LibGuides: Pulitzer Prize: General Nonfiction (1962- )

The Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction
1962-present

2020s

Winners (tie)

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

The Undying : Pain, Vulnerability, Mortality, Medicine, Art, Time, Dreams, Data, Exhaustion, Cancer, and Care by Anne Boyer

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.
The Undying : pain, vulnerability, mortality, medicine, art, time, dreams, data, exhaustion, cancer, and care by Anne Boyer
Call Number: BIO BOYER ANN U (Adult Biography)
ISBN: 9781250757982
Publication Date: 2020-09-08
Boyer, Anne, 1973- -- Health.
Breast -- Cancer -- Patients -- United States -- Biography.
Women authors, American -- Biography.
Women artists -- United States -- BIography.
Cancer -- Psychological aspects.
Mortality -- Psychological aspects.
Literature -- Psychology.
Autobiographies.

Finalists

Elderhood : Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, Reimagning Life by Louise Aronson
Solitary by Albert Woodfox with Leslie George

Elderhood : redefining aging, transforming medicine, reimagining life by Louise Aronson
Call Number: 362.609 A769e (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9781620405468
Publication Date: 2019-06-11
For more than 5,000 years, "old" has been defined as beginning between the ages of 60 and 70. That means most people alive today will spend more years in elderhood than in childhood, and many will be elders for 40 years or more. Yet at the very moment that humans are living longer than ever before, we've made old age into a disease, a condition to be dreaded, denigrated, neglected, and denied. ... Harvard-trained geriatrician Louise Aronson uses stories from her quarter century of caring for patients, and draws from history, science, literature, popular culture, and her own life to weave a vision of old age that's neither nightmare nor utopian fantasy -- a vision full of joy, wonder, frustration, outrage, and hope about aging, medicine, and humanity itself.
Solitary by Albert Woodfox
Call Number: 365.6 W887s (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780802129086
Publication Date: 2019-03-05
The unforgettable life story of a man who served more than four decades in solitary confinement--in a 6-foot by 9-foot cell, 23 hours a day, in notorious Angola prison in Louisiana--for a crime he did not commit. That Albert Woodfox survived was, in itself, a feat of extraordinary endurance against the violence and deprivation he faced daily. That he was able to emerge from his odyssey within America's prison and judicial systems with his humanity and sense of hope for the future intact is a triumph of the human spirit, and makes his book a clarion call to reform the inhumanity of solitary confinement in the United States and around the world.

Winner

Wilmington's Lie : the Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy by David Zucchino

Finalists

Minor Feelings : an Asian American Reckoning by Cathy Park Hong
Yellow Bird : Oil, Murder, and a WOman's Search for Justice in Indian Country by Sierra Crain Murdoch

Yellow Bird : oil, murder, and a woman's search for justice in Indian Country by Sierra Crane Murdoch
Call Number: BIO YELLO LIS M (Adult biography)
ISBN: 9780399589171
Publication Date: 2021-02-16

Winner

Invisible Child: poverty, survival & hope in an American city by Andrea Elliott

Invisible Child : poverty, survival & hope in an American city by Andrea Elliott
Call Number: BIO COATE DAS E (Adult biography)
ISBN: 9780812986945
Publication Date: 2021-10-05

Finalists

Home, Land, Security: deradicalization and the journey back from extremism by Carla Power
The Family Roe: an American story by Joshua Prager

WINNER

His Name is George Floyd: One Man's Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice by Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa

His Name Is George Floyd (Pulitzer Prize Winner) by Robert Samuels; Toluse Olorunnipa
Call Number: BIO FLOYD GEO S
ISBN: 9780593490617
Publication Date: 2022-05-17
A landmark biography by two prizewinning Washington Post reporters that reveals how systemic racism shaped George Floyd's life and legacy--from his family's roots in the tobacco fields of North Carolina to ongoing inequality in housing, education, health care, criminal justice, and policing--telling the singular story of how one man's tragic experience brought about a global movement for change. The events of that day are now tragically familiar: on May 25, 2020, George Floyd became the latest Black person to die at the hands of the police, murdered outside of a Minneapolis convenience store by white officer Derek Chauvin. The video recording of his death set off a series of protests in the United States and around the world, awakening millions to the dire need for reimagining this country's broken systems of policing. But behind a face that would be graffitied onto countless murals, and a name that has become synonymous with civil rights, there is the reality of one man's stolen life: a life beset by suffocating systemic pressures that ultimately proved inescapable. This biography of George Floyd shows the athletic young boy raised in the projects of Houston's Third Ward who would become a father, a partner, a friend, and a man constantly in search of a better life. In retracing Floyd's story, Washington Post reporters Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa bring to light the determination Floyd carried as he faced the relentless struggle to survive as a Black man in America. Placing his narrative within the larger context of America's deeply troubled history of institutional racism, His Name Is George Floyd examines the Floyd family's roots in slavery and sharecropping, the segregation of his Houston schools, the over-policing of his communities, the devastating snares of the prison system, and his attempts to break free from drug dependence--putting today's inequality into uniquely human terms.

