Pulitzer Prize Winners for General Nonfiction

The Pulitzer Prizes, established and endowed by Joseph Pulitzer (1847–1911), honour excellence in American literature, journalism, drama and music. The prizes, administered by Columbia University, bestow on winners both literary prestige and a cash prize.

For years not listed, no award was made.

1962

The Making of the President, 1960, Theodore H. White

1963

The Guns of August, Barbara W. Tuchman

1964

Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, Richard Hofstadter

1965

O Strange New World, Howard Mumford Jones

1966

Wandering Through Winter, Edwin Way Teale

1967

The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture, David Brion Davis

1968

Rousseau and Revolution, Will and Ariel Durant

1969

So Human an Animal, Rene Jules Dubos; The Armies of the Night, Norman Mailer

1970

Gandhi's Truth, Erik H. Erikson

1971

The Rising Sun, John Toland

1972

Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911–1945, Barbara W. Tuchman

1973

Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam, Frances FitzGerald; Children of Crisis (Vols. 1 and 2), Robert M. Coles

1974

The Denial of Death, Ernest Becker

1975

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard

1976

Why Survive? Being Old in America, Robert N. Butler

1977

Beautiful Swimmers: Watermen, Crabs and the Chesapeake Bay, William W. Warner

1978

The Dragons of Eden, Carl Sagan

1979

On Human Nature, Edward O. Wilson

1980

Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, Douglas R. Hofstadter

1981

Fin-de–Siecle Vienna: Politics and Culture, Carl E. Schorske

1982

The Soul of a New Machine, Tracy Kidder

1983

Is There No Place on Earth for Me?, Susan Sheehan

1984

Social Transformation of American Medicine, Paul Starr

1985

The Good War: An Oral History of World War II, Studs Terkel

1986

Move Your Shadow: South Africa, Black and White, Joseph Lelyveld; Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families, J. Anthony Lukas

1987

Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land, David K. Shipler

1988

The Making of the Atomic Bomb, Richard Rhodes

1989

A Bright Shining Lie, Neil Sheehan

1990

And Their Children After Them, Dale Maharidge and Michael Williamson

1991

The Ants, Bert Holldobler and Edward O.
Wilson

1992

The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power, Daniel Yergin

1993

Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America, Garry Wills

1994

Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire, David Remick

1995

The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time, Jonathan Weiner

1996

The Haunted Land: Facing Europe's Ghosts After Communism, Tina Rosenberg

1997

Ashes to Ashes: America's Hundred-Year Cigarette War, the Public Health, and the Unabashed Triumph of Philip Morris, Richard Kluger

1998

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, Jared Diamond

1999

Annals of the Former World, John McPhee

2000

Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II, John W. Dower

2001

Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, Herbert P. Bix

2002

Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama, the Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution, Diane McWhorter

2003

A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, Samantha Power

2004

Gulag: A History, Anne Applebaum

2005

Ghost Wars, Steve Coll

2006

Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya, Caroline Elkins

2007

The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, Lawrence Wright

2008

The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945, Saul Friedländer

2009

Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II, Douglas A. Blackmon

2010

The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy, David E. Hoffman

2011

The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, Siddhartha Mukherjee

2012

The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, Stephen Greenblatt

2013

Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, Gilbert King

2014

Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation, Dan Fagin

2015

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, Elizabeth Kolbert

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