LibGuides: Pulitzer Prize: History (1917- )

The Pulitzer Prize in History
1917-present

2020s

Winner

Sweet Taste of Liberty : a True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America by W. Caleb McDaniel

Finalists

Race for Profit : How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
End of the Myth : From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America by Greg Grandin

Race for Profit : how banks and the real estate industry undermined black homeownership by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
Call Number: 363.51 T2435r (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9781469653662
Publication Date: 2019-10-21
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor offers a ... chronicle of the twilight of redlining and the introduction of conventional real estate practices into the Black urban market, uncovering a transition from racist exclusion to predatory inclusion. Widespread access to mortgages across the United States after World War II cemented homeownership as fundamental to conceptions of citizenship and belonging. African Americans had long faced racist obstacles to homeownership, but the social upheaval of the 1960s forced federal government reforms. In the 1970s, new housing policies encouraged African Americans to become homeowners, and these programs generated unprecedented real estate sales in Black urban communities. However, inclusion in the world of urban real estate was fraught with new problems. As new housing policies came into effect, the real estate industry abandoned its aversion to African Americans, especially Black women, precisely because they were more likely to fail to keep up their home payments and slip into foreclosure.
The End of the Myth : from the frontier to the border wall in the mind of America by Greg Grandin
Call Number: 973 G754e (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9781250179821
Publication Date: 2019-03-05
Ever since this nation's founding, the idea of an open and ever-expanding frontier has been central to American identity. Symbolizing a future of endless promise, the frontier made possible the United States' belief in itself as an exceptional nation--democratic, individualistic, forward-looking. Today, though, the country has a new symbol: the border wall. In [this book], acclaimed historian Greg Grandin explores the effect that constant, relentless expansion had on America's domestic politics, examining the full sweep of U.S. history--from the American Revolution to the Spanish-American War, the New Deal to the election of 2016.

Winner

Franchise : the Golden Arches in Black America by Marcia Chatelain

Franchise : the golden arches in black America by Marcia Chatelain
Call Number: 338.7 C492f (Adult nonfiction)
ISBN: 9781631493942
Publication Date: 2020-01-07

Finalists

The Deviant's War : the Homosexual vs. the United States of America by Eric Cervini
The Three-Cornered War : the Union, the Confederacy, and Native Peoples in the Fight for the West by Megan Kate Nelson

The Three-Cornered War : the Union, the Confederacy, and the native peoples in the fight for the West by Megan Kate Nelson
Call Number: 973.02 N428t (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9781501152542
Publication Date: 2020-02-11
A deeply-researched, dramatic, and character-driven narrative account of the violent struggle between Union and Confederate forces to claim the American West during the Civil War.

Winners

Covered with Night: a story of murder and indigenous justice in early America by Nicole Eustace
Cuba: an American history by Ada Ferrer

Covered with Night : a story of murder and indigenous justice in early America by Nicole Eustace
Call Number: 364.152 E91c (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9781631495878
Publication Date: 2021-04-27
Covered with Night [E-Book] : a story of murder and indigenous justice in early America by Nicole Eustace
Call Number: 364.152 E91c Ebook (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9781631495885
Publication Date: 2021-04-27
Covered with Night [streaming audiobook] : a story of murder and indigenous justice in early America by Nicole Eustace
Call Number: 365.152 E91c Audiobk (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9781705282151
Publication Date: 2021

Finalist

Until Justice Be Done: America's first civil rights movement, from the Revolution to Reconstruction by Kate Masur

WINNER

Freedom's Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power by Jefferson Cowie

Freedom's Dominion : a saga of white resistance to federal power by Jefferson Cowie
Call Number: 305.8 COWIE F
ISBN: 9781541672802
Publication Date: 2022-11-22
From the American Revolution to Black Lives Matter, Americans have come to associate freedom with the fight of the oppressed for a better world. Few ideas are as central to the national mythos. But whenever the federal government has taken a stand for racial minorities, however halfhearted, white Americans have been quick to weaponize the concept of freedom, framing the state itself as a tyrannical obstacle to their liberties. In Freedom's Dominion, prize-winning historian Jefferson Cowie lays bare the tales of violence and power that lie beneath America's cherished ideal of freedom, through the history of one seemingly charming place in Alabama-Barbour County and its largest town, Eufaula. Long before it was the launching pad for Alabama governor and prominent segregationist George Wallace, Barbour served as a battleground between local and national authorities. In the 1830s, white intruders battled federal troops sent to evict them from Creek Indian lands -- including the village called Eufala Town -- that they had unlawfully invaded. Eventually, the white resistance prompted the federal government to give up the fight and relocate the Creeks westward, bowing to whites' insistence on their freedom to settle where they wished, and smoothing the way for the growth of plantation slavery. In the wake of the Civil War, US troops backed the right of Barbour County's African Americans to vote -- until they didn't, and white residents massacred black voters lined up at the polls on Election day in 1874. During the New Deal, local whites eagerly embraced growing federal spending in Barbour County while steadfastly resisting simultaneous efforts to alter the racial order, using convict labor, tenant farming, and lynching to maintain their freedom to rule. After the federal government finally took an enduring affirmative stance on African American rights during the 1950s and 1960s, it prompted Wallace and his allies to take their fight for freedom to the national stage. When Wallace demanded "Segregation forever!" in his famous 1963 inaugural address, invoking "freedom" twenty-four times, he merely channeled the currents of Southern and national history. This was no new "backlash," as it was often described at the time. Ever since the Founding, white Americans crying for freedom have responded to even the most limited federal interventions to help non-white people with massive, and often violent, resistance. Tracing one town's story and a long struggle between local racism and federal power that continues to this day, Freedom's Dominion reveals how many white Americans came to view the federal government as an obstacle to their freedom to oppress.

