Andrew Donkin's (Studio 0-123) book A History of the World in 25 Cities has just won the Cultural Enterprises Award for Children’s Publication of the Year.

A stunningly illustrated book of extraordinary city maps, the book tells the story of human civilisation from ancient history to the present day.

Co-written by Andrew with Tracey Turner and in consultation with specialist curators at the British Museum, readers can visit cities from every inhabited continent on Earth, from the walled city of Jericho built over 10,000 years ago, to the modern-day metropolis of Tokyo, the most-densely populated city in the world today.

Featuring vibrant, beautifully detailed artwork from Libby VanderPloeg, each carefully researched map takes readers on a city tour at a unique moment in time – from exploring Athens in ancient Greece during the birth of democracy, to walking the beautiful lamplit streets of medieval Benin, deep in the West African rainforest to London in the Victoria era, and New York in the 1930s.


Each city has an incredible eye-popping city map followed by a spread about life in that city at that time. It has been a labour of love for everyone involved in the project for the last few years. Andrew adds: "Every page and every map was fact checked by the world’s top historians on that era at the British Museum. The result is an amazing book that children and adults can lose themselves in for hours and hours.”

View Andrew alongside other winners here: culturalenterprises.org.uk/awards/winners-2023

Images: illustrations by Libby VanderPloeg, courtesy Andrew Donkin, 2023