National Book Award for Nonfiction

The National Book Award for Nonfiction is one of five annual National Book Awards, which are given by the National Book Foundation to recognize outstanding literary work by U.S. citizens. They are awards "by writers to writers". The panelists are five "writers who are known to be doing great work in their genre or field".

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The original National Book Awards recognized the "Most Distinguished" biography and nonfiction books (two) of 1935 and 1936, and the "Favorite" nonfiction books of 1937 to 1940. The "Bookseller Discovery" and the "Most Original Book" sometimes recognized nonfiction. (See below.)

The general "Nonfiction" award was one of three when the National Book Awards were re-established in 1950 for 1949 publications, which the National Book Foundation considers the origin of its current Awards series. From 1964 to 1983, under different administrators, there were multiple nonfiction categories.

The current Nonfiction award recognizes one book written by a US citizen and published in the US from December 1 to November 30. The National Book Foundation accepts nominations from publishers until June 15, requires mailing nominated books to the panelists by August 1, and announces five finalists in October. The winner is announced on the day of the final ceremony in November. The award is $10,000 and a bronze sculpture; other finalists get $1000, a medal, and a citation written by the panel. The sculpture by Louise Nevelson dates from the 1980 awards. The $10,000 and $1000 cash prizes and autumn recognition for current-year publications date from 1984.

About 200 books were nominated for the 1984 award, when the single award for general nonfiction was restored.

Finalists

Nonfiction 1984 to present

The winner is listed first followed by the finalists.

1984: Robert V. Remini, Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Democracy, 1833–1845

• Howard M. Feinstein, Becoming William James ^{[bio: William James]}
• Richard Marius, Thomas More: A Biography ^{[bio: Thomas More]}
• Ernst Pawel, The Nightmare of Reason: A Life of Franz Kafka ^{[bio: Franz Kafka]}
• Eudora Welty, One Writer's Beginnings ^{[autobiography]}

1985: J. Anthony Lukas, Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families

• Daniel J. Kevles, In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Use of Human Heredity
• Walter A. McDougall, ...the Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age

1986: Barry Lopez, Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape

• John W. Dower, War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War
• Richard Kluger, The Paper: The Life and Times of the New York Herald Tribune ^{[about: New York Herald Tribune]}
• Michael S. Reynolds, The Young Hemingway ^{[bio: Ernest Hemingway]}
• Theodore Rosengarten, Tombee: Portrait of a Cotton Planter

1987: Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb

• David Herbert Donald, Look Homeward: A Life of Thomas Wolfe ^{[bio: Thomas Wolfe]}
• James Gleick, Chaos: Making a New Science
• Claudia Koonz, Mothers in the Fatherland
• Robert A.M. Stern, Gregory Gilmartin, and Thomas Mellins, New York 1930: Architecture and Urbanism Between the Two World Wars

1988: Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam

• Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877
• Peter Gay, Freud: A Life for Our Time ^{[bio: Sigmund Freud]}
• Brenda Maddox, Nora: The Real Life of Molly Bloom ^{[bio: Molly Bloom]}
• Jack McLaughlin, Jefferson and Monticello: The Biography of a Builder ^{[about: Thomas Jefferson and Monticello]}

1989: Thomas L. Friedman, From Beirut to Jerusalem

• Taylor Branch, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954–63
• McGeorge Bundy, Danger and Survival: Choices about the Bomb in the First Fifty Years
• William Pfaff, Barbarian Sentiments: How the American Century Ends
• Marilynne Robinson, Mother Country: Britain, the Welfare State and Nuclear Pollution

1990: Ron Chernow, The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance

• Samuel G. Freedman, Small Victories: The Real World of a Teacher, Her Students and Their High School
• Roger Morris, Richard Milhous Nixon: The Rise of an American Politician ^{[bio: Richard Nixon]}
• Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith, Jackson Pollock: An American Saga^{[bio: Jackson Pollock]}
• T.H. Watkins, Righteous Pilgrim: The Life and Times of Harold L. Ickes, 1847–1952 ^{[bio: Harold L. Ickes]}

1991: Orlando Patterson, Freedom, Vol. 1: Freedom in the Making of Western Culture

• E.J. Dionne, Jr., Why Americans Hate Politics
• Melissa Fay Greene, Praying for Sheetrock
• R.W.B. Lewis, The Jameses: A Family Narrative ^{[bio: Henry James and William James]}
• Diane Wood Middlebrook, Anne Sexton: A Biography ^{[bio: Anne Sexton]}

1992: Paul Monette, Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story

• Edward L. Ayers, The Promise of the New South
• James Gleick, Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman ^{[bio: Richard Feynman]}
• David McCullough, Truman^{[bio: Harry S. Truman]}
• Garry Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America

1993: Gore Vidal, United States: Essays 1952–1992

• William Leach, Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture
• David Levering Lewis, W. E. B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 1868–1919 ^{[bio: W.E.B. Du Bois, vol.1]}
• Richard Slotkin, Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth-Century America
• Peter Svenson, Battlefield: Farming a Civil War Battleground

1994: Sherwin B. Nuland, How We Die: Reflections on Life's Final Chapter

• John Putnam Demos, The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story from Early America
• Jane Mayer and Jill Abramson, Strange Justice: The Selling of Clarence Thomas ^{[about: Clarence Thomas]}
• John Edgar Wideman, Fatheralong: A Meditation on Fathers, Sons, Race and Society ^[memoir]
• Tobias Wolff, In Pharoah's Army: Memories of the Lost War ^[memoir]

1995: Tina Rosenberg, The Haunted Land: Facing Europe's Ghosts After Communism

• Dennis Covington, Salvation on Sand Mountain: Snake Handling and Redemption in Southern Appalachia
• Daniel C. Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meaning of Life
• Jonathan Harr, A Civil Action ^{[about: Anderson v. Cryovac]}
• Maryanne Vollers, Ghosts of Mississippi

1996: James P. Carroll, An American Requiem: God, My Father, and the War that Came Between Us

• Melissa Fay Greene, The Temple Bombing
• Paul Hendrickson, The Living and the Dead: Robert McNamara and Five Lives of a Lost War ^{[about: Robert McNamara]}
• Cary Reich, The Life of Nelson A. Rockefeller: Worlds to Conquer, 1908–1958 ^{[bio: Nelson Rockefeller]}
• Anne Roiphe, Fruitful: A Real Mother in the Modern World

1997: Joseph J. Ellis, American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson

• David I. Kertzer, The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara ^{[about: Edgardo Mortara]}
• Jamaica Kincaid, My Brother
• Thomas Lynch, The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade ^{[about: Funeral directors]}
• Sam Tanenhaus, Whittaker Chambers: A Biography ^{[bio: Whittaker Chambers]}

1998: Edward Ball, Slaves in the Family

• Harold Bloom, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human
• Yaffa Eliach, There Once Was a World: A 900-Year Chronicle of the Shtetl of Eishyshok ^{[about: Jewish Eishyshok]}
• Beth Kephart, A Slant of Sun: One Child's Courage
• Henry Mayer, All on Fire: William Lloyd Garrison and the Abolition of Slavery ^{[about: William Lloyd Garrison]}

1999: John W. Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II

• Natalie Angier, Woman: An Intimate Geography
• Mark Bowden, Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War
• John Phillip Santos, Places Left Unfinished at the Time of Creation ^[memoir]
• Judith Thurman, Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette ^{[bio: Colette]}

2000: Nathaniel Philbrick, In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex

• Jacques Barzun, From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, 1500 to the Present
• Alice Kaplan, The Collaborator: The Trial and Execution of Robert Brasillach ^{[about: Robert Brasillach]}
• David Levering Lewis, W.E.B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century, 1919–1963 ^{[bio: W.E.B. Du Bois, vol.2]}
• Patrick Tierney, Darkness in El Dorado: How Scientists and Journalists Devastated the Amazon

• Patrick Tierney's book was later determined to be deliberately fraudulent.

2001: Andrew Solomon, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

• Marie Arana, American Chica: Two Worlds, One Childhood
• Nina Bernstein, The Lost Children of Wilder: The Epic Struggle to Change Foster Care
• David James Duncan, My Story as Told by Water
• Jan T. Gross, Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland

2002: Robert A. Caro, Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson^{[bio: Lyndon Johnson]}

• Devra Davis, When Smoke Ran Like Water: Tales of Environmental Deception and the Battle Against Pollution ^{[about: Donora Smog of 1948]}
• Atul Gawande, Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science
• Elizabeth Gilbert, The Last American Man'^{[bio: Eustace Conway]}
• Steve Olson, Mapping Human History: Discovering the Past through Our Genes

2003: Carlos Eire, Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy

• Anne Applebaum, Gulag: A History
• George Howe Colt, The Big House: A Century in the Life of an American Summer Home ^[memoir]
• John D'Emilio, Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin ^{[bio: Bayard Rustin]}
• Erik Larson, The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America

2004: Kevin Boyle, Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age

• David Hackett Fischer, Washington's Crossing
• Jennifer Gonnerman, Life on the Outside: The Prison Odyssey of Elaine Bartlett
• Stephen Greenblatt, Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare
• The 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States- Authorized Edition

2005: Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking^[memoir]

• Alan Burdick, Out of Eden: An Odyssey of Ecological Invasion
• Leo Damrosch, Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Restless Genius ^{[bio: Jean-Jacques Rousseau]}
• Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn, 102 Minutes: The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers
• Adam Hochschild, Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves

2006: Timothy Egan, The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl

• Taylor Branch, At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68
• Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone
• Peter Hessler, Oracle Bones: A Journey Between China's Past and Present
• Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11

2007: Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA

• Edwidge Danticat, Brother, I'm Dying
• Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
• Woody Holton, Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution
• Arnold Rampersad, Ralph Ellison: A Biography ^{[bio: Ralph Ellison]}

2008: Annette Gordon-Reed, The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family

• Drew Gilpin Faust, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War
• Jane Mayer, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals
• Jim Sheeler, Final Salute: A Story of Unfinished Lives
• Joan Wickersham, The Suicide Index: Putting My Father's Death in Order

2009: T. J. Stiles, The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt ^{[bio: Cornelius Vanderbilt]}

• David M. Carroll, Following the Water: A Hydromancer's Notebook
• Sean B. Carroll, Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origins of Species
• Greg Grandin, Fordlândia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City ^{[about: Fordlândia]}
• Adrienne Mayor, The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome's Deadliest Enemy ^{[bio: Mithradates]}

2010: Patti Smith, Just Kids ^[memoir]

• Barbara Demick, Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea
• John W. Dower, Cultures of War: Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima, 9-11, Iraq
• Justin Spring, Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist, and Sexual Renegade ^{[bio: Samuel Steward]}
• Megan K. Stack, Every Man in This Village Is a Liar: An Education in War

2011: Stephen Greenblatt, The Swerve: How the World Became Modern

• Deborah Baker, The Convert: A Tale of Exile and Extremism ^{[bio: Maryam Jameelah]}
• Mary Gabriel, Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution ^{[bio: Karl Marx and Jenny von Westphalen]}
• Manning Marable, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention ^{[bio: Malcolm X]}
• Lauren Redniss, Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie, A Tale of Love & Fallout ^{[bio: Marie & Pierre Curie]}

2012: Katherine Boo, Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity

• Anne Applebaum, Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1945–1956
• Robert A. Caro, The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson
• Domingo Martinez, The Boy Kings of Texas
• Anthony Shadid, House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East

2013: George Packer, The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America

• Jill Lepore, Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin^{[bio: Jane Mecom]}
• Wendy Lower, Hitler's Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields
• Alan Taylor, The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832
• Lawrence Wright, Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief

2014: Evan Osnos, Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China

• Roz Chast, Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?
• Anand Gopal, No Good Men Among The Living
• John Lahr, Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh^{[bio: Tennessee Williams]}
• E.O. Wilson, The Meaning of Human Existence

2015: Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me

• Sally Mann, Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs
• Sy Montgomery, The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness
• Carla Power, If the Oceans Were Ink: An Unlikely Friendship and a Journey to the Heart of the Quran
• Tracy K. Smith, Ordinary Light: A Memoir

2016: Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America

• Arlie Russell Hochschild, Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right
• Viet Thanh Nguyen, Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War
• Andrés Reséndez, The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America
• Heather Ann Thompson, Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy

2017: Masha Gessen, The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia

• Erica Armstrong Dunbar, Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge
• Frances FitzGerald, The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America
• David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
• Nancy MacLean, Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America

2018: Jeffrey C. Stewart, The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke

• Colin G. Calloway, The Indian World of George Washington: The First President, the First Americans, and the Birth of the Nation
• Victoria Johnson, American Eden: David Hosack, Botany, and Medicine in the Garden of the Early Republic
• Sarah Smarsh, Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth
• Adam Winkler, We the Corporations: How American Businesses Won Their Civil Rights