FINALISTS

Seeing Red: Indigenous Land, American Expansion, and the Political Economy of Plunder in North America by Michael John Witgen
Watergate: A New History by Garrett M. Graff

Seeing Red : indigenous land, American expansion, and the political economy of plunder in North America by Michael John Witgen
Call Number: 305.8 WITGE S
ISBN: 9781469677774
Publication Date: 2023-08-01
Against long odds, the Anishinaabeg resisted removal, retaining thousands of acres of their homeland in what is now Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Their success rested partly on their roles as sellers of natural resources and buyers of trade goods, which made them key players in the political economy of plunder that drove white settlement and U.S. development in the Old Northwest. But, as Michael Witgen demonstrates, the credit for Native persistence rested with the Anishinaabeg themselves. Outnumbering white settlers well into the nineteenth century, they leveraged their political savvy to advance dual citizenship that enabled mixed-race tribal members to lay claim to a place in U.S. civil society. Telling the stories of mixed-race traders and missionaries, tribal leaders, and territorial governors, Witgen challenges our assumptions about the inevitability of U.S. expansion.
Watergate : a new history by Garrett M. Graff
Call Number: 973.924 G756w (Adult nonfiction)
ISBN: 9781982139162
Publication Date: 2022-02-15
The first definitive narrative history of Watergate, exploring the full scope of the scandal through the politicians, investigators, journalists, and informants who made it the most influential political event of our modern era.

2010s

Winner

Lords of Finance : the Bankers Who Broke the World, by Liaquat Ahamed

Lords of Finance : the bankers who broke the world by Liaquat Ahamed
Call Number: 332.1 A285L (Adult Fiction)
ISBN: 9781594201820
Publication Date: 2009-01-22
Capitalists and financiers -- Biography.
Bankers -- Biography.

Finalists

Empire of Liberty : a history of the early Republic, 1789-1815, by Gordon S. Wood
Fordlandia : the rise and fall of Henry Fod's forgotten jungle city, by Greg Grandin

Winner

The Fiery Trial : Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery, by Eric Foner

Finalists

Confederate Reckoning : power and politics in the Civil War South, by Stephanie McCurry
Eden on the Charles : the making of Boston, by Michael Rawson

Winner

Malcolm X : a Life of Reinvention, by Manning Marable

Malcolm X [E-Book] : a life of reinvention by Marable Manning
Call Number: BIO X MAL M Ebook (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9781101445273
Publication Date: 2011
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for History, the definitive biography of Malcolm X. Hailed as "a masterpiece" (San Francisco Chronicle), the late Manning Marable's acclaimed biography of Malcolm X finally does justice to one of the most influential and controversial figures of twentieth-century American history. Filled with startling new information and shocking revelations, Malcolm X unfolds a sweeping story of race and class in America. Reaching into Malcolm's troubled youth, it traces a path from his parents' activism as followers of Marcus Garvey through his own work with the Nation of Islam and rise in the world of black nationalism, and culminates in the never-before-told true story of his assassination. Malcolm X is a stunning achievement, the definitive work on one of our greatest advocates for social change.

Finalists

Empires, Nations & Families : a history of the North American west, 1800-1860, by Anne F. Hyde
Railroaded : the transcontinentals and the making of modern America, by Richard White
The Eleventh Day : the full story of 9/11 and Osama Bin Laden, by Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan

Winner

Embers of War : the Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam, by Fredrik Logevall

Finalists

Lincoln's Code : the laws of war in American history, by John Fabian Witt
The Barbarous Years : the peopling of British North America : the conflict of civilizations, 1600-1675, by Bernard Bailyn

Winner

The Internal Enemy : Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832, by Alan Taylor

The Internal Enemy : slavery and war in Virginia, 1772-1832 by Alan Taylor
Call Number: 975.5 T238i (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780393073713
Publication Date: 2013-09-09
Slavery -- Virginia -- Tidewater (Region) -- History.
Slaves -- Virginia -- Tidewater (Region) -- History.
Plantation life -- Virginia -- History -- War of 1812.
United States -- History -- War of 1812 -- Participation, African American.
United States -- History -- War of 1812 -- Naval operations, British.

