The Financial Times and Standard Chartered have unveiled the 15-title longlist for the 2026 Business Book of the Year Award, and the headline is a rare reunion: three former winners are back in contention. William Cohan, Liaquat Ahamed and Sebastian Mallaby all have heavyweight new titles in the running — an unusual sight for a prize that usually celebrates fresh voices, and a sign this year's field is among the strongest in recent memory.
This is the first year with Standard Chartered as partner. The bank signed on in January, succeeding past sponsors McKinsey and Schroders, with FT editor Roula Khalaf remaining as chair of judges. The winner receives £30,000 (about $38,000). Tanuj Kapilashrami, Standard Chartered's chief strategy and talent officer, said the bank acts as a "super-connector" across global markets and sees first-hand how innovation, policy and economic shifts are transforming industries "at unprecedented speed" — the award exists, he said, to "shine a light on the thinkers helping the world make sense of that complexity."
The 15 titles fall into three broad groups: business and power, business and innovation, and business and society. Books about technology have won five of the past six editions — Stephen Witt's *The Thinking Machine*, on the rise of chipmaker Nvidia, triumphed in 2025; Parmy Olson's *Supremacy*, on the AI rivalry, won in 2024; and Chris Miller's *Chip War* took the prize in 2022. The 2026 longlist continues the trend, with explorations of technology's transformative impact forming the richest vein. For readers looking for the definitive English-language books on AI, chips and the energy transition, this year's list is a ready-made reading guide.
The shortlist will be announced in the autumn, with the winner named at an awards dinner in London at the end of the year. Also returning is the Bracken Prize for Young Authors, open to writers under 35 with unpublished business book proposals — Business Book submissions closed on June 30, while the young-author prize deadline falls at the end of September. Founded in 2005, the award is now in its 22nd edition, and winning titles routinely trigger a wave of copycat publishing. The bookmakers' favorite this year, if history is any guide, will be whichever title best captures how technology is reshaping power.