FINALISTS

Kingdom of Characters: The Language Revolution That Made China Modern by Jing Tsu
Sounds WIld and Broken: Sonic Marvels, Evolution's Creativity, and the CXrisis of Sensory Extinction by David George Haskel
Under the Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives and on the Health of Our Nation by Linda Villarosa

Kingdom of Characters : the language revolution that made China modern by Jing Tsu
Call Number: 495.111 TSU K
ISBN: 9780735214736
Publication Date: 2023-01-17
After a meteoric rise, China today is one of the world's most powerful nations. Just a century ago, it was a crumbling empire, with literacy reserved for the elite few. In Kingdom of Characters, Jing Tsu argues that China's greatest and most daunting challenge was a linguistic one. Just as important as China's technological and industrial advances and political maneuvers was the century-long fight to make the Chinese language, with its many dialects and complex character-based script, accessible to the modern world of global trade and digital technology. Kingdom of Characters follows the bold and cunning innovators who adapted the Chinese language to a world defined by the West and its alphabet: the exiled reformer who risked a death sentence to advocate for Mandarin as a national language, the Chinese Muslim poet who laid the groundwork for Chairman Mao's phonetic writing system, the imprisoned computer engineer who devised input codes for Chinese characters on the lid of a teacup, among others. Without the advances they enabled, China might never have become the dominating force we know today. The revolution of the Chinese script is just as breathtaking as China's transformation into a capitalist juggernaut, in large part because those linguistic innovations enabled China's reinvention. With larger-than-life characters and an unexpected perspective on the major events of China's tumultuous twentieth century, Tsu reveals how language is both a technology to be perfected and a subtle yet potent power to be exercised and expanded.
Sounds Wild and Broken : sonic marvels, evolution's creativity, and the crisis of sensory extinction by David George Haskell
Call Number: 591.594 HASKE S
ISBN: 9781984881564
Publication Date: 2023-03-07
A rich exploration of how the evolution of both natural and manmade sounds have shaped us and the world, and how the world's acoustic diversity is currently in grave danger of being destroyed. We live on a planet that is wrapped in the diverse acoustic marvels of song and speech. Yet never has this diversity been so threatened as it is now. Braiding his experience as a listener and an ecologist with the latest scientific discoveries, David Haskell explores the acoustic wonders of our planet. Starting in deep time with the origins of animal song and traversing the whole arc of Earth's history, he illuminates and celebrates the creative processes that have produced the varied sounds of our world. From the powers of animal sexuality and environmental change to the unpredictable, improvisational whims of genetic evolution and cultural change, sounds on Earth are the products of and catalysts for vibrant ecosystems. Four interconnected sensory crises are currently diminishing the vitality of our sonic world. Deforestation is erasing the most complex communities of sounds the world has ever known. In the oceans, machine noise has created a living hell for the most acoustically sensitive animals on the planet. In cities, noise has resulted in dire sonic inequities among people, the result of racism, sexism, and power asymmetries. Last, in forgetting or being barred from hearing the voices of the living Earth, we lose both the experience of joyful connection and the foundation for ethics and action. As wild sounds disappear forever and human noise smothers other voices, the Earth becomes flatter, and blander. According to Haskell, this decline is not a mere loss of sensory ornament. Sound is a generative force, and so the erasure of sonic diversity makes the world less creative. His book is an invitation to listen, wonder, belong, and act.
Under the Skin : the hidden toll of racism on American lives and on the health of our nation by Linda Villarosa
Call Number: 362.1089 VILLA U
ISBN: 9780385544887
Publication Date: 2022-06-14
The first book to tell the full story of race and health in America today, showing the toll racism takes on individuals and the health of our nation, by a groundbreaking journalist at the New York Times Magazine.

2010s

Winner

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

Finalists

How Markets Fail : the Logic of Economic Calamities, by John Cassidy
The Evolution of God, by Robert Wright

How Markets Fail : an atlas of economic irrationality by John Cassidy
Call Number: 381 C345h (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780374173203
Publication Date: 2009-11-10
Financial crises.
Stock exchanges.
Monetary policy.
Banks and banking.

CONTENTS: Warnings ignored -- The invisible hand -- Prices as signals -- Perfect markets -- Proof positive? -- The evangelist -- Efficient markets -- Lucasian economics -- "The prof and the polar bears" -- A taxonomy of failure -- The prisoner's dilemma -- The market for lemons -- The beauty contest -- The rational herd -- Enter the pyschologists -- The irrational herd -- Ponzi finance -- The fountainhead -- The housing boom -- Subprime delusions -- TK -- TK.

The Evolution of God by Robert Wright
ISBN: 9780316734912
Publication Date: 2009-06-08
God -- History of doctrines.
Monotheism -- History.
Religions -- Relations.

In this sweeping narrative that takes us from the Stone Age to the Information Age, Robert Wright unveils a hidden pattern that the great monotheistic faiths have followed as they have evolved. Through the prisms of archaeology, theology, and evolutionary psychology, Wright's findings overturn basic assumptions about Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and are sure to cause controversy. He explains why spirituality has a role today, and why science, contrary to conventional wisdom, affirms the validity of the religious quest. And this previously unrecognized evolutionary logic points not toward continued religious extremism, but future harmony.

Winner

The Emperor of All Maladies : a Biography of Cancer, by Siddharth Mukherjee

The Emperor of All Maladies : a biography of cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee
Call Number: 616.99 M953e (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9781439107959
Publication Date: 2010-11-16
Scientist and physician Siddhartha Mukherjee, author of The Emperor of All Maladies, calls his book a biography of cancer rather than simply a history. The author explores a wide range of research work, historical accounts, and personal stories in this intensive look at the backstory of cancer. This includes the evolution of cancer's nature, treatment, and the scientific and medical communities' understanding of the disease as well as the support of the public and politicians in the crucial fight to find a cure. The author examines historical accounts of cancer, focusing mostly on events dating from the 1940s to present time. Along the way he discusses how cancer research evolved and how perceptions of the disease and its impact on the world changed with each account. Over time, proposed causes for cancer ran the gamut, some of which are proven to be true to this day, while others remain confined to the history books....