Finalists

A Dreadful Deceit : the myth of race from the Colonial era to Obama's America, by Jacqueline Jones
Command and Control : nuclear weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the illusion of safety, by Eric Schlosser

Command and Control : nuclear weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the illusion of safety by Eric Schlosser
Call Number: 363.17 S345c (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9781594202278
Publication Date: 2013-09-17
United States. Air Force. Strategic Air Command. Strategic Missile Wing, 308th.
Nuclear weapons -- Accidents -- United States -- History.
Nuclear weapons -- Accidents -- Arkansas -- History.
Titan (Missile) -- History.
Nuclear weapons -- United States -- Safety measures.
Nuclear weapons -- Government policy -- United States.

Winner

Encounters at the Heart of the World : a History of the Mandan People, by Elizabeth A. Fenn

Finalists

An Empire on the Edge : how Britain came to fight America, by Nick Bunker
Empire of Cotton : a global history, by Sven Beckert

Winner

Custer's Trials : a Life on the Frontier of a New America, by T. J. Stiles

Custer's Trials : a life on the frontier of a new America by T. J. Stiles
Call Number: BIO CUSTE GEOA S (Adult biography)
ISBN: 9780307592644
Publication Date: 2015-10-27
In this magisterial biography, T. J. Stiles paints a portrait of Custer both deeply personal and sweeping in scope, proving how much of Custer’s legacy has been ignored. He demolishes Custer’s historical caricature, revealing a capable yet insecure man, intelligent yet bigoted, passionate yet self-destructive, a romantic individualist at odds with the institution of the military (court-martialed twice in six years) and the new corporate economy, a wartime emancipator who rejected racial equality. Stiles argues that, although Custer was justly noted for his exploits on the western frontier, he also played a central role as both a wide-ranging participant and polarizing public figure in his extraordinary, transformational time—a time of civil war, emancipation, brutality toward Native Americans, and, finally, the Industrial Revolution—even as he became one of its casualties. Intimate, dramatic, and provocative, this biography captures the larger story of the changing nation. It casts surprising new light on one of the best-known figures of American history, a subject of seemingly endless fascination.
Custer's Trials [E-Book] : a life on the frontier of a new America by T. J. Stiles
Call Number: BIO CUSTE GEOA S Ebook (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9781101875841
Publication Date: 2015

Finalists

Marching Home : Union veterans and their unending Civil War, by Brian Matthew Jordan
Target Tokyo : Jimmy Doolittle and the raid that avenged Pearl Harbor, by James M. Scott
The Pentagon's Brain : an uncensored history of DARPA, America's top-secret military research agency, by Annie Jacobsen

The Pentagon's Brain : an uncensored history of DARPA, America's top secret military research agency by Annie Jacobsen
Call Number: 355 J17p (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780316371766
Publication Date: 2015-09-22
United States -- Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency -- History.
National security -- United States -- History.
Military art and science -- Technological innovations -- United States.
Science and state -- United States.
Military research -- United States.
United States -- Defenses -- History.
United States -- Military policy.

Winner

Blood in the Water : the Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy, by Heather Ann Thompson

Finalists

Brothers at Arms : American independence and the men of France and Spain who saved it, by Larrie D. Ferreiro
New England Bound : slavery and colonization in early America, by Wendy Warren

Winner

The Gulf : the Making of an American Sea, by Jack E. Davis

Finalists

Fear City : New York's fiscal crisis and the rise of austerity politics, by Kim Phillips-Fein
Hitler in Los Angeles : how Jews foiled Nazi plots against Hollywood and America, by Steven J. Ross

Winner

Frederick Douglass : Prophet of Freedom, by David W. Blight

Frederick Douglass : prophet of freedom by David W. Blight
Call Number: BIO DOUGL FRE B (Adult biography)
ISBN: 9781416590316
Publication Date: 2018-10-16
Douglass, Frederick, 1818-1895.
Abolitionists -- United States -- Biography.
African American abolitionists -- United State -- Biography.
Slaves -- United States -- Biography.
Antislavery movements -- United States -- History -- 19th century.

Finalists

American Eden : David Hosack, botany, and medicine in the garden of the early Republic, by Victoria Johnson
Civilizing Torture : an American tradition, by W. Fitzhugh Brundage

American Eden : David Hosack, botany, and medicine in the garden of the early republic by Victoria Johnson
Call Number: 580.973 J69a (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9781631494192
Publication Date: 2018-06-05
Hosack, David, 1769-1835.
Medical botanists -- United States -- Biography.
Botany, Medical -- United States -- Biographies.

2000s

Winner

Freedom From Fear : the American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945, by David M. Kennedy

Freedom from Fear : the American people in depression and war, 1929-1945 by David M. Kennedy
Call Number: 973.91 K35rf (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780195038347
Publication Date: 1999-05-06
Depressions -- 1929 -- United States.
New Deal, 1933-1939.
World War, 1939-1945 -- United States.
United States -- History -- 1919-1933.
United States -- History -- 1933-1945.

