We are pleased to announce that the winner of the 2025 Charles Schmitt Prize is Ross Moncrieff (All Souls College, Oxford) for his paper, “When sinologists were geologists: Chinese chronology in early modern England and the heterodox Chinese studies of Robert Hooke and John Beaumont.”
The paper, which has been published online in open access on our journal Intellectual History Review, challenges the common view that the reception of ancient Chinese history in Europe significantly undermined confidence in biblical chronology. Focusing on seventeenth-century England, it argues that most writers sought to reconcile Chinese antiquity with Scripture, and that where conflict did arise, it stemmed primarily from prior scientific—especially geological—scepticism rather than from sinology itself.
The Charles Schmitt Prize, awarded annually by the International Society for Intellectual History, is made possible by donations from an anonymous benefactor and our publisher, Taylor & Francis, and recognises the contributions of Charles B. Schmitt (1933-1986) to the field of intellectual history.