Finalists

Empire of the Summer Moon : Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History, by S. C. Gwynne
The Shallows : What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, by Nicholas Carr

Empire of the Summer Moon : Quanah Parker and the rise and fall of the Comanches, the most powerful Indian tribe in American history by S. C. Gwynne
Call Number: 978.004 P242g (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9781416591061
Publication Date: 2011-05-10
Empire of the Summer Moonspans two astonishing stories. The first traces the rise and fall of the Comanches, the most powerful Indian tribe in American history. The second entails one of the most remarkable narratives ever to come out of the Old West: the epic saga of the pioneer woman Cynthia Ann Parker and her mixed-blood son Quanah, who became the last and greatest chief of the Comanches. Although readers may be more familiar with the tribal names Apache and Sioux, it was in fact the legendary fighting ability of the Comanches that determined when the American West opened up. Comanche boys became adept bareback riders by age six; full Comanche braves were considered the best horsemen who ever rode. They were so masterful at war and so skillful with their arrows and lances that they stopped the northern drive of colonial Spain from Mexico and halted the French expansion westward from Louisiana. White settlers arriving in Texas from the eastern United States were surprised to find the frontier being rolled backward by Comanches incensed by the invasion of their tribal lands. The war with the Comanches lasted four decades, in effect holding up the development of the new American nation. Gwynne’s exhilarating account delivers a sweeping narrative that encompasses Spanish colonialism, the Civil War, the destruction of the buffalo herds, and the arrival of the railroads, and the amazing story of Cynthia Ann Parker and her son Quanah—a historical feast for anyone interested in how the United States came into being.
Empire of the Summer Moon [streaming audiobook] : Quanah Parker and the rise and fall of the Comanches, the most powerful Indian tribe in American history by S. C. Gwynne
Call Number: 978.004 P242g Audiobk (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9781508229575
Publication Date: 2010

The Shallows : what the Internet is doing to our brains by Nicholas Carr
Call Number: 612.8 C312w (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780393072228
Publication Date: 2010-06-07
Neuropsychology.
Internet -- Physiological effect.
Internet
Psychological aspects.

Winner

The Swerve : How the World Became Modern, by Stephen Greenblatt

The Swerve by Stephen Greenblatt
Call Number: 940.2 G798s
ISBN: 9780393064476
Publication Date: 2011-09-26
CONTENTS: The book hunter -- The moment of discovery -- In search of Lucretius -- The teeth of time -- Birth and rebirth -- In the lie factory -- A pit to catch foxes -- The way things are -- The return -- Swerves -- Afterlives.

Finalists

One Hundred Names For Love : a Stroke, a Marriage, and the Language of Healing, by Diane Ackerman
Unnatural Selection : Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men, by Mara Hvistendahl

Winner

Devil in the Grove : Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America, by Gilbert King

Finalists

Behind the Beautiful Forevers : Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity, by Katherine Boo
The Forest Unseen : a Year's Watch in Nature, by David George Haskell

Behind the Beautiful Forevers : life, death and hope in a Mumbai undercity by Katherine Boo
Call Number: 305.5 B724b (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9781400067558
Publication Date: 2012-02-07
The dramatic and sometimes heartbreaking story of families striving toward a better life in one of the twenty-first century's great, unequal cities
Behind the Beautiful Forevers [CD] : life, death, and hope in a Mumbai undercity by Katherine Boo; Sunil Malhotra (Read by)
Call Number: CD Nonfiction BO (Adult Audiobook CD)
ISBN: 9780307934055
Publication Date: 2012-02-07
Behind the Beautiful Forevers [E-Book] : life, death, and hope in a Mumbai undercity by Katherine Boo
Call Number: 305.5 B724b Ebook (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9780679643951
Publication Date: 2012-02-07

Winner

Toms River : a Story of Science and Salvation, by Dan Fagin

Toms River {OverDrive E-Book] : a story of science and salvation by Dan Fagin
Call Number: OverDrive E-Book
ISBN: 9780553806533
Publication Date: 2013-03-19
Drinking water -- Contamination -- Health aspects -- New Jersey -- Toms River Watershed.
Factory and trade waste -- Health aspects -- New Jersey -- Toms River Watershed.
Factory and trade waste -- Health aspects -- Case studies.
Cancer -- Environmental aspects -- New Jersey -- Toms River Watershed.
Cancer -- Environmental aspects -- New Jersey -- Toms River.
Cancer in children -- Environmental aspects -- Case studies.
Groundwater -- Pollution -- Health aspects -- New Jersey -- Toms River Watershed.
Water quality -- New Jersey -- Toms River Watershed.
Chemical industry -- Corrupt practices -- United States -- Toms River Watershed (N.J.) -- Environmental conditions
Toms River (N.J.) -- Environmental conditions -- History.

One of New Jersey's seemingly innumerable quiet seaside towns, Toms River became the unlikely setting for a decades-long drama that culminated in 2001 with one of the largest legal settlements in the annals of toxic dumping. A town that would rather have been known for its Little League World Series champions ended up making history for an entirely different reason: a notorious cluster of childhood cancers scientifically linked to local air and water pollution.

Finalists

The Blood Telegram : Nixon, Kissinger and a Forgotten Genocide, by Gary J. Bass
The Insurgents : David Petraeus and the Plot to Change the American Way of War, by Fred Kaplan

The Blood Telegram [OverDrive E-Book] : Nixon, Kissinger, and a forgotten genocide by Gary J. Bass
Call Number: OverDrive E-Book]
ISBN: 9780385350471
Publication Date: 2013

Winner

The Sixth Extinction : an Unnatrual History, by Elizabeth Kolbert

The Sixth Extinction : an unnatural history by Elizabeth Kolbert
Call Number: 576.8 K81s (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780805092998
Publication Date: 2014-02-11
A major book about the future of the world, blending intellectual and natural history and field reporting into a powerful account of the mass extinction unfolding before our eyes
Over the last half a billion years, there have been five mass extinctions, when the diversity of life on earth suddenly and dramatically contracted. Scientists around the world are currently monitoring the sixth extinction, predicted to be the most devastating extinction event since the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. This time around, the cataclysm is us. In The Sixth Extinction, two-time winner of the National Magazine Award and New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert draws on the work of scores of researchers in half a dozen disciplines, accompanying many of them into the field: geologists who study deep ocean cores, botanists who follow the tree line as it climbs up the Andes, marine biologists who dive off the Great Barrier Reef. She introduces us to a dozen species, some already gone, others facing extinction, including the Panamian golden frog, staghorn coral, the great auk, and the Sumatran rhino. Through these stories, Kolbert provides a moving account of the disappearances occurring all around us and traces the evolution of extinction as concept, from its first articulation by Georges Cuvier in revolutionary Paris up through the present day. The sixth extinction is likely to be mankind's most lasting legacy; as Kolbert observes, it compels us to rethink the fundamental question of what it means to be human.