Finalists

Into the American Woods : negotiators on the Pennsylvania frontier, by James H. Merrell
The Cousins' Wars : religion, politics and the triumph of Anglo-America, by Kevin Phillips

Winner

Founding Brothers : the Revolutionary Generation, by Joseph J. Ellis

Founding Brothers : the revolutionary generation by Joseph J. Ellis
Call Number: 973.4 E47f (Adult Nonficiton)
ISBN: 9780375405440
Publication Date: 2000-10-17
Statesmen -- United States -- Biography -- Anecdotes.
Presidents -- United States -- Biography -- Anecdotes.
United States -- History -- 1783-1815 -- Anecdotes.
United States -- Politics and government -- 1783-1809.

Finalists

The Right to Vote : the contested history of democracy in the United States, by Alexander Keyssar
Way Out There in the Blue, by Frances FitzGerald

Winner

The Metaphysical Club : a Story of Ideas in America, by Louis Menand

Finalists

Deep South : delta, piedmont, and the sea island society in the age of segregation, by J. William Harris
Facing East from Indian Country : a native history of early America, by Daniel K. Richter

Winner

An Army at Dawn : the War in North Africa, 1942-1943, by Rick Atkinson

An Army at Dawn : the war in North Africa, 1942-1943 by Rick Atkinson
Call Number: 940.54 A877L v.1 (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780805062885
Publication Date: 2002-10-02
World War, 1939-1945 -- Campaigns -- Africa, North.
Operation Torch.
Africa, North -- History, Military.

Finalists

At the Hands of Persons Unknown : the lynching of black America, by Philip Dray
Rereading Sex : battles over sexual knowledge and suppression in nineteenth century America, by Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz

Winner

A Nation Under Our Feet : Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration, by Steven Hahn

Finalists

Great Fortune : the epic of Rockefeller Center, by Daniel Okrent
They Marched Into Sunlight : war and peac, Vietnam and America, October 1967, by David Maraniss

They Marched into Sunlight : war and peace, Vietnam and America, October 1967 by David Maraniss
Call Number: 959.7043 M311t (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780743261043
Publication Date: 2004-10-04
Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975 -- United States.
Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975 -- Protest movements -- United States.
United States -- Politics and government -- 1963-1969.

Winner

Washington's Crossing, by David Hackett Fischer

Washington's Crossing by David Hackett Fischer
Call Number: 973.3 W318f (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780195170344
Publication Date: 2004-02-12
Washington, George, 1732-1799 -- Headquarters -- Pennsylvania -- Valley Forge.
Delaware River Valley (N.Y.-Del. and N.J.) -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783

Finalists

Arc of Justice : a saga of race, civil rights, and murder in the Jazz Age, by Kevin Boyle
Conjectures of Order : intellectual life and the American South, 1810-1860, volumes 1 & 2, by Michael O'Brien

Winner

Polio : an American Story, by David M. Oshinsky

Finalists

New York Burning, by Jill Lepore
The Rise of American Democracy : Jefferson to Lincoln, by Sean Wilentz

Winner

The Race Beat : the Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation, by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff

Finalists

Mayflower : a story of courage, community, and war, by Nathaniel Philbrick
Middle Passages : African American journeys to Africa, 1787-2005, by James T. Campbell

Mayflower : a story of courage, community, and war by Nathaniel Philbrick
Call Number: 973.2 P545m (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780143111979
Publication Date: 2007-04-24
Bradford, William, 1590-1657.
Church, Benjamin, 1639-1718.
Pilgrims (New Plymouth Colony)
Indians of North America -- Wars -- 1600-1750.
Massachusetts -- History -- New Plymouth, 1620-1691.

Middle Passages : African American journeys to Africa, 1787-2005 by James T. Campbell
Call Number: 916 C188m (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9781594200830
Publication Date: 2006-05-04
African Americans -- Travel -- Africa -- History.
African Americans -- Relations with Africans.
Africa -- Description and travel.

Winner

What Hath God Wrought : the Transformation of America, 1815-1848, by Daniel Walker Howe

Finalists

Nixon and Kissinger : partners in power, by Robert Dallek
The Coldest Winter : America and the Korean War, by David Halberstam

Nixon and Kissinger : partners in power by Robert Dallek
Call Number: 973.924 N7373d (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780060722302
Publication Date: 2007-04-24
Nixon, Richard M. (Richard Milhous), 1913-1994.
Kissinger, Henry, 1923-
Presidents -- United States -- Biography.
Statesmen -- United States -- Biography.
United States -- Foreign relations -- 1945-1989.

The Coldest Winter : America and the Korean War by David Halberstam
Call Number: 951.904 H157c (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9781401300524
Publication Date: 2007-09-25
Korean War, 1950-1953 -- United States.
Korean War, 1950-1953 -- Campaigns.

Winner

The Hemingses of Monticello : an American Family, by Annette Gordon-Reed

The Hemingses of Monticello : an American Family by Annette Gordon-Reed
Call Number: 973.4 H488g (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780393064773
Publication Date: 2008-09-17
Hemings family.
Hemings, Sally -- Family.
Jefferson, Thomas, 1743-1826 -- Family.
Slaves -- Virginia -- Albemarle County -- Biography.
African American families.
African Americans -- Biography.
Racially mixed people -- United States -- Biography.
Monticello (Va.) -- Biography.
Albemarle County (Va.) -- Biography.

