With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

Japanese stem cell researcher wins Balzan prize

...Shinya Yamanaka's prize is one of four — two for sciences, two in humanities — awarded this year by the foundation, with the goal of highlighting new or emerging areas of research and to sustain fields of study that may have been overlooked elsewhere.

The humanities prizes go to Italian historian Carlo Ginzburg, the father of microhistory, the study of the past based on a focus on the small scale, for his contributions to the study of ordinary people in Europe, and to German Manfred Bauneck for his history of the European theater.

Bauneck, of the University of Hamburg, was awarded the price for his history of the European theater spanning 2,500 years and his research on trends in world theater....

Read entire article at AP