Finalists

Age of Ambition : Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China, by Evan Osnos
No Good Men Among the Living, by Anand Gopal

Winner

Black Flags : the Rise of ISIS, by Joby Warrick

Black Flags : the rise of ISIS by Joby Warrick
Call Number: 956.91 W295b (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780385538213
Publication Date: 2015-09-29
IS (Organization)
Terrorism -- Iraq.
Terrorism -- Middle East.
Terrorism -- Religious aspects -- Islam.
Islamic fundamentalism.
Middle East -- Politics and government -- 21st century.

races how the strain of militant Islam behind ISIS first arose in a remote Jordanian prison and spread with the unwitting aid of two American presidents. When the government of Jordan granted amnesty to a group of political prisoners in 1999, it little realized that among them was Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a terrorist mastermind and soon the architect of an Islamist movement bent on dominating the Middle East.

Finalists

Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates
If the Oceans Were Ink : an Unlikely Friendship and a Journey to the Heart of the Quran, by Carla Power

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Call Number: 305.8 C652b (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780812993547
Publication Date: 2015-07-14
For Ta-Nehisi Coates, history has always been personal. At every stage of his life, he's sought in his explorations of history answers to the mysteries that surrounded him -- most urgently, why he, and other black people he knew, seemed to live in fear. What were they afraid of?
Between the World and Me [Kindle] by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Call Number: 305.8 C652b Kindle (Request at Circulation Desk)
ISBN: 9780679645986
Publication Date: 2015
Between the World and Me [E-Book] by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Call Number: 305.8 C652b Ebook (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9780679645986
Publication Date: 2015

Winner

Evicted : Poverty and Profit in the American City, by Matthew Desmond

Evicted : poverty and profit in the American city by Matthew Desmond
Call Number: 339.4 D464e (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780553447439
Publication Date: 2016-03-01
In Evicted, Princeton sociologist and MacArthur “Genius” Matthew Desmond follows eight families in Milwaukee as they each struggle to keep a roof over their heads. Hailed as “wrenching and revelatory” (The Nation), “vivid and unsettling” (New York Review of Books), Evicted transforms our understanding of poverty and economic exploitation while providing fresh ideas for solving one of twenty-first-century America’s most devastating problems. Its unforgettable scenes of hope and loss remind us of the centrality of home, without which nothing else is possible.
Poverty and Profit in the American City [OverDrive E-Book] by Matthew Desmond
Call Number: OverDrive E-Book
ISBN: 9780553447446
Publication Date: 2016

Finalists

In a Different Key : the Story of Autism, by John Donvan and Caren Zucker
The Politics of Mourning : Death and Honor in Arlington National Cemetery, by Micki McElya

In a Different Key : the story of Autism by John Donvan; Caren Zucker
Call Number: 618.92 D674d (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780307985675
Publication Date: 2016-01-19
Autism spectrum disorders.
Autism spectrum disorders -- History.
People with disabilities.

Nearly seventy-five years ago, Donald Triplett of Forest, Mississippi became the first child diagnosed with autism. Beginning with his family's odyssey, In a Different Key tells the extraordinary story of this often misunderstood condition, and of the civil rights battles waged by the families of those who have it. Unfolding over decades, it is a beautifully rendered history of ordinary people determined to secure a place in the world for those with autism--by liberating children from dank institutions, campaigning for their right to go to school, challenging expert opinion on what it means to have autism, and persuading society to accept those who are different.

Winner

Locking Up Our Own : Crime and Punishment in Black America, by James Forman Jr.

Finalists

Notes on a Foreign Country : an American Abroad in a Post-America World, by Suzy Hansen
The Evolution of Beauty : How Darwin's Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World -- and Us, by Richard O. Prum

Winner

Amity and Prosperity : One Family and the Fracturing of America, by Eliza Griswold

Amity and Prosperity : one family and the fracturing of America by Eliza Griswold
Call Number: 363.73 A517g (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780374713713
Publication Date: 2018-06-12
Hydraulic fracturing -- Political aspects -- Pennsylvania.
Gas wells -- Hydraulic fracturing -- Environmental aspects -- Pennsylvania -- Amity (Washington County : Township)
Gas wells -- Hydraulic fracturing -- Environmental aspects -- Pennsylvania -- Prosperity.
Amity (Washington County, Pa. : Township) -- Social conditions.
Prosperity (Pa.) -- Social conditions.

Tells the story of the energy boom's impact on a small town at the edge of Appalachia--and one woman's transformation from a struggling single parent to an unlikely activist.

Finalists

In a Day's Work : the Fight to End Sexual Violence Against America's Most Vulnerable Workers, by Bernice Yeung
Rising : Dispatches from the New American Shore, by Elizabeth Rush

2000s

Winner

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

Embracing Defeat : Japan in the wake of World War II by John W. Dower
Call Number: 952.04 D746e (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780393046861
Publication Date: 1999-03-17
Japan -- History -- 1945-

Finalists

Living on the Wind : Across the Hemisphere with Migratory Birds, by Scott Weidensaul
The Elegant Universe : Superstrings Hidden Dimensions and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory, by Brian Greene

The Elegant Universe : superstrings hidden dimensions, and the quest for the ultimate theory by Brian Greene
Call Number: 539.7 G799e (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780393058581
Publication Date: 2003-10-17
Superstring theories.
Cosmology.