Finalists

The Liberal Hour : Washington and the politics of change in the 1960s, by G. Calvin Mackenzie
This Republic of Suffering : death and the American Civil War, by Drew Gilpin Faust

This Republic of Suffering : death and the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust
Call Number: 973.7 F267t (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780375404047
Publication Date: 2008-01-08
More than 600,000 soldiers lost their lives in the American Civil War. An equivalent proportion of today's population would be six million. In This Republic of Suffering, Drew Gilpin Faust describes how the survivors managed on a practical level and how a deeply religious culture struggled to reconcile the unprecedented carnage with its belief in a benevolent God. Throughout, the voices of soldiers and their families, of statesmen, generals, preachers, poets, surgeons, nurses, northerners and southerners come together to give us a vivid understanding of the Civil War's most fundamental and widely shared reality.

1990s

Winner

In Our Image : America's empire in the Philippines, by Stanley Karnow

Finalists

American Genesis : a century of invention and technological enthusiasm, 1870-1970, by Thomas P. Hughes
The Image of the Black in Western Art, Volume IV : from the American Revolution to World War I, by Hugh Honour

Winner

A Midwife's Tale, by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

A Midwife's Tale : the life of Martha Ballard, based on her diary, 1785-1812 by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
Call Number: 974.1 B189u (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780679733768
Publication Date: 1991-06-04
Ballard, Martha, 1735-1812.
Midwives -- Maine -- Hallowell -- Biography.
Midwives -- Maine -- Augusta -- Biography.
Hallowell (Me.) -- Biography.
Augusta (Me.) -- Biography
Kennebec River Valley (Me.) -- Social life and customs.

Finalists

America in 1857 : a nation on the brink, by Kenneth M. Stampp
Making a New Deal : industrial workers in Chicago, 1919-1939, by Lizabeth Cohen
The Civil Rights Era : origins and development of national policy, by Hugh David Graham

Winner

The Fate of Liberty : Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties, by Mark E. Neely

The Fate of Liberty : Abraham Lincoln and civil liberties by Mark E. Neely
Call Number: 973.7 N379f (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780195080322
Publication Date: 1992-08-20
Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865 -- Views on civil rights.
Habeas corpus -- United States -- History -- 19th century.
Civil rights -- United States -- History -- 19th century.
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Law and legislation.

Finalists

A Very Thin Line : the Iran-Contra Affairs, by Theodore Draper
Nature's Metropolis : Chicago and the Great West, by William Cronon
Profits in the Wilderness : entrepreneurship and the founding of New England towns in the seventeenth century, by John Frederick Martin
The Middle Ground : Indians, empires, and republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815

A Very Thin Line : the Iran-contra affairs by Theodore Draper
Call Number: 973.927 D766v (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780671778149
Publication Date: 1992-06-01
Iran-Contra Affair, 1985-1990.

Winner

The Radicalism of the American Revolution, by Gordon S. Wood

The Radicalism of the American Revolution by Gordon S. Wood
Call Number: 973.3 .W875r (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780679736882
Publication Date: 1993-03-02
Radicalism -- United States -- History -- 18th century.
Political culture -- United States -- History -- 18th century.
United States -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783 -- Social aspects.
United States -- Politics and government -- 1775-1783.

Finalists

Lincoln at Gettysburg : the words that remade America, by Garry Wills
The Promise of the New South : life after reconstruction, by Edward L. Ayers

Lincoln at Gettysburg : the words that remade America by Garry Wills
Call Number: 973.7349 W741L (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780671867423
Publication Date: 1993-06-12
The power of words has rarely been given a more compelling demonstration than in the Gettysburg Address. Lincoln was asked to memorialize the gruesome battle. Instead he gave the whole nation “a new birth of freedom” in the space of a mere 272 words. His entire life and previous training and his deep political experience went into this, his revolutionary masterpiece. By examining both the address and Lincoln in their historical moment and cultural frame, Wills breathes new life into words we thought we knew, and reveals much about a president so mythologized but often misunderstood. Wills shows how Lincoln came to change the world and to effect an intellectual revolution, how his words had to and did complete the work of the guns, and how Lincoln wove a spell that has not yet been broken.

Winner

No award given

Winner

No Ordinary Time : Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt : the home front in World War II, by Doris Kearns Goodwin

No Ordinary Time : Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt : the home front in World War II by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Call Number: 973.917 R781go (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780671642402
Publication Date: 1994-09-01
Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano), 1882-1945.
Roosevelt, Eleanor, 1884-1962.
World War, 1939-1945 -- United States.
Presidents -- United States -- Biography.
Presidents' wives -- United States -- Biography.
United States -- History -- 1933-1945.

Finalists

Lincoln in American Memory, by Merril D. Peterson
Stories of Scottsboro, by James Goodman
Case Closed : Lee Harvey Oswald and the assassination of JFK, by Geral Posner
Crime and Punishment in American History, by Lawrence M. Friedman
William Faulkner and Southern History, by Joel Williamson

Case Closed : Lee Harvey Oswald and the assassination of JFK by Gerald Posner
Call Number: 364.1524 P855c (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9781400034628
Publication Date: 2003-09-09
Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963 -- Assassination.
Oswald, Lee Harvey.