2019: Sarah M. Broom, The Yellow House

• Tressie McMillan Cottom, Thick: And Other Essays
• Carolyn Forché, What You Have Heard is True: A Memoir of Witness and Resistance
• David Treuer, The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present
• Albert Woodfox with Leslie George, Solitary

2020: Les Payne and Tamara Payne, The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X

• Claudio Saunt, Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory
• Jenn Shapland, My Autobiography of Carson McCullers: A Memoir
• Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, The Undocumented Americans
• Jerald Walker, How To Make a Slave and Other Essays

2021:

• Hanif Abdurraqib, A Little Devil in America: Notes in praise of black performance
• Lucas Bessire, Running Out: In search of water on the high plains
• Grace M Cho, Tastes Like War: A memoir
• Nicole Eustace, Covered with Night: A story of murder and Indigenous justice in early America
• Tiya Miles, All That She Carried: The journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black family keepsake

Multiple nonfiction categories 1964 to 1983

For the 1963/1964 cycle, three new award categories replaced "Nonfiction": Arts and Letters; History and Biography; Science, Philosophy and Religion. For the next twenty years there were at least three award categories for nonfiction books marketed to adult readers and the term "Nonfiction" was used only 1980 to 1983 ("General Nonfiction", hardcover and paperback).

Scope of "Nonfiction" as covered in the following tables

timespan	of all awards	list of "Nonfiction" categories covered below
1964–1966	3 of 5	Arts and Letters; History and Biography; Science, Philosophy and Religion
1967–1968	3 of 6
1969–1971	3 of 7	Arts and Letters; History and Biography; "The Sciences" or "Philosophy and Religion" alternating
1972–1975	6 of 10	Arts and Letters; Biography; Contemporary Affairs; History; Philosophy and Religion; The Sciences
1976	3 of 6	Arts and Letters; Contemporary Affairs; History and Biography
1977–1979	3 of 7	Biography and Autobiography; Contemporary Thought; History
1980	16 of 30+	Autobiography; Biography; Current Interest; General Nonfiction; History; Religion/Inspiration; Science (each hardcover and paperback)
1981–1983	8 of 20+	Autobiography/Biography; General Nonfiction; History; Science (each hardcover and paperback)

