,” in Stefan Berger, ed., The Engaged Historian: Perspectives on the Intersections of Politics, Activism and the Historical Profession (New York and Oxford: Berghahn, 2019), 88, 105–108.
• Information about historians as Nobel Peace Prize laureates:[E]
• Information about historians as Nobel Peace Prize nominees: [E]

LAUREATES

1906: Theodore Roosevelt – United States (7x nominee in 1906)
1919: Woodrow Wilson – United States (awarded in 1920) (22x nominee in 1918–1920)
1921: Christian Lange – Norway (7x nominee in 1914–1921)
1927: Ludwig Quidde – Germany (35x nominee in 1924–1927)
1957: Lester Pearson – Canada (2x nominee in 1952–1957)
1973: Henry Kissinger – United States (nominations not yet known)
1986: Elie Wiesel – Romania / United States (nominations not yet known)
2022: Memorial – Russia (at least 7x nominee in 2010–2013, 2015, 2018, 2022)

Notes

• Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Nobel Peace Prize laureate in 1980, was a secondary-school teacher of philosophy, history, and literature at one time.
• Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize laureate in 1984, was a high school teacher of English and history in 1955.

Heads of state and government with a distinct historical consciousness awarded the Nobel Peace Prize:
1906: Theodore Roosevelt – United States (7x nominee in 1906)
1919: Woodrow Wilson – United States (awarded in 1920) (22x nominee in 1918–1920)
1957: Lester Pearson – Canada (2x nominee in 1952–1957)
1990: Mikhail Gorbachev – Soviet Union
1993: Nelson Mandela – South Africa
2002: Jimmy Carter – United States
2009: Barack Obama – United States

NOMINEES

Hashem Aghajari (1x) – Iran
Lyudmila Alexeyeva (2x) – Belarus
Rafael Altamira y Crevea (6x) – Spain
Giulio Andreotti Institute and Secret Archives, and archivist Patrizia Chilelli (5x) – Italy
Akram Aylisli (1x) – Azerbaijan
Arthur Charles Frederick Beales (1x) – United Kingdom
Ismail Beşikçi (1x) – Turkey
Homer Boyle (2x) – United States
Winston Churchill (2x) – United Kingdom
Hans Viktor Clausen (1x) – Denmark
Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi (54x) – Austria
Damas de Blanco (3x) – Cuba
Mustafa Dzhemilev (x2) – Russia
Arnaldo Fortini (1x) – Italy
Svetlana Gannushkina (7x) – Russia
Gabriel Hanotaux (1x) – France
Ienaga Saburō (x2) – Japan
Instituto Histórico-Geografico Brasileiro (1x) – Brazil
International Committee of Historical Sciences (4x) – International
Maxim Kovalevsky (1x) – Russia
Salvador de Madariaga y Rojo (12x) – Spain
Fyodor Martens (24x) – Estonia / Russia
Peter Munch (4x) – Denmark
James Shotwell (19x) – United States
Sulak Sivaraksa (2x) – Thailand
Tiananmen Mothers (4x) – China
Thich Quang Do (7x) – Vietnam
Tong Zeng (2x) – China
Toshitaka Onodera (1x) – Japan
Leyla Yunus (1x) – Azerbaijan
Ragip Zarakolu (2x) – Turkey

Leaders with a distinct historical consciousness nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize:
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1x)
Habib Bourguiba (1x)
George W. Bush (3x)
Fidel Castro (1x)
Hugo Chávez (3x)
Jacques Chirac (2x)
Winston Churchill (2x)
Bill Clinton (3x)
Dwight Eisenhower (9x)
Václav Havel (4x)
Adolf Hitler (1x) (withdrawn)
John Howard (x2)
John Kennedy (1x)
Helmut Kohl (4x)
Tomáš Masaryk (17x)
Pierre Mendès-France (1x)
Angela Merkel (1x)
Benito Mussolini (2x)
Jawaharlal Nehru (13x)
Mohammed Reza Pahlavi Shah (2x)
Juan Domingo Perón (2x)
Vladimir Putin (4x)
Franklin Roosevelt (5x)
Leopold Sédar Senghor (2x)
Joseph Stalin (2x)
Dominique de Villepin (1x)
Kaiser Wilhelm II (3x)
Xi Jinping (1x)
Victor Yushchenko (1x)