THE historian Tom Holland is the winner of the Sandford St Martin Trustees’ Award, for his contribution to the general public understanding of faith.
The Trust’s awards recognise achievement in “radio, TV and online programmes and content that explore religious, spiritual or ethical themes”.
The Trustees’ Award, chosen by the Trust’s chair and board, was announced on Monday. In a press release, the Trust said that Mr Holland would receive the award “in recognition of his contribution to the greater public understanding of religions and their role in contemporary and historical human experience”.
The Trust’s press release refers to his books Dominion: The making of the Western mind (Little, Brown) (Books, 13 September 2019, Feature, 27 September 2019) and In the Shadow of the Sword, “through which he has explored how religion has formed the world we live in today”.
It also refers back to the “controversial” television programmes that he has made, equivalent to Islam: The untold story (2012) and Isis: The origins of violence (2017), “which resulted in complaints for his or her exploration of questions including the historical evidence for the lifetime of Muhammad that others felt was incorrect and disrespectful”.
The podcast The Rest is History, which Mr Holland co-presents with the historian Dr Dominic Sandbrook, demonstrates, along with his broadcast work, “the keenness, curiosity and spirit of scholarship Holland brings to his exploration of history”, the Trust says.
Dr Tony Stoller, who chairs the Sandford St Martin Trust, said: “Tom Holland’s work as broadcaster and historian has consistently addressed the ways through which religion in all its forms has impacted on how humans understand life and their relationship to one another. He gives proper weight to what people imagine and have believed, and in doing so challenges us to take a look at a world through different lenses.
“As it has develop into increasingly clear how much religion and non secular identity is impacting on our politics, culture, and social organisation, having in Tom such a daring, eloquent, and interesting communicator to guide us through history, drawing a line between the past and our present, makes for compelling, informative, and entertaining broadcasting.”
Mr Holland said that he was “so honoured and delighted to be receiving this award. Looking back over my profession, I realise that it has been largely a means of realising just how strange and distinctive — historically speaking — purely materialist assumptions are. There might be no hope of understanding the past without also understanding how fundamental to past generations their relationship to the dimension of the supernatural all the time was.”
He can be presented with the award during a gala ceremony in Southwark Cathedral next Monday (17 June). At the ceremony, prizes can even be given in 4 broadcast categories: TV/Video, Radio/Audio, Young Audience, and Journalism.