Relates the scientific story and the human struggle behind the search for the string theory--the ultimate theory which scientists believe is capable of describing all physical phenomena, large and small; and discusses how the theory is impacting human understanding of space and time.

Winner

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

Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan by Herbert P. Bix
Call Number: 952.03 B624h (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780060193140
Publication Date: 2000-08-22
In this groundbreaking biography of the Japanese emperor Hirohito, Herbert P. Bix offers the first complete, unvarnished look at the enigmatic leader whose sixty-three-year reign ushered Japan into the modern world. Never before has the full life of this controversial figure been revealed with such clarity and vividness. Bix shows what it was like to be trained from birth for a lone position at the apex of the nation's political hierarchy and as a revered symbol of divine status. Influenced by an unusual combination of the Japanese imperial tradition and a modern scientific worldview, the young emperor gradually evolves into his preeminent role, aligning himself with the growing ultranationalist movement, perpetuating a cult of religious emperor worship, resisting attempts to curb his power, and all the while burnishing his image as a reluctant, passive monarch. Here we see Hirohito as he truly was: a man of strong will and real authority.

Finalists

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, by Dave Eggers
Newjack : Guarding Sing Sing, by Ted Conover

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
Call Number: 973.92 E29h (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 0684863472
Publication Date: 2000-02-17
Parents -- Death -- Psychological aspects.
Brothers -- Biography.

Winner

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

Finalists

The Noonday Demon : an Atlas of Depression, by Andrew Solomon
War in a Time of Peace : Bush, Clinton, and the Generals, by David Halberstam

The Noonday Demon : an atlas of depression by Andrew Solomon
Call Number: 616.85 S689s (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780684854663
Publication Date: 2001-06-12
Depression, Mental.
Depressed persons -- Case studies.

Winner

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

Finalists

The Anthropology of Turquois : Meditations on Landscape, Art, and Spirit, by Ellen Meloy
The Blank Slate : the Modern Denial of Human Nature, by Steven Pinker

The Blank Slate : the modern denial of human nature by Steven Pinker
Call Number: 155.2 P655b (Adult Nonfiction)
Publication Date: 2002
Nature and nurture.

Winner

Gulag : a History, by Anne Applebaum

Finalists

Rembrandt's Jews, by Steven Nadler
The Mission : Waging War and Keeping Peace with America's Military, by Dana Priest

Winner

Ghost Wars, by Steve Coll

Ghost Wars : the secret history of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden, from the Soviet invasion to September 10, 2001 by Steve Coll
Call Number: 958.2014 C697g (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9781594200076
Publication Date: 2004-02-23
Bin Laden, Osama, 1957-
United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
Afghanistan -- History -- Soviet occupation, 1979-1989.
Afghanistan -- History -- 1989-2001.

Finalists

Maximum City : Bombay Lost and Found, by Suketu Mehta
The Devil's Highway : a True Story, by Luis Alberto Urrea

Winner

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

Finalists

Postwar : a History of Europe Since 1945, by Tony Judt
The Assassins' Gate : America in Iraq, by George Packer

Winner

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

The Looming Tower : Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright
Call Number: 973.931 W951L (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780375414862
Publication Date: 2006-08-08
Qaida (Organization)
September 11 Terrorist Attacks, 2001.
Terrorism -- Government policy -- United States.
Intelligence service -- United States.

CONTENTS: The martyr. -- The sporting club. -- The founder. -- Change. -- The miracles. -- The base. -- Return of the hero. -- Paradise. -- The Silicon Valley. -- Paradise lost. -- The prince of darkness. -- The boy spies. -- Hijira. -- Going operational. -- Bread and water. -- "Now it begins" -- The new millennium. -- Boom. -- The big wedding. -- Revelations. -- Principal characters.

Finalists

Crazy : a Father's Search Through America's Mental Health Madness, by Pete Earley
Fiasco : the American Military Adventure in Iraq, by Thomas E. Ricks

Fiasco : the American military adventure in Iraq by Thomas E. Ricks
Call Number: 956.7044 R539f (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9781594201035
Publication Date: 2006-07-25
Iraq War, 2003-
United States -- History, Military -- 21st century.

Winner

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

Finalists

The Cigarette Century, by Allan Brandt
The Rest is Noise : Listening to the Twentieth Century, by Alex Ross

Winner

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

Finalists

Gandhi and Churchill : the Epic Rivalry That Destroyed an Empire and Forged Our Age, by Arthur Herman
The Bitter Road to Freedom : a New History of the Liberation of Europe, by William I. Hitchcock

1990s

Winner

And Their Children After Them, by Dale Maharidge and Michael Williamson

Finalists

A Peace to End All Peace : Creating the Modern Middle East 1914-1922, by David Fromkin
Wonderful Life : the Burgess Shale and the Nature of History, by Stephen Jay Gould

Winner

The Ants, by Bert Holldobler and Edward O. Wilson

The Ants by Bert Hölldobler; Edward O. Wilson
Call Number: 595.79 H737a (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780674040755
Publication Date: 1990-03-28
Ants.

Finalists

Looking for a Ship, by John McPhee
River of Traps : a Village Life, by WIlliam duBuys and Alex Harris

Winner

The Prize : the Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power, by Daniel Yergin

The Prize : the epic quest for oil, money, and power by Daniel Yergin
Call Number: 338.2 Y47p (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780671799328
Publication Date: 1993-01-01
Petroleum industry and trade -- Military aspects -- History - 20th century.
World War, 1914-1918 -- Causes.
World War, 1939-1945 -- Causes.
World politics -- 20th century.