Winner

William Cooper's Town : Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic, by Alan Taylor

William Cooper's Town : power and persuasion on the frontier of the early American Republic by Alan Taylor
Call Number: 974.7 T238w (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780679773009
Publication Date: 1996-08-27
Cooper, James Fenimore, 1789-1851.
Cooperstown (NY) -- History.

Finalists

Dark Sun : the making of the hydrogen bomb, by Richard Rhodes
The Sacred Fire of Liberty : James Madison and the founding of the Federal Republic, by Lance Banning

Winner

Original Meanings : Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution, by Jack N. Rakove

Original Meanings : politics and ideas in the making of the Constitution by Jack N. Rakove
Call Number: 342.73 R162o (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780679781219
Publication Date: 1997-05-27
United States -- Constitutional history.
United States -- Constitutional law -- Interpretation and construction.

Finalists

Founding Mothers and Fathers, by Mary Beth Norton
The Battle for Christmas, by Stephen Nissenbaum

Winner

Summer for the Gods : the Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion, by Edward J. Larson

Summer for the Gods : the Scopes trial and America's continuing debate over science and religion by Edward J. Larson
Call Number: 345.73 L334s (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780674854291
Publication Date: 1998-11-15
Scopes, John Thomas -- Trials, litigation, etc.
Evolution -- Study and teaching -- Law and legislation -- United States.

Finalists

Big Trouble : a murder in a small western town sets off a struggle for the soul of America, by J. Anthony Lukas
Civic Ideals : conflicting visions of citizenship in U.S. history, by Rogers M. Smith

Winner

Gotham : a History of New York City to 1898, by Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace

Gotham : a history of New York City to 1898 by Edwin G. Burrows; Mike Wallace
Call Number: 974.7 B972g (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780195116342
Publication Date: 1998-11-19
New York (N.Y.) -- History.

Finalists

In a Barren Land : American Indian dispossession and survival, by Paula Mitchell Marks
The New Ocean : the story of the first space age, by William E. Burrows

1980s

Winner

Been in the Storm So Long, by Leon F. Litwack

Finalists

The Plains Across, by John B. Unruh
The Urban Crucible, by Gary B. Nash

Winner

American Education : the National Experience, 1783-1876, by Lawrence A Cremin

Finalists

A Search for Power : the 'weaker sex' in seventeenth century New England, by Lyle Koehler
Over Here : the First World War and American Society, by David M. Kennedy

Winner

Mary Chesnut's Civil War, by C. Vann Woodward

Finalists

Power and Culture : the Japanese-American War, 1941-1945, by Akira Iriye
White Supremacy : a Comparative Study in American & South African History, by Geore M. Fredrickson

Winner

The Transformation of Virginia, 1740-1790, by Rhys L. Isaac

Finalists

Southern Honor : Ethics & Behavior in the Old South, by Bertam Wyatt-Brown
The Glorious Cause : the American Revolution, 1763-1789, by Robert L. Middlekauff

Winner

No award given

Winner

Prophets of Regulation, by Thomas K. McCraw

Finalists

The Crucible of Race, by Joel Williamson
Te Great Father : the United States Government and the American Indians, by Francis Paul Prucha

Winner

...the Heavens and the Earth : a Political History of the Space Age, by Walter A. McDougall

Finalists

Emigrants and Exiles : Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America, by Kerby A. Miller
Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow : Black Women, Work and the Family afrom Slavery to the Present, by Jacqueline Jones
Novus Ordo Seclorum : the Intellectual Origins of the Constitution, by Forrest McDonald

Winner

Voyagers to the West : a Passage in the Peopling of America on the Eve of the Revolution, by Bernard Bailyn

Finalists

Bearing the Cross : Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Souther Christian Leadership Conference, by David J. Garrow
Eisenhower : At War, 1943-1945, by David Eisenhower

Winner

The Launching of Modern American Science, 1846-1876, by Robert V. Bruce

Finalists

The Care of Strangers : the Rise of America's Hospital System, by Charles E. Rosenberg
The Fall of the House of Labor, by David Montgomery

Winners

Battle Cry of Freedom : the Civil War Era, by James M. McPherson
Parting the Waters : America in the King Years 1954-1963, by Taylor Branch

Battle Cry of Freedom : the Civil War Era by James M. McPherson
Call Number: 973.73 M482b (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780195038637
Publication Date: 1988-02-25
Discusses the political, social, and military events that followed the outbreak of war in Mexico and ended with the Civil War.

Parting the Waters : America in the King years, 1954-63 by Taylor Branch
Call Number: 973.0496 B816p (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780671687427
Publication Date: 1989-11-15
Chronicles the civil rights struggle from the twilight of the Eisenhower years through the assassination of President Kennedy.

