A book by the School of History's Emeritus Professor Barry Higman has won the prestigious Gold Award for History in the ForeWord 2011 Book of the Year Awards.

Proslavery Priest: The Atlantic World of John Lindsay, 1729-1788, published by the University of the West Indies Press, is an historical account of John Lindsay, an ordained minister of the Church of England, serving church and state in the British Atlantic. The second half of his life was spent in Jamaica, where – in the midst of slave society – he had leisure to live a life of ideas and develop literary and philosophical interests. At his death, Lindsay left manuscript sermons, a natural history of Jamaica and a proslavery polemic. These texts address central questions of eighteenth-century British imperial thought.

Higman, who has published extensively on the history of the West Indies, says he is "particularly pleased" with this award because it recognises not only his own work but also the very high design and presentation qualities achieved by his publisher.

The ForeWord Awards represent independent publishing at its finest and are selected from thousands of books by librarians and booksellers based  on editorial excellence, professional production, originality, author credentials relative to the book, and the value the book adds to its genre. 

The award winners were announced at the American Library Association Meeting in Anaheim, California, which was attended by over 25,000 people.