Finalists

Broken Vessels, by Andre Dubus
Chain Reaction : the Impact of Race, Rights, and Taxes on American Politics, by Thomas Byrne Edsall and Mary D. Edsall

Winner

Lincoln at Gettysburg : the Words That Remade America, by Garry Wills

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.

Finalists

A Chorus of Stones : the Private Life of War, by Susan Griffin
Days of Obligation : an Argument with My Mexican Father, by Richard Rodriguez
Where the Buffalo Roam, by Anne Matthews

Winner

Lenin's Tomb : the Last Days of the Soviet Empire, by David Remnick

Lenin's Tomb : the last days of the Soviet empire by David Remnick
Call Number: 947.085 R338L (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780679751250
Publication Date: 1994-04-26
In the tradition of John Reed's classic Ten Days That Shook the World, this best-selling account of the collapse of the Soviet Union combines the global vision of the best historical scholarship with the immediacy of eyewitness journalism.

Finalists

The Cultivation of Hatred : the Bourgeois Experience, Victoria to Freud, by Peter Gay
The End of the Twentieth Century : an the End of the Modern Age, by John Lukacs

Winner

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

Finalists

How We Die : Reflections on Life's Final Chapter, by Sherwin B. Nuland
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil : a Savannah Story, by John Berendt

How We Die : reflections on life's final chapter by Sherwin B. Nuland
Call Number: 616.07 N969h (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780679414612
Publication Date: 1994-01-25
Death.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil [OverDrive E-Book] by John Berendt
Call Number: OverDrive E-Book
ISBN: 9780307538376
Publication Date: 2010
Trials (Murder) -- Georgia -- Savannah.
Savannah (Ga.) -- Social life and customs.
Savannah (Ga.) -- History.

Shots rang out in Savannah's grandest mansion in the misty,early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defense? For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares

Winner

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

The Haunted Land : facing Europe's ghosts after communism by Tina Rosenberg
Call Number: 947 R813h (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780679744993
Publication Date: 1996-03-19
Post-communism -- Europe, Eastern.
Political persecution -- Europe, Eastern -- History -- 20th century.
Europe, Eastern -- History -- 1989-

Finalists

Darwin's Dangerous Idea : Evolution and the Meanings of Life, by Daniel C. Dennett
Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder, by Lawrence Weschler

Darwin's Dangerous Idea : evolution and the meanings of life by Daniel Clement Dennett
Call Number: 146.7 D399d (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780684802909
Publication Date: 1995-05-10
Natural selection.
Evolution (Biology) -- Philosophy.
Human evolution -- Philosophy.

Winner

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

Finalists

Fame and Folly, by Cynthia Ozick
The Inheritance : How Three Families and America Moved from Roosevelt to Reagan and Beyond, by Samuel G. Freedman

Winner

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

Guns, Germs, and Steel : the fates of human societies by Jared Diamond
Call Number: 303.4 D537g (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780393038910
Publication Date: 1997-03-01
Jared Diamond convincingly argues that geographical and environmental factors shaped the modern world. Societies that had had a head start in food production advanced beyond the hunter-gatherer stage, and then developed religion --as well as nasty germs and potent weapons of war --and adventured on sea and land to conquer and decimate preliterate cultures. A major advance in our understanding of human societies, Guns, Germs, and Steel chronicles the way that the modern world came to be and stunningly dismantles racially based theories of human history.

Finalists

How the Mind Works, by Steven Pinker
Into Thin Air : a Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster, by Jon Krakauer

How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker
Call Number: 153 P655h (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780393045352
Publication Date: 1997-10-01
In this delightful, acclaimed best seller, one of the world’s leading cognitive scientists tackles the workings of the human mind. What makes us rational—and why are we so often irrational? How do we see in three dimensions? What makes us happy, afraid, angry, disgusted, or sexually aroused? Why do we fall in love? And how do we grapple with the imponderables of morality, religion, and consciousness? How the Mind Works synthesizes the most satisfying explanations of our mental life from cognitive science, evolutionary biology, and other fields to explain what the mind is, how it evolved, and how it allows us to see, think, feel, laugh, interact, enjoy the arts, and contemplate the mysteries of life.

Into Thin Air : a personal account of the Mount Everest disaster by Jon Krakauer
Call Number: 796.52 k89I (Adult Non-Fiction)
ISBN: 9780767867153
Publication Date: 1997
When Jon Krakauer reached the summit of Mt. Everest in the early afternoon of May 10,1996, he hadn't slept in fifty-seven hours and was reeling from the brain-altering effects of oxygen depletion. As he turned to begin the perilous descent from 29,028 feet (roughly the cruising altitude of an Airbus jetliner), twenty other climbers were still pushing doggedly to the top, unaware that the sky had begun to roil with clouds...
Into Thin Air [E-Book] : a personal account of the Mount Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer
Call Number: YA B KRA-K Ebook (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9780679462712
Publication Date: 1998

Winner

Annals of the Former World, by John McPhee

Annals of the Former World by John McPhee
Call Number: 557.3 M482a (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780374105204
Publication Date: 1998-06-10
Geology -- United States.

Finalists

Crime and Punishment in America, by Elliott Currie
The Nurture Assumption : Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do, by Judith Rich Harris

1980s

Winner

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

Godel, Escher, Bach : an eternal golden braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter
Call Number: 510.1 H713g (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780465026562
Publication Date: 1979-05-31
Douglas Hofstadter's book is concerned directly with the nature of "maps" or links between formal systems. However, according to Hofstadter, the formal system that underlies all mental activity transcends the system that supports it. If life can grow out of the formal chemical substrate of the cell, if consciousness can emerge out of a formal system of firing neurons, then so too will computers attain human intelligence. Gödel, Escher, Bach is a wonderful exploration of fascinating ideas at the heart of cognitive science: meaning, reduction, recursion, and much more.