Finalists

A Bright Shining Lie : John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam, by Neil Sheehan
Reconstruction : America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877, by Eric Foner

A Bright Shining Lie : John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam by Neil Sheehan
Call Number: BIO VANN JOHP S (Adult biography)
ISBN: 9780394484471
Publication Date: 1988-09-12
The story of Lt. Col. John Paul Vann, who went to Vietnam in 1962 and served as a civilian worker in the pacification program until his death in 1972.

Reconstruction : America's unfinished revolution, 1863-1877 by Eric Foner
Call Number: 973.8 F673r (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780060158514
Publication Date: 1988-05-01
Chronicles how Americans responded to the changes unleashed by the Civil War and the end of slavery.

1970s

Winner

Present at the Creation : My Years in the State Department, by Dean Acheson

Winner

Roosevelt : The Soldier of Freedom, by James MacGregor Burns

Winner

Neither Black Nor White, by Carl N. Degler

Winner

People of Paradox : an Inquiry Concerning the Origins of American Civilization, by Michael Kammen

Winner

The Americans : the Democratic Experience, by Daniel J. Boorstin

Winner

Jefferson and His Times, Vols. 1-V, by Dumas Malone

Winner

Lamy of Santa Fe, by Paul Horgan

Lamy of Santa Fe, His Life and Times by Paul Horgan
Call Number: 282 L242h (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780374183004
Publication Date: 1975-01-01
Lamy, John Baptist, Abp, 1814-1888

Winner

The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861, by David M. Potter

Winner

The Visible Hand : the Managerial Revolution in American Business, by Alfred D. Chandler

Winner

The Dred Scott Case, by Don E. Fehrenbacher

1960s

Winner

In the Days of McKinley, by Margaret Leech

Winner

Between War and Peach : the Potsdam Conference, by Herbert Feis

Winner

The Triumphant Empire : Thunder-Clouds Gather in the West 1763-1766, by Lawrence H. Gipson

Winner

Washington, Village and Capital, 1800-1878, by Constance McLaughlin Green

Winner

Puritan Village : the Formation of a New England Town, by Sumner Chilton Powell

Winner

The Greenback Era : a Social and Political History of American Finance, 1865-1879, by Irwin Unger

Winner

The Life of the Mind in America : From the Revolution to the Civil War, by Perry Miller

Winner

Exploration and Empire : the Explorer and the Scientist in the Winning of the American West, by William H. Goetzmann

Exploration and Empire : the explorer and the scientist in the winning of the American West by William H. Goetzmann
Call Number: 917.8 G611e (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780393008814
Publication Date: 1978-05-01
West (U.S.) -- Discovery and exploration.

Winner

The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, by Bernard Bailyn

Winner

Origins of the Fifth Amendment, by Leonard W. Levy

1950s

Winner

Art and Life in America, by Oliver W. Larkin

Winner

The Old Northwest, Pioneer Period 1815-1840, by R. Carlyle Buley

Winner

The Uprooted, by Oscar Handlin

Winner

The Era of Good Feelings, by George Dangerfield

Winner

A Stillness at Appomattox, by Bruce Catton

A Stillness at Appomattox by Bruce Catton
Call Number: 1953
ISBN: 9780385044516
Publication Date: 1990-08-01
United States. Army of the Potomac.
Appomattox Campaign, 1865.
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Regimental histories.
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Campaigns.

Winner

Great River : the Rio Grande in North American History, by Paul Horgan

Winner

The Age of Reform, by Richard Hofstadter

Winner

Russia Leaves the War : Soviet-American Relations, 1917-1920, by George F. Kennan

Winner

Banks and Politics in America, by Bray Hammond

Winner

The Republican Era : 1869-1901, by Leonard D. White

1940s

Winner

Abraham Lincoln : The War Years, by Carl Sandburg

Winner

The Atlantic Migration, 1607-1860, by Marcus Lee Hansen

Winner

Reveille in Washington, 1860-1865, by Margaret Leech

Winner

Paul Revere and the World He Lived In, by Esther Forbes

Winner

The Growth of American Thought, by Merle Curti

Winner

Unfinished Business, by Stephen Bonsal

Winner

The Age of Jackson, by Arthur Meier Schlesinger

Winner

Scientists Against Time, by James Phinney Baxter, III

Winner

Across the Wide Missouri, by Bernard Devoto

Winner

The Disruption of American Democracy, by Roy Franklin Nichols

1930s

Winner

The Founding of the American Republic, Volume II : The War of Independence : American Phase, by Claude H. Van Tyne

Winner

The Coming of the War 1914, by Bernadotte E. Schmitt

Winner

My Experiences in the World War, by John J. Pershing

Winner

The Significance of Sections in American History, by Frederick J. Turner

Winner

The People's Choice, by Herbert Agar

Winner

The Colonial Period of American History, by Charles McLean Andrews

Winner

A Constitutional History of the United States, by Andrew C. McLaughlin

Winner

The Flowering of New England, 1815-1865, by Van Wyck Brooks

Winner

The Road to Reunion, 1865-1900, by Paul Herman Buck

Winner

A History of American Magazines, by Frank Luther Mott

1920s

Winner

The War with Mexico, by Justin H. Smith

Winner

The Victory at Sea, by William Sowden Sims

Winner

The Founding of New England, by James Truslow Adams

Winner

The Supreme Court in United States History, by Charles Warren

Winner

The American Revolution -- A Constitutional Interpretation, by Charles Howard McIlwain

