Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize for Transcultural Understanding Awarded to Neil MacGregor

The 2015 Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize for Transcultural Understanding has been awarded to Neil MacGregor for A History of the World in 100 Objects (Allen Lane, 2010) and Germany: Memories Of A Nation (Allen Lane, 2014).

These publications have reached wide audiences across the globe both in published form, in English and in translation, and via their respective BBC Radio series. These two publications have demonstrated the scope for scholarship to illustrate the interconnections of culture and civilizations by linking the written and spoken word to the visual and verbal presentation of cultural objects.

Neil MacGregor has been Director of the British Museum since August 2002. He studied at New College, Oxford and the École Normale Supérieure in Paris before attending the Courtauld Institute of Art in London to study 17th and 19th - century art. He was previously Editor of the arts periodical The Burlington Magazine and became Director of the National Gallery in 1987. He was made an Honorary Fellow of the British Academy in 2000 and is currently Chairman of the International Advisory Board of the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg.

The Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize for Transcultural Understanding is the British Academy's most important Prize, open to nominations from around the world. It was founded in 2013 by the International Relations Scholar, Dr Nayef Al-Rodhan. This prize – worth £25,000 – is designed to honour outstanding work that illustrates the interconnected nature of cultures and civilisations.