Finalists

The Madwoman in the Attic, by Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar
The Medusa and the Snail, by Lewis Thomas

Winner

Fin-De Siecle Vienna : Politics and Culture, by Carl E. Schorske

Fin-de-Siècle Vienna : politics and culture by Carl E. Schorske
Call Number: 943.6 S374f (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780394744780
Publication Date: 1980-12-12
Vienna (Austrlia) -- Intellectual life -- Addresses, essays, lectures.
Austria -- Politics and government -- 18671918 -- Addresses, essays, lectures.

Finalists

China Men, by Maxine Hong Kingston
Goodbye, Darkness : a memoir of the Pacific War, by William Manchester
Southerners : a journlist's odyssey, by Marshall Frady

Good-Bye, Darkness by William Manchester
Call Number: 940.54 M268g (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780316545013
Publication Date: 1980-09-01
Manchester, William Raymond, 1922-
World War, 1939-1945 -- Pacific Ocean.
World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, American.
Soldiers -- United States -- Biography.

Winner

The Soul of a New Machine, by Tracy Kidder

Finalists

Basin and Range, by John McPhee
Mrs. Harris : the Death of the Scarsdale Diet Doctor, by Diana Trilling

Winner

The Social Transformation of American Medicine, by Paul Starr

Social Transformation of American Medicine by Paul Starr
Call Number: 305.961 S796s (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780465093021
Publication Date: 1983-01-01
Medical care -- United States -- History.
Social medicine -- United States -- History.
Physicians -- United States -- History.

Discusses the 200-year evolution of the entire American health care system.

Finalists

Conversations With the Enemy, by WInston Groom and Duncan Spencer
Wild Justice, by Susan Jacoby

Winner

The Good War : an Oral History of World War Two, by Studs Terkel

The Good War : an oral history of World War Two by Studs Terkel
Call Number: 940.54 T318g (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780394531038
Publication Date: 1984-09-12
World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives.

An account of the lives of ordinary Americans, at home and abroad, during World War Two.

Finalists

Dawn to the West, by Donald Keene
Endless Enemies, by Jonathan Kwitny

Winners

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

Common Ground : a turbulent decade in the lives of three American families by J. Anthony Lukas
Call Number: 370.1934 L954c (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780394411507
Publication Date: 1985-08-12
Describes events in the lives of three families during the 1968 Boston school integration crisis.
Common ground [E-Book] : a turbulent decade in the lives of three American families by Anthony Lukas
Call Number: 370.1934 L954c Ebook (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9780307823755
Publication Date: 2012

Finalist

Habits and the Heart : INdividualism and Commitment in American Life, by Robert N. Bellah

Winner

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

Arab and Jew : wounded spirits in a promised land by David K. Shipler
Call Number: 956.9405 S557a (Adult Nonfiction)
Publication Date: 2002
Jewish-Arab relations.
Ara-Israeli conflict.
National characteristics, Arab.
National characteristics, Israeli.
Israel -- Ethnic relations.
West Bank -- Ethnic relations.
Gaza Strip -- Ethnic relations.

Finalists

Rain or Shine : a Family Memoir, by Cyra McFadden
Rising from the Plains, by John McPhee

Winner

The Making of the Atomic Bomb, by RIchard Rhodes

The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Lee Rhodes
Call Number: 623.4511 R477m (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780671441333
Publication Date: 1987-02-15
Describes in human, political, and scientific detail the complete story of how the bomb was developed, from the turn-of-the-century discovery of the power of the atom, to the first bombs dropped on Japan.

Finalists

Chaos : Making a New Science, by James Gleick
Setting Limits : Medical Goals in an Aging Society, by Daniel Callahan

Winner

A Bright Shining Lie : John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam, by Neil Sheehan

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.

Finalists

Coming of Age in the Milky Way, by Timothy Ferris
Danger and Survival, by McGeorge Bundy
The Last Farmer, by Howard Kohn

Winner

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

Finalists

Terrorists and Novelists, by Diane Johnson
The Fate of the Earth, by Jonathan Schell

1970s

Winner

Gandhi's Truth, by Erik H. Erikson

Gandhi's Truth : on the origins of militant nonviolence by Erik H. Erikson
Call Number: 954.03 G195e (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780844667430
Publication Date: 1994-01-01
Gandhi, Mahatma, 1869-1948.
Nonviolence.
Passive resistance -- India.

Winner

The Rising Sun, by John Toland

The Rising Sun : the decline and fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945 by John Toland
Call Number: 940.5352 T647r v.1 (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780812968583
Publication Date: 2003-05-27
World War, 1939-1945 -- Japan.

Winner

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

Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-45 by Barbara W. Tuchman
Call Number: 951.042 S857t (Adult Nonfiction)
Publication Date: 1970
Stilwell, Joseph Warren, 1883-1946.
World War, 1939-1945 -- China.
China -- Foreign relations -- United States.
United States -- Foreign relations -- China.

Winner

Children of Crisis, Vols. II and III, by Robert Coles
Fire in the Lake : the Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam, by Frances FitzGerald

Fire in the Lake : the Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam by Frances FitzGerald
Call Number: 959.7043 F553f (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780316159197
Publication Date: 2002-07-17
Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975-- United States.
Vietnam -- Politics and government -- 1945-1975.

Winner

The Denial of Death, by Ernest Becker

Winner

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, by Annie Dillard

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
Call Number: 508.9755 D578p (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780060953027
Publication Date: 1998-10-06
Nature.