Winner

History of the American Frontier, by Frederic L. Paxson

Winner

A History of the United States, Vol. VI : The War for Southern Independence, 1849-1865

Winner

Pinckney's Treaty, by Samuel Flagg Bemis

Winner

Main Currents in American Thought, 2 volumes, by Vernon Louis Parrington

Winner

The Organization and Administration of the Union Army, 1861-1865, by Fred Albert Shannon

1910s

Winner

With Americans of Past and Present Days, by His Excellency J. J. Jusserand

Winner

History of the Civil War, 1861-1865, by James Ford Rhodes

History of the Civil War, 1861-1865 by James Ford Rhodes
Call Number: 973.7 R476h (Adult Nonfiction)
Publication Date: 1961
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865.

Pulitzer Prize

2020s

Winner

Sweet Taste of Liberty : a True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America by W. Caleb McDaniel

Finalists

Race for Profit : How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

End of the Myth : From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America by Greg Grandin

Winner

Franchise : the Golden Arches in Black America by Marcia Chatelain

Finalists

The Deviant's War : the Homosexual vs. the United States of America by Eric Cervini

The Three-Cornered War : the Union, the Confederacy, and Native Peoples in the Fight for the West by Megan Kate Nelson

Winners

Covered with Night: a story of murder and indigenous justice in early America by Nicole Eustace

Cuba: an American history by Ada Ferrer

Finalist

Until Justice Be Done: America's first civil rights movement, from the Revolution to Reconstruction by Kate Masur

WINNER

Freedom's Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power by Jefferson Cowie

FINALISTS

Seeing Red: Indigenous Land, American Expansion, and the Political Economy of Plunder in North America by Michael John Witgen

Watergate: A New History by Garrett M. Graff

2010s

Winner

Lords of Finance : the Bankers Who Broke the World, by Liaquat Ahamed

Finalists

Empire of Liberty : a history of the early Republic, 1789-1815, by Gordon S. Wood

Fordlandia : the rise and fall of Henry Fod's forgotten jungle city, by Greg Grandin

Winner

The Fiery Trial : Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery, by Eric Foner

Finalists

Confederate Reckoning : power and politics in the Civil War South, by Stephanie McCurry

Eden on the Charles : the making of Boston, by Michael Rawson

Winner

Malcolm X : a Life of Reinvention, by Manning Marable

Finalists

Empires, Nations & Families : a history of the North American west, 1800-1860, by Anne F. Hyde

Railroaded : the transcontinentals and the making of modern America, by Richard White

The Eleventh Day : the full story of 9/11 and Osama Bin Laden, by Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan

Winner

Embers of War : the Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam, by Fredrik Logevall

Finalists

Lincoln's Code : the laws of war in American history, by John Fabian Witt

The Barbarous Years : the peopling of British North America : the conflict of civilizations, 1600-1675, by Bernard Bailyn

Winner

The Internal Enemy : Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832, by Alan Taylor

Finalists

A Dreadful Deceit : the myth of race from the Colonial era to Obama's America, by Jacqueline Jones

Command and Control : nuclear weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the illusion of safety, by Eric Schlosser

Winner

Encounters at the Heart of the World : a History of the Mandan People, by Elizabeth A. Fenn

Finalists

An Empire on the Edge : how Britain came to fight America, by Nick Bunker

Empire of Cotton : a global history, by Sven Beckert

Winner

Custer's Trials : a Life on the Frontier of a New America, by T. J. Stiles

Finalists

Marching Home : Union veterans and their unending Civil War, by Brian Matthew Jordan

Target Tokyo : Jimmy Doolittle and the raid that avenged Pearl Harbor, by James M. Scott

The Pentagon's Brain : an uncensored history of DARPA, America's top-secret military research agency, by Annie Jacobsen

Winner

Blood in the Water : the Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy, by Heather Ann Thompson

Finalists

Brothers at Arms : American independence and the men of France and Spain who saved it, by Larrie D. Ferreiro

New England Bound : slavery and colonization in early America, by Wendy Warren

Winner

The Gulf : the Making of an American Sea, by Jack E. Davis

Finalists

Fear City : New York's fiscal crisis and the rise of austerity politics, by Kim Phillips-Fein

Hitler in Los Angeles : how Jews foiled Nazi plots against Hollywood and America, by Steven J. Ross

Winner

Frederick Douglass : Prophet of Freedom, by David W. Blight

Finalists

American Eden : David Hosack, botany, and medicine in the garden of the early Republic, by Victoria Johnson

Civilizing Torture : an American tradition, by W. Fitzhugh Brundage

2000s

Winner

Freedom From Fear : the American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945, by David M. Kennedy

Finalists

Into the American Woods : negotiators on the Pennsylvania frontier, by James H. Merrell