Non-Fiction Award Winners

National Book Awards

Pulitzer Prize: Biography

Pulitzer Prize: Nonfiction

Spur Award Nonfiction- Historical


National Book Awards
"The National Book Awards have become the nation's
pre-eminent literary prizes. The goal is to enhance the
public's awareness of exceptional books written by fellow
Americans, and to increase the popularity of reading in
general".

2007 Legacy of Ashes:  The History of the CIA by Tim Weiner
2006 The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of  Those Who Survived
2005 The Year of Magical Thinking  by Joan Didion
2004 Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age by Kevin Boyle
2003 Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy by Carlos Eire
2002 Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert A. Caro
2001 The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression by Andrew Soloman
2000 In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick
1999 Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II by John W. Dower
1998 Slaves in the Family by Edward Ball
1997 American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson by Joseph J. Ellis
1996 An American Requiem: God, my Father, and the war That Came Between Us by James Carroll
1995 The Haunted Land: Facing Europe's Land After Communism by Tina Rosenberg
1994 How We Die: Reflections on Life's Final Chapter by Sherwin B. Nuland
1993 United States: Essays 1952-1992 by Gore Vidal
1992 Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story by Paul Monette
1991 Freedom by Orlando Patterson
1990 The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance by Ron Chernow

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Pulitzer Prize: Biography
Awarded for a distinguished biography or autobiography by an American author. The Pulitzer Prize was established by newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer.

2007 The Most Famous Man in America by Debby Applegate
2006  American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherman
2005 de Kooning: An American Master by Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan
2004 Khrushchev: The Man and His Era by William Taubman
2003 Master of the Senate by Robert A. Caro
2002 John Adams by David McCullough
2001 W.E.B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century, 1919-1963 by David Levering Lewis
2000 Vera (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov) by Stacy Schiff
1999 Lindbergh by A. Scott Berg
1998 Personal History by Katharine Graham
1997 Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt
1996 God: A Biography by Jack Miles
1995 Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life by Joan D Hedrick
1994 W.E.B Dubois by David L. Lewis
1993 Truman by David McCullough
1992 Fortunate Son by Lewis B. Puller, Jr.
1991 Jackson Pollock by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith
1990 Machiavelli in Hell by Sebastian de Grazia

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Pulitzer Prize: Nonfiction
For a distinguished book of nonfiction by an American author,
giving prime consideration to high literary quality and originality.

2007 The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright
2006  Imperial Reckoning:  The Untold Story of Britain’s Gulag in Kenya by Caroline Elkins
2005 Ghost Wars by Steve Coll
2004 Gulag: A History by Anne Applebaum
2003 A Problem from Hell: America and the age of genocide by Samatha Power
2002 Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Ala., the Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution by Diane McWhorter
2001 Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan by Herbert P. Bix
2000 Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II. by John W. Dower
1999 Annals of the Former World by John McPhee
1998 Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond
1997 Ashes to Ashes: America's Hundred -Year Cigarette War, The Public Health, and the Unabashed Triumph of Philip Morris by Richard Kluger
1996 The Haunted Land: Facing Europe's Ghosts After Communism by Tina Rosenburg
1995 The Beak of the Finch by Jonathan Weiner
1994 Lenin's Tomb by David Remnick
1993 Lincoln at Gettysburg by Garry Wills
1992 The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power by Daniel Yergin
1991 The Ants by Bert Holldobler and Edward O. Wilson
1990 And Their Children After Them by Dale Maharidge and Michael Williamson

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The Spur Award: Nonfiction-Historical
The Spur Award was established in 1953 by the Western 
Writers of America for distinguished writing about the
American west.

2007 Blood and Thunder: An Epic of the American West by Hampton Sides
2006  Buffalo Bill’s America:  William Cody and the Wild West Show by Louis S. Warren
2005 Beasts of the Field by Richard Steven Street
2004 One Vast Winter Count: the Native American West before Lewis and Clark by Colin G. Calloway
2003 Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows By Will Bagley
2002  Andrew Jackson and His Indian Wars by Johnny D. Boggs
2001  Pacific Destiny By Dale Walker
2000  Rush for Riches By J.S. Holliday
1999  The Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers and the Rush to Colorado By Elliot West
1998  El Llano Estacado By John Miller Morris 
1997  Spur Award year redesignated to reflect the year of the award rather than publication year.
1996  Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose
1995  Seeking Pleasure in the Old West by David Dary
1994  Precious Dust by Paula Mitchell Marks
1993  The Lance and the Shield by Robert Utley
1992  Let Me Be Free by David Lavender
1991  Custer's Last Campaign by John S. Gray
1990  Helen Hunt Jackson by Valerie S. Mathes

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