Winner

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

Winner

Beautiful Swimmers, by William W. Warner

Winner

The Dragons of Eden, by Carl Sagan

The Dragons of Eden : speculations on the evolution of human intelligence by Carl Sagan
Call Number: 153 S129d (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780345346292
Publication Date: 1986-12-12
Intellect.
Brain.
Genetic psychology.

Winner

On Human Nature, by Edward O. Wilson

On Human Nature by Edward O. Wilson
Call Number: 301 W747o (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780674634411
Publication Date: 1978-10-02
Sociobiology.
Social Darwinism.

Presents a philosophy based on sociobiological theory and applying the theory of natural selection to human society.

1960s

Winner

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

The Making of the President 1960 by Theodore H. White
Call Number: 324.973 W588m (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9781568491431
Publication Date: 1993-01-01
Nixon, Richard M. (Richard Milhous), 1913-
Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963.
Presidents -- United States -- Election -- 1960.
United States -- Politics and government -- 1953-1961.

Winner

The Guns of August, by Barbara W. Tuchman

The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman
Call Number: 940.421 T888g (Adult Nonfiction)
Publication Date: 1962
World War, 1914-1918 -- Campaigns -- Western Front.

Winner

Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, by Richard Hofstadter

Winner

O Strange New World, by Howard Mumford Jones

Winner

Wandering Through Winter, by Edwin Way Teale

Winner

The Problem of Slavery in Wetern Culture, by David Brion Davis

Winner

The Story of Civilization : Rousseau and Revolution, by Will and Ariel Durant

Rousseau and Revolution : a history of civilization in France, England, and Germany from 1756, and in the remainder of Europe from 1715 to 1789 (The Story of Civilization, volume 10)) by Will and Ariel Durant
Call Number: 901 D951s v.10 (Adult Nonfiction)
Publication Date: 1967
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 1712-1778.
Europe -- Civilization -- 18th century.

Winner

So Human An Animal, by Rene Jules Dubos
The Armies of the Night, by Norman Mailer

The Armies of the Night : history as a novel, the novel as history by Norman Mailer
Call Number: 818.54 M219a (Adult Nonfiction)
ISBN: 9780452272798
Publication Date: 1995-01-01
Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975 -- Public opinion.

Pulitzer Prize

2020s

Winners (tie)

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

The Undying : Pain, Vulnerability, Mortality, Medicine, Art, Time, Dreams, Data, Exhaustion, Cancer, and Care by Anne Boyer

Finalists

Elderhood : Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, Reimagning Life by Louise Aronson

Solitary by Albert Woodfox with Leslie George

Winner

Wilmington's Lie : the Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy by David Zucchino

Finalists

Minor Feelings : an Asian American Reckoning by Cathy Park Hong

Yellow Bird : Oil, Murder, and a WOman's Search for Justice in Indian Country by Sierra Crain Murdoch

Winner

Invisible Child: poverty, survival & hope in an American city by Andrea Elliott

Finalists

Home, Land, Security: deradicalization and the journey back from extremism by Carla Power

The Family Roe: an American story by Joshua Prager

WINNER

His Name is George Floyd: One Man's Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice by Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa

FINALISTS

Kingdom of Characters: The Language Revolution That Made China Modern by Jing Tsu

Sounds WIld and Broken: Sonic Marvels, Evolution's Creativity, and the CXrisis of Sensory Extinction by David George Haskel

Under the Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives and on the Health of Our Nation by Linda Villarosa

2010s

Winner

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

Finalists

How Markets Fail : the Logic of Economic Calamities, by John Cassidy

The Evolution of God, by Robert Wright

Winner

The Emperor of All Maladies : a Biography of Cancer, by Siddharth Mukherjee

Finalists

Empire of the Summer Moon : Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History, by S. C. Gwynne

The Shallows : What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, by Nicholas Carr

Winner

The Swerve : How the World Became Modern, by Stephen Greenblatt

Finalists

One Hundred Names For Love : a Stroke, a Marriage, and the Language of Healing, by Diane Ackerman

Unnatural Selection : Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men, by Mara Hvistendahl

Winner

Devil in the Grove : Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America, by Gilbert King

Finalists

Behind the Beautiful Forevers : Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity, by Katherine Boo

The Forest Unseen : a Year's Watch in Nature, by David George Haskell

Winner

Toms River : a Story of Science and Salvation, by Dan Fagin

Finalists

The Blood Telegram : Nixon, Kissinger and a Forgotten Genocide, by Gary J. Bass

The Insurgents : David Petraeus and the Plot to Change the American Way of War, by Fred Kaplan

Winner

The Sixth Extinction : an Unnatrual History, by Elizabeth Kolbert

Finalists

Age of Ambition : Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China, by Evan Osnos

No Good Men Among the Living, by Anand Gopal

Winner

Black Flags : the Rise of ISIS, by Joby Warrick

Finalists

Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates

If the Oceans Were Ink : an Unlikely Friendship and a Journey to the Heart of the Quran, by Carla Power

Winner

Evicted : Poverty and Profit in the American City, by Matthew Desmond

Finalists

In a Different Key : the Story of Autism, by John Donvan and Caren Zucker

The Politics of Mourning : Death and Honor in Arlington National Cemetery, by Micki McElya

Winner

Locking Up Our Own : Crime and Punishment in Black America, by James Forman Jr.

Finalists

Notes on a Foreign Country : an American Abroad in a Post-America World, by Suzy Hansen

The Evolution of Beauty : How Darwin's Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World -- and Us, by Richard O. Prum

Winner

Amity and Prosperity : One Family and the Fracturing of America, by Eliza Griswold

Finalists

In a Day's Work : the Fight to End Sexual Violence Against America's Most Vulnerable Workers, by Bernice Yeung

Rising : Dispatches from the New American Shore, by Elizabeth Rush

2000s

Winner

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

Finalists

Living on the Wind : Across the Hemisphere with Migratory Birds, by Scott Weidensaul