Professor Sheila Miyoshi Jager and Lord Sumption recognised by RUSI
We celebrate the achievements of Professor Sheila Miyoshi Jager and Lord Sumption, honoured with the Duke of Wellington Medal for their outstanding military history works.
At a ceremony held on 15 May 2025, Professor Sheila Miyoshi Jager and Lord Sumption were presented with the Duke of Wellington Medal for Military History – given in recognition of the best-published work of military history initially written in English, regardless of the author’s nationality. The medals were presented by His Grace the Duke of Wellington, the eighth direct descendent of the first Duke, who inspired and helped found RUSI in 1831.
Professor Miyoshi Jager was recognised with the annual awarding of the medal for her book: The Other Great Game: The Opening of Korea and the Birth of Modern East Asia, described by judges as “[a] work of true scholarship, both for its sources, inaccessible to most of us, and the way it puts a generally neglected area of study into the conventional picture of imperial history that shaped East Asia towards the region as we know it today.”
Lord Sumption was presented with an exceptional medal for his lifetime contribution to the field, after the completion of his five-volume history of the Hundred Years’ War, published between 1990 and 2023 and hailed as ‘an enterprise on a truly Victorian scale.’
Speaking at the ceremony, the Duke thanked the authors and said: “We are so honoured that two such distinguished writers have accepted our awards and have given two such absorbingly interesting lectures.
He added: “I am especially pleased that the medal is gaining ground amongst publishers and we’re seeing an increasing number of books submitted for consideration.”
RUSI Members can watch the lectures given by Professor Sheila Miyoshi Jager and Lord Sumption.
Read more details about the Duke of Wellington Medal for Military History, including how to submit entries for consideration.
