The Brits are good at these best of the year's books, and always put lots of British books on their lists. This is The Guardian's best history books of the year. I'd vaguely heard of one or two....
Update, December 5: Helen Webberley sends a comment on The Wicked Boy by Kate Summerscale, one of the Guardian nominees:
Since I tend to select history books that can be reviewed in my blog, size matters. The Wicked Boy not only tells an important piece of late 19th century history; it also has only 400 pages.