Nonfiction subcategories, 1964 to 1979

Nonfiction subcategories, 1964 to 1979

Year count	Award category	Winner and finalists
1964 (3)	Arts and Letters	Aileen Ward, John Keats: The Making of a Poet [bio John Keats] Finalists are known collectively.
	History and Biography	William H. McNeill, The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community Finalists are known collectively.
	Science, Philosophy and Religion	Christopher Tunnard and Boris Pushkarev, Man-made America: Chaos or Control? Finalists are known collectively.
	Finalists, 1964 nonfiction categories	David E. Lilienthal, Change, Hope and the Bomb Ralph McGill, The South and the Southerner
		(probably Arts and Letters) Walter Jackson Bate, John Keats [bio John Keats] Francis Steegmuller, Apollinaire: Poet among the Painters [bio Guillaume Apollinaire]
		(probably History and Biography) Shelby Foote, The Civil War: A Narrative, Vol. II, Fredericksburg to Meridian (2nd of 3 vols) Richard Hofstadter, Anti-intellectualism in American Life Seymour Martin Lipset, The First New Nation: The United States in Historical and Comparative Perspective Peter Lyon, Success Story: The Life and Times of S. S. McClure [bio S. S. McClure] Bertram D. Wolfe, The Fabulous Life of Diego Rivera [bio Diego Rivera]
		(probably Science, Philosophy and Religion) James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time Raymond Fredric Dasmann, The Last Horizon [about conservation biology] Howard Ensign Evans, Wasp Farm [about entomology] Nathan Glazer and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Beyond the Melting Pot: The Negroes, Puerto Ricans, Jews, Italians and Irish of New York City Stewart Udall, The Quiet Crisis [about conservation of natural resources]
1965 (3)	Arts and Letters	Eleanor Clark, The Oysters of Locmariaquer Eric Bentley, The Life of the Drama Robert Brustein, The Theater of Revolt: An Approach to Modern Drama Edward Dahlberg, Because I Was Flesh [autobiography] Ralph Ellison, Shadow and Act Howard Mumford Jones, O Strange New World: American Culture, the Formative Years
	History and Biography	Louis Fischer, The Life of Lenin [bio Vladimir Lenin] Oscar Lewis, Pedro Martinez: A Mexican Peasant and His Family R. R. Palmer, Age of the Democratic Revolution: A Political History of Europe and America, 1760–1800 Willie Lee Nichols Rose, Rehearsal for Reconstruction: The Port Royal Experiment [about Port Royal Experiment] Ernest Samuels, Henry Adams: The Major Phase (third of 3 vols.) [bio Henry Adams] Richard J. Whalen, The Founding Father: The Story of Joseph P. Kennedy [bio Joseph P. Kennedy]
	Science, Philosophy and Religion	Norbert Wiener, God & Golem, Inc.: A Comment on Certain Points Where Cybernetics Impinges on Religion Walter Ciszek, With God in Russia [memoir] Theodosius Dobzhansky, Heredity and the Nature of Man David Hawkins, The Language of Nature: An Essay on the Philosophy of Science John Courtney Murray, The Problem of God, Yesterday and Today Walter S. Sullivan, We Are Not Alone: The Search for Intelligent Life on Other Worlds
1966 (3)	Arts and Letters	Janet Flanner Paris Journal, 1944–1965 Alfred Kazin, Starting Out in the Thirties R. W. B. Lewis, Trials of the Word: Essays in American Literature and the Humanistic Tradition Philip Rahv, The Myth and the Powerhouse Lionel Trilling, Beyond Culture: Essays on Literature and Learning René Wellek, History of Modern Criticism: 1750–1950
	History and Biography	Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House Irving Brant, The Bill of Rights: Its Origin and Meaning [about United States Bill of Rights] Edward Chase Kirkland, Charles Francis Adams, Jr., 1835–1915: Patrician at Bay [bio Charles Francis Adams, Jr.] Richard B. Morris, The Peacemakers: The Great Powers and American Independence Robert Shaplen, The Lost Revolution: The U.S. in Vietnam, 1946–1966 Theodore H. White, The Making of the President, 1964 (second of 4 vols)
	Science, Philosophy and Religion	No award given. Charles Frankel, "The Love of Anxiety" and Other Essays Edgar Z. Friedenberg, Coming of Age in America Bentley Glass, Science and Ethical Values Alice Kimball Smith, A Peril and a Hope: The Scientists' Movement in America, 1945–47
1967 (3)	Arts and Letters	Justin Kaplan, Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain: A Biography [bio Mark Twain] Oliver Larkin, Daumier: Man of His Time [bio Honoré Daumier] Frederick A. Pottle, James Boswell: The Earlier Years [bio James Boswell] Isaac Bashevis Singer, In My Father's Court [autobio] Susan Sontag, Against Interpretation and Other Essays Lawrance Thompson, Robert Frost: The Early Years [bio Robert Frost]
	History and Biography	Peter Gay, The Enlightenment, Vol. I: The Rise of Modern Paganism James H. Billington, The Icon and the Axe: An Interpretative History of Russian Culture David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture Martin Duberman, James Russell Lowell [bio James Russell Lowell] Barrington Moore, Jr., Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World Peter Štanský and William Abrahams, Journey to the Frontier: Two roads to the Spanish Civil War
	Science, Philosophy and Religion	Oscar Lewis, La Vida: A Puerto Rican Family in the Culture of Poverty—San Juan and New York [about culture of poverty] Howard B. Adelmann, Marcello Malpighi and the Evolution of Embryology [five vols including Marcello Malpighi's works] George Beadle and Muriel Beadle, The Language of Life: An Introduction to the Science of Genetics Wassily W. Leontief, Essays in Economics [1st of two vols] Philip Rieff, The Triumph of the Therapeutic: Uses of Faith After Freud Erwin Straus, Phenomenological Psychology: The Selected Papers of Erwin W. Straus
1968 (3)	Arts and Letters	William Troy, Selected Essays R. P. Blackmur, A Primer of Ignorance Frank Conroy, Stop-Time [memoir] Leonard B. Meyer, Music, the Arts and Ideas M. L. Rosenthal, The New Poets Stanley Weintraub, Beardsley: A Biography [bio Aubrey Beardsley]
	History and Biography	George F. Kennan, Memoirs: 1925–1950 (first of 2 vols.) Henry Bragdon, Woodrow Wilson: The Academic Years [bio Woodrow Wilson] Louis J. Halle, The Cold War as History Roger Hilsman, To Move a Nation: The Politics of Foreign Policy in the Administration of John F. Kennedy [about John F. Kennedy] Nathan Silver, Lost New York
	Science, Philosophy and Religion	Jonathan Kozol, Death at an Early Age Theodosius Dobzhansky, The Biology of Ultimate Concern John Kenneth Galbraith, The New Industrial State Suzanne K. Langer, Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling (1st of three vols) Lewis Mumford, The Myth of the Machine: Technics and Human Development (1st of two vols)
1969 (3)	Arts and Letters	Norman Mailer, The Armies of the Night: History as a Novel, The Novel as History Hannah Arendt, Men in Dark Times Peter Gay, Weimar Culture: The Outsider as Insider Gordon S. Haight, George Eliot: A Biography [bio George Eliot] Gertrude Himmelfarb, Victorian Minds
	History and Biography	Winthrop Jordan, White over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550–1812 Nuel Pharr Davis, Lawrence and Oppenheimer [about Ernest Lawrence & J. Robert Oppenheimer] Alvin M. Josephy, Jr., The Indian Heritage of America Norman Mailer, Miami and the Siege of Chicago: An Informal History of the Republic and Democratic Conventions of 1968 David M. Potter, The South and the Sectional Conflict
	The Sciences	Robert Jay Lifton, Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima René Dubos, So Human an Animal: How We Are Shaped by Surroundings and Events Frank E. Manuel, A Portrait of Isaac Newton [bio Isaac Newton] Karl Menninger, M.D., The Crime of Punishment James D. Watson, The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA
1970 (3)	Arts and Letters	Lillian Hellman, An Unfinished Woman: A Memoir Richard Howard, Alone with America: Essays on the Art of Poetry in the United States Since 1950 Noel Perrin, Dr. Bowdler's Legacy: A History of Expurgated Books in England and America John Unterecker, Voyager: A Life of Hart Crane [bio Hart Crane] Gore Vidal, Reflections Upon a Sinking Ship
	History and Biography	T. Harry Williams, Huey Long [bio Huey Long] Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department [memoir] Townsend Hoopes, The Limits of Intervention [memoir] John Womack, Zapata and the Mexican Revolution [bio Emiliano Zapata] Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic
	Philosophy and Religion	Erik Erikson, Gandhi's Truth: On the Origins of Militant Nonviolence Kenneth E. Boulding, Beyond Economics: Essays on Society, Religion, and Ethics Loren Eiseley, The Unexpected Universe Rollo May, Love and Will Theodore Roszak, The Making of a Counter Culture: Reflections on the Technocratic Society and Its Youthful Opposition
1971 (3)	Arts and Letters	Francis Steegmuller, Cocteau: A Biography [bio Cocteau] Harold Bloom, Yeats [bio W. B. Yeats] Robert Coles, Erik H. Erikson: the Growth of His Work [bio Erik Erikson] Nancy Milford, Zelda [bio Zelda Fitzgerald] Lewis Mumford, The Myth of the Machine: The Pentagon of Power (2nd of two vols) Kenneth Rexroth, The Alternative Society: Essays from the Other World
	History and Biography	James MacGregor Burns, Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom [bio Franklin D. Roosevelt] David Herbert Donald, Charles Sumner and the Rights of Man (second of 2 vols.) [bio Charles Sumner] Andy Logan, Against the Evidence: The Becker-Rosenthal Affair Dumas Malone, Jefferson the President: First Term, 1801–1805 (fourth of 6 vols) [bio Thomas Jefferson] C. L. Sulzberger, The Last of the Giants
	The Sciences	Raymond Phineas Stearns, Science in the British Colonies of America Gustav Eckstein, The Body Has a Head Victor C. Ferkiss, Technological Man Ian L. McHarg, Design with Nature Theodor Rosebury, Life on Man
1972 (6)	Arts and Letters	Charles Rosen, The Classical Style: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven M. H. Abrams, Natural Supernaturalism: Tradition and Revolution in Romantic Literature James Dickey, Sorties Thomas R. Edwards, Imagination and Power: A Study of Poetry on Public Themes Norman Fruman, Coleridge, the Damaged Archangel [bio Samuel Taylor Coleridge] César Graña, Fact and Symbol: Essays in the Sociology of Art and Literature B. H. Haggin, Ballet Chronicle Nathan Huggins, Harlem Renaissance Iris Origo, Images and Shadows [autobio] John Simon, Movies into Films: Film Criticism, 1967–1970
	Biography	Joseph P. Lash, Eleanor and Franklin: The Story of Their Relationship, Based on Eleanor Roosevelt's Private Papers [bio Eleanor Roosevelt] John Cody, After Great Pain: The Inner Life of Emily Dickinson [bio Emily Dickinson] Emily Farnham, Charles Demuth: Behind A Laughing Mask [bio Charles Demuth] David Freeman Hawke, Benjamin Rush: Revolutionary Gadfly [bio Benjamin Rush] Ralph Ketcham, James Madison: A Biography [bio James Madison] Harding Lemay, Inside, Looking Out: A Personal Memoir D'Arcy McNickle, Indian Man: A Life of Oliver La Farge [bio Oliver La Farge] Ronald Paulson, Hogarth: His Life, Art, and Times (second of 3 vols) [bio William Hogarth] Lacey Baldwin Smith, Henry VIII: The Mask of Royalty [bio Henry VIII] Barbara Tuchman, Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-45
	Contemporary Affairs	Stewart Brand, editor, The Last Whole Earth Catalogue No other finalists announced.
	History	Allan Nevins, The Organized War, 1863–1864 and The Organized War to Victory, 1864–1865 (Ordeal of the Union, vols. 7 & 8 of eight) No other finalists announced.
	Philosophy and Religion	Martin E. Marty, Righteous Empire: The Protestant Experience in America No other finalists announced.
	The Sciences	George L. Small, The Blue Whale No other finalists announced.
1973 (6)	Arts and Letters	Arthur M. Wilson, Diderot (about Denis Diderot) Leo Braudy, Jean Renoir: The World of His Films (about Jean Renoir) Arlene Croce, The Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers Book (about Astaire and Rogers musicals) Stanley Fish, Self-Consuming Artifacts: The Experience of Seventeenth-Century Literature Michael Goldman, Shakespeare and the Energies of Drama Daniel Hoffman, Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe (about Edgar Allan Poe) Albert Murray, South to a Very Old Place Linda Nochlin, Realism Harold Rosenberg, The De-Definition of Art: Action Art to Pop to Earthworks Leo Steinberg, Other Criteria: Confrontations with Twentieth-Century Art Lionel Trilling, Sincerity and Authenticity Alec Wilder, American Popular Song: The Great Innovators, 1900–1950 Vernon Young, On Film: Unpopular Essays on a Popular Art
	Biography	James Thomas Flexner, George Washington: Anguish and Farewell, 1793–1799 (last of 4 vols.) Ingrid Bengis, Combat in the Erogenous Zone: Writings on Love, Hate, and Sex Hortense Calisher, Herself (autobiography) Kenneth S. Davis, FDR: The Beckoning of Destiny, 1882–1928 (first of 5 vols.) Leon Edel, Henry James: The Master, 1901–1916 (Vol. V of five) Eleanor Flexner, Mary Wollstonecraft: A Biography Nikki Giovanni, Gemini: An Extended Autobiographical Statement on My First Twenty-Five Years of Being A Black Poet John Houseman, Run-Through (memoir, first of 3) Diane Johnson, Lesser Lives (about Mary Ellen Meredith) George F. Kennan, Memoirs, 1950–1963 (second of 2 vols.) Joseph P. Lash, Eleanor: The Years Alone (about Eleanor Roosevelt) Margaret Mead, Blackberry Winter: My Earlier Years Peter Štanský and William Abrahams, The Unknown Orwell (first volume on George Orwell)
	Contemporary Affairs	Frances FitzGerald, Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam (about the U.S. Vietnam War) Michael Barone, Grant Ujifusa and Douglas Matthews, The Almanac of American Politics (first biennial edition) Herbert Block, Herblock's State of the Union (collected cartoons) Lynn Eden, Crisis in Watertown: The Polarization of an American Community (about Watertown, Wisconsin 1967–1969) David Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest (about U.S. Vietnam War origins) Seymour Hersh, Cover-Up: The Army's Secret Investigation of the Massacre at My Lai 4 (about the My Lai Massacre cover-up) Stanley Karnow, Mao and China: From Revolution to Revolution (about Mao Zedong and China) Richard Sennett and Jonathan Cobb, The Hidden Injuries of Class (a study of working-class consciousness) Colin M. Turnbull, The Mountain People (about the Ik people) Garry Wills, Bare Ruined Choirs: Doubt, Prophecy, and Radical Religion — Attica: The Official Report of the New York State Special Commission on Attica (about the Attica Prison riot)
	History	Split award. Robert Manson Myers, The Children of Pride: A True Story of Georgia and the Civil War (see Charles Colcock Jones) Isaiah Trunk, Judenrat: The Jewish Councils in Eastern Europe under Nazi Occupation James David Barber, The Presidential Character: Predicting Performance in the White House John Diggins, Mussolini and Fascism: The View from America Richard Dunn, Sugar and Slaves: The Rise of the Planter Class in the English West Indies, 1624–1713 Loren Graham, Science and Philosophy in the Soviet Union David Lovejoy, The Glorious Revolution in America (see Dominion of New England) Jerre Mangione, The Dream and the Deal: The Federal Writers Project, 1935–43 Robert O. Paxton, Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order, 1940–1944 Edward E. Rice, Mao's Way
