For the first laureate of this prize, the jury – the Board of the CISH, which has 12 members from different countries – selected as the winner, from a pool of excellent and highly-qualified candidates, Serge Gruzinski (École des hautes études en sciences sociales and CNRS, Paris, France).
A specialist in the history of Latin America in the XVIth, XVIIth and XVIIIth century, Serge Gruzinski is a pioneer in reflecting on questions of global history and transnational history. He has popularized key notions such as « metissage » or « cultural circulation » across borders.
Among his many books, a few may be mentioned here, some of which have been translated into many languages:
* La Pensée métisse, Fayard 1999 ;
* Quelle heure est-il là-bas ? Amérique et Islam à l’orée des temps modernes Seuil, 2008 (in English: What Time is It There ? America and Islam at the dawn of modern times, Polity, 2011);
* L’Aigle et le Dragon. Démesure européenne et mondialisation au XVIe siècle, Fayard, 2012 (in English : The Eagle and the Dragon: Globalization and European Dreams of Conquest in China and America in the Sixteenth Century, Polity 2014) ;
* L’Histoire pour quoi faire ?, Fayard, 2015.
The 26th of August 2015, the medal of The Grand International Prize of History has been presented to Serge Gruzinski during the XXIInd International Congress of Historical Sciences in Jinan, China, by Marjatta Hietala, president of the CISH, and a Reverso watch will be offered to him.