	Philosophy and Religion	S. E. Ahlstrom, A Religious History of the American People Silvano Arieti, M.D., The Will to be Human Germaine Brée, Camus and Sartre (about Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre) Arthur Danto, Mysticism and Morality: Oriental Thought and Moral Philosophy Stanley Cavell, The Senses of Walden (about Walden) William A. Christian, Person and God in a Spanish Valley William Leiss, The Domination of Nature Theodore Roszak, Where the Wasteland Ends Morton White, Science and Sentiment in America Theodore Ziolkowski, Fictional Transfigurations of Jesus
	The Sciences	George B. Schaller, The Serengeti Lion: A Study of Predator-Prey Relations John E. Bardach, John H. Ryther and William O. McLarney, Aquaculture: the farming and husbandry of freshwater and marine organisms (about aquaculture) Herman H. Goldstine, The Computer from Pascal to Von Neumann (about history of computing, history of computing hardware) Garrett Hardin, Exploring New Ethics for Survival: The Voyage of the Spaceship Beagle (see lifeboat ethics, bioethics) Morris Kline, Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times Peter Matthiessen, The Tree Where Man Was Born (about East Africa) H. Lewis McKinney, Wallace and Natural Selection (about Alfred Russel Wallace) Victor Richards, M.D., Cancer: The Wayward Cell; its origins, nature, and treatment Ann Zwinger and Beatrice Willard, Land Above the Trees: A Guide to American Alpine Tundra (about alpine tundra)
1974 (6)	Arts and Letters	Pauline Kael, Deeper Into Movies Daniel Aaron, The Unwritten War: American Writers and the Civil War W. H. Auden, Forewords and Afterwords Clarence Brown, Mandelstam (bio Osip Mandelstam) Richard Ellmann, Golden Codgers: Biographical Speculations B. H. Haggin, A Decade of Music Lillian Hellman, Pentimento: A Book of Portraits (memoir) Edward Hoagland, Walking the Dead Diamond River (about Dead Diamond River) Lincoln Kirstein, Elie Nadelman (bio Elie Nadelman) Leonard B. Meyer, Explaining Music: Essays and Explorations Saul Steinberg, The Inspector (drawings) Kevin Starr, Americans and the California Dream, 1850–1915 (1st of many volumes)
	Biography	Split award. John Leonard Clive, Thomas Babington Macaulay: The Shaping of the Historian Douglas Day, Malcolm Lowry: A Biography J. H. Adamson and H. F. Folland, Sir Harry Vane: His Life and Times (1613–1662) Robert V. Bruce, Bell: Alexander Graham Bell and The Conquest of Solitude Stephen F. Cohen, Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution: A Political Biography, 1888–1938 Lester G. Crocker, Jean-Jacques Rousseau: The Prophetic Voice, Vol. II Myra Friedman, Buried Alive: The Biography of Janis Joplin (about Janis Joplin) William H. Harbaugh, Lawyer's Lawyer: The Life of John W. Davis Townsend Hoopes, The Devil and John Foster Dulles Louis Sheaffer, O'Neill Volume II: Son and Artist (about Eugene O'Neill) Kathryn Kish Sklar, Catherine Beecher (about Catherine Beecher) Adam Ulam, Stalin (about Joseph Stalin)
	Contemporary Affairs	Murray Kempton, The Briar Patch: The People of the State of New York versus Lumumba Shakur, et al. (about a Black Panthers trial) Peter Davies, The Truth About Kent State: A Challenge to the American Conscience (about the Kent State shootings) John Kenneth Galbraith, Economics and the Public Purpose Vivian Gornick, In Search of Ali Mahmoud: An American Woman in Egypt Walter Karp, Indispensable Enemies: The Politics of Misrule in America Robert Jay Lifton, Home from the War: Vietnam Veterans—Neither Victims nor Executioners (about U.S. Vietnam veterans) Jessica Mitford, Kind and Usual Punishment: The Prison Business Nora Sayre, Sixties Going on Seventies (Perspectives on the Sixties) (about 1960s) Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Imperial Presidency Robert Sherrill, The Saturday Night Special and Other Guns (about personal firearms)
	History	John Leonard Clive, Thomas Babington Macaulay: The Shaping of the Historian Ray Allen Billington, Frederick Jackson Turner: Historian, Teacher, Scholar Daniel J. Boorstin, The Americans Frank Freidel, Franklin D. Roosevelt (about Franklin D. Roosevelt) Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law Frederic C. Lane, Venice: Maritime Republic Edward Pessen, Riches, Class and Power Before the Civil War Richard Slotkin, Regeneration Through Violence: the Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600–1860 Stephan Thernstrom, The Other Bostonians: Poverty and Progress in the American Metropolis, 1880–1970 Robert C. Tucker, Stalin as Revolutionary, 1879–1929: A Study in History and Personality
	Philosophy and Religion	Maurice Natanson, Edmund Husserl: Philosopher of Infinite Tasks Don Browning, Generative Man: Psychoanalytic Perspectives Harvey Cox, The Seduction of the Spirit: The Use and Misuse of People's Religion Erich Fromm, The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness Marjorie Grene, Jean-Paul Sartre (bio Sartre) Trent Schroyer, The Critique of Domination: The Origins and Development of Critical Theory (about critical theory) Laurence Veysey, The Communal Experience: Anarchist and Mystical Counter-Cultures in America (about American communes) Frederic Wakeman, History and Will: Philosophical Perspectives of Mao Tse-Tung's Thought (about Maoism) Harry Austryn Wolfson, Studies in the History of Philosophy and Religion, Vol. 1 (collection) Larzer Ziff, Puritanism in America: New Culture in a New World (see New England Puritans)
	The Sciences	S. E. Luria, Life: The Unfinished Experiment Jeremy Bernstein, Einstein (see Albert Einstein) Theodosius Dobzhansky, Genetic Diversity and Human Equality Amitai Etzioni, Genetic Fix: The Next Technological Revolution J. M. Jauch, Are Quanta Real?: A Galilean Dialogue Ruth Kirk and Louis Kirk, Desert: The American Southwest Suzanne K. Langer, Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling, Vol. II (2nd of three vols) George Laycock, Autumn of the Eagle (about bald eagle) Robert I. Levy, Tahitians: Mind and Experience in the Society Islands William T. Powers, Behavior: The Control of Perception Edwin S. Shneidman, Deaths of Man
1975 (6)	Arts and Letters	Split award. Roger Shattuck, Marcel Proust (bio Marcel Proust) Lewis Thomas, The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher Calvin Bedient, Eight Contemporary Poets: Charles Tomlinson, Donald Davie, R. S. Thomas, Philip Larkin, Ted Hughes, Thomas Kinsella, Stevie Smith, W. S. Graham Alessandra Comini, Egon Schiele's Portraits (about Egon Schiele) Peter Gay, Style in History Richard Gilman, The Making of Modern Drama: A Study of Büchner, Ibsen, Strindberg, Chekhov, Pirandello, Brecht, Beckett, Handke Elizabeth Hardwick, Seduction and Betrayal Marjorie L. Hoover, Meyerhold: The Art of Conscious Theater (bio Vsevolod Meyerhold) H. W. Janson, 16 Studies (essays in Art History) Eleanor Perényi, Liszt: The Artist as Romantic Hero (bio Franz Liszt) Oliver Strunk, Essays on Music in the Western World
	Biography	Richard B. Sewall, The Life of Emily Dickinson Richard Beeman, Patrick Henry: A Biography Michael Collins, Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut's Journeys Ben Maddow, Edward Weston: Fifty Years; The Definitive Volume of His Photographic Work James R. Mellow, Charmed Circle: Gertrude Stein and Company Francis Steegmuller, "Your Isadora": The Love Story of Isadora Duncan & Gordon Craig Wallace Stegner, The Uneasy Chair: A Biography of Bernard DeVoto Richard M. Sudhalter and Philip R. Evans, Bix: Man and Legend (about Bix Beiderbecke) Glenn Watkins, Gesualdo: The Man and His Music (about Carlo Gesualdo) James A. Weisheipl, Friar Thomas D'Aquino: his life, thought, and work
	Contemporary Affairs	Theodore Rosengarten, All God's Dangers: The Life of Nate Shaw (see Ned Cobb) Raoul Berger, Executive Privilege: A Constitutional Myth (about U.S. executive privilege) Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, All the President's Men Robert Jean Campbell, M.D., The Chasm: The Life and Death of a Great Experiment in Ghetto Education Robert Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York (bio Robert Moses) Joe Eszterhas, Charlie Simpson's Apocalypse (about the Harrisonville shooting) Middleton A. Harris with others, The Black Book ("printed scrapbook" of American "Negro historical materials"; uncredited editor Toni Morrison) Andrew Levinson, The Working Class Majority Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values Franz Schurmann, The Logic of World Power: An Inquiry into the Origins, Currents, and Contradictions of World Politics Rachel Scott, Muscle and Blood Studs Terkel, Working
	History	Bernard Bailyn, The Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft Robert Brentano, Rome Before Avignon Shelby Foote, The Civil War: A Narrative Eugene D. Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made John R. Gillis, Youth and History: Tradition and Change in European Age Relations, 1750–Present Erich S. Gruen, The Last Generation of the Roman Republic Christopher H. Johnson, Utopian Communism in France Gerald H. Meaker, The Revolutionary Left in Spain Edward Shorter and Charles Tilly, Strikes in France, 1830–1968 Mira Wilkins, The Maturing of Multinational Enterprise Peter H. Wood, Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono Rebellion
	Philosophy and Religion	Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia Ian Barbour, Myths, Models and Paradigms Leonard E. Barrett, Soul-Force: African Heritage in Afro-American Religion (about Afro-American religion) John Murray Cuddihy, The Ordeal of Civility: Freud, Marx, Lévi-Strauss and the Jewish Struggle with Modernity Philip Garvin and Julia Welch, Religious America (photos and text) Guenter Lewy, Religion and Revolution (case studies) Barbara Myerhoff, Peyote Hunt: The Sacred Journey of the Huichol Indians (about Huichol use of peyote) Jaroslav Pelikan, The Spirit of Eastern Christendom 600–1700 (about Eastern Christianity) Rosemary Radford Ruether, Faith and Fratricide: The Theological Roots of Anti-Semitism (about anti-Semitism)
	The Sciences	Split award. Silvano Arieti, Interpretation of Schizophrenia Lewis Thomas, The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher Lewis Feuer, Einstein and the Generation of Science Howard E. Gruber and Paul H. Barrett, Darwin on Man: A Psychological Study of Scientific Creativity J. L. Heilbron, H. G. J. Moseley: The Life and Letters of an English Physicist, 1887–1915 (bio Henry Moseley) Richard S. Lewis, The Voyages of Apollo: The Exploration of the Moon (about Apollo program) John McPhee, The Curve of Binding Energy Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View Walter S. Sullivan, Continents in Motion: The New Earth Debate (about Plate tectonics) Dorothy B. Vitaliano, Legends of the Earth: Their Geologic Origins (about Geomythology)
1976 (3)	Arts and Letters	Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory Lincoln Kirstein, Njinsky Dancing (about Vaslav Nijinsky) Lawrence L. Langer, The Holocaust and the Literary Imagination Robert Rosenblum, Modern Painting and the Northern Romantic Tradition: Friedrich to Rothko (about Romantic painting) Patricia Meyer Spacks, The Female Imagination Leo Steinberg, Michelangelo's Last Paintings (about Michelangelo)
	Contemporary Affairs	Michael J. Arlen, Passage to Ararat Richard Barnet and Ronald E. Muller, Global Reach: The Power of the Multinational Corporations (about multinational corporations) Peter L. Berger, Pyramids of Sacrifice: Political Ethics and Social Change John Kenneth Galbraith, Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went (about Money) W. Eugene Smith and Aileen M. Smith, Minamata (exposé of Minamata disease) Tim Wicker, A Time to Die
	History and Biography	David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770–1823 Paul Horgan, Lamy of Santa Fe (about Jean Baptiste Lamy) R. W. B. Lewis, Edith Wharton (about Edith Wharton) Charles S. Maier, Recasting Bourgeois Europe: Stabilization in France, Germany and Italy in the Decade after World War I Edmund S. Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom Richard Pipes, Russia Under the Old Regime Frank R. Rossiter, Charles Ives and His America Martin J. Sherwin, A World Destroyed: Hiroshima and its Legacies
1977 (3)	Biography and Autobiography	W. A. Swanberg, Norman Thomas: The Last Idealist Peter Collier and David Horowitz, The Rockefellers: An American Dynasty Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin: Volume VI 1955–1966 B. L. Reid, The Lives of Roger Casement E. B. White, Letters of E. B. White
	Contemporary Thought	Bruno Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales Dorothy Dinnerstein, The Mermaid and the Minotaur: Sexual Arrangements and Human Malaise Joseph Frank, Dostoyevsky: A Writer in His Time (about Fyodor Dostoyevsky) Ada Louise Huxtable, Kicked a Building Lately? Rufus E. Miles, Jr., Awakening from the American Dream
	History	Irving Howe, World of Our Fathers: The Journey of the East European Jews to America and the Life They Found and Made Lawrence Goodwyn, Democratic Promise: The Populist Moment in America Linda Gordon, Woman's Body, Woman's Right: The History of Birth Control in America Richard Kluger, Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America's Struggle for Equality Joshua C. Taylor, America as Art
1978 (3)	Biography and Autobiography	W. Jackson Bate, Samuel Johnson (about Samuel Johnson) James Atlas, Delmore Schwartz: The Life of an American Poet Will D. Campbell, Brother to a Dragonfly (autobiographical) Will Durant and Ariel Durant, A Dual Autobiography Frank Vandiver, Black Jack: The Life and Times of John J. Pershing
	Contemporary Thought	Gloria Emerson, Winners and Losers Kai T. Erikson, Everything in Its Path: Destruction of Community in the Buffalo Creek Flood (about the Buffalo Creek Flood) Michael Harrington, The Vast Majority Louise Kapp Howe, Pink Collar Workers (about pink-collar workers) Julian Jaynes, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
	History	David McCullough, The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal 1870–1914 Henry Steele Commager, The Empire of Reason: How Europe Imagined and America Realized the Enlightenment Robert J. Donovan, Conflict and Crisis: The Presidency of Harry S. Truman, 1945–48 Joseph Kastner, A Species of Eternity (Natural history in the New World) Fritz Stern, Gold and Iron (Bleichröder and Bismarck)
1979 (3)	Biography and Autobiography	Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., Robert Kennedy and His Times Donald Hall, Remembering Poets (biographical memoir) William Manchester, American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur William M. Murphy, Prodigal Father: The Life of John Butler Yeats Phyllis Rose, Woman of Letters: A Life of Virginia Woolf
	Contemporary Thought	Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard Kenneth E. Boulding, Stable Peace (see Peace science) Ivan Doig, This House of Sky: Landscapes of the Western Wind (memoir) Alfred Kazin, New York Jew Meyer Schapiro, Modern Art: 19th and 20th Centuries
	History	Richard Beale Davis, Intellectual Life in the Colonial South, 1585–1763 Reinhard Bendix, Kings or People: Power and the Mandate to Rule Gordon A. Craig, Germany, 1866–1945 John H. White, Jr., The American Railroad Passenger Car (John Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology) Garry Wills, Inventing America: Jefferson's Declaration of Independence

Nonfiction subcategories, 1980 to 1983

From 1980 to 1983 there were dual awards for hardcover (hc) and paperback (ppb) books in all nonfiction subcategories and some others. Most of the paperback award winners were second and later editions that had been previously eligible in their first editions. Here the first edition publication year is given parenthetically except the calendar year preceding the award is represented by "(new)".

Nonfiction subcategories, 1980 to 1983

Award category	Winner and other finalists
1980 (16 categories)
Autobiography (hc)	Lauren Bacall, Lauren Bacall by Myself Barbara Gordon, I'm Dancing As Fast As I Can (Valium addiction) John Houseman, Front and Center (memoir, second of 3) William Saroyan, Obituaries
Autobiography (ppb)	Malcolm Cowley, And I Worked at the Writer's Trade: Chapters of Literary History 1918–1978 (1978) No other finalists announced.
Biography (hc)	Edmund Morris, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt Millicent Bell, Marquand: An American Life Leon Edel, Bloomsbury: A House of Lions Ernest Samuels, Bernard Berenson: The Making of a Connoisseur
Biography (ppb)	A. Scott Berg, Max Perkins: Editor of Genius (1978) W. Jackson Bate, Samuel Johnson (1977) William Manchester, American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur, 1880–1964 (1978) Arthur Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy and His Times (1978)
Current Interest (hc)	Julia Child, Julia Child and More Company Raymond Lifchez and Barbara Winslow, Design for Independent Living: The Environment and Physically Disabled People Gay Gaer Luce, Your Second Life: Vitality and Growth in Middle and Later Years from the Experiences of the Sage Program Nathan Pritikin with Patrick M. McGrady, The Pritikin Program for Diet and Exercise ("The Pritikin Diet") Robert Ellis Smith, Privacy: How to Protect What's Left of It
Current Interest (ppb)	Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations Frances Wells Burck, Babysense: A Practical and Supportive Guide to Baby Care Farallones Institute, The Integral Urban House: Self-Reliant Living in the City Tracy Hotchner, Pregnancy and Childbirth: The Complete Guide for a New Life Calvin Trillin, Alice, Let's Eat: Further Adventures of a Happy Eater (1978)
General Nonfiction (hc)	Tom Wolfe, The Right Stuff Frances FitzGerald, America Revised David Halberstam, The Powers That Be Frederic Morton, A Nervous Splendor: Vienna, 1888–1889 Thomas Powers, The Man Who Kept the Secrets: Richard Helms and the CIA
General Nonfiction (ppb)	Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard (1978) Sissela Bok, Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life (1978) Barry Lopez, Of Wolves and Men (1978)
General Reference (hardcover)	Elder Witt, editor, Congressional Quarterly's Guide to the U.S. Supreme Court Frederic M. Kaplan, Julian M. Sopin and Stephen Andors, eds., Encyclopedia of China Today Bernard Karpel, Arts in America: A Bibliography J. Gordon Melton, The Encyclopedia of American Religions, Vols. I & II Carolyn Sue Peterson and Ann D. Fenton, eds., Index to Children's Songs
General Reference (ppb)	Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh, The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows 1946–Present (new) Cynthia W. Cooke, M.D., and Susan Dworkin, The Ms. Guide to a Woman's Health (new) Editors of Solar Age magazine, The Solar Age Resource Book (new) Stuart Berg Flexner, I Hear America Talking: An Illustrated History of American Words and Phrases (1976) Elisabeth L. Scharlatt, editor, Kids: Day In and Day Out: a parents' manual (new)
History (hc)	Henry A. Kissinger, The White House Years (memoir, first of 3) Robert Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932–1945 George F. Kennan, Decline of Bismarck's European Order: Franco-Russian Relations, 1875–1890 Frank E. Manuel and Fritzie P. Manuel, Utopian Thought in the Western World Telford Taylor, Munich: The Price of Peace
History (ppb)	Barbara W. Tuchman, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century (1978) James Lincoln Collier, The Making of Jazz: A Comprehensive History (1978) Daniel J. Kevles, The Physicists: The History of a Scientific Community in Modern America (1978) Allen Weinstein, Perjury: The Hiss–Chambers Case (1978) Theodore H. White, In Search of History: A Personal Adventure (1978)
Religion/Inspiration (hc)	Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels (about Gnostic Gospels) Peter L. Berger, The Heretical Imperative: Contemporary Possibilities of Religious Affirmation Brevard S. Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture (canonical criticism) Peter Kreeft, Love Is Stronger Than Death Jack B. Rogers and Donald K. McKim, The Authority and Interpretation of the Bible: An Historical Approach (about Biblical authority)
Religion/Inspiration (ppb)	Sheldon Vanauken, A Severe Mercy (1977) Richard Bach, Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah (mystical novel) (1977) Catherine Marshall, The Helper (about the Holy Ghost) (1978)
Science (hc)	Douglas Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid Freeman Dyson, Disturbing the Universe Douglas Faulkner and Richard Chesher, Living Corals Bernd Heinrich, Bumblebee Economics Horace Freeland Judson, The Eighth Day of Creation: Makers of the Revolution in Biology
Science (ppb)	Gary Zukav, The Dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overview of the New Physics (new) William J. Kaufmann, Black Holes and Warped Spacetime (new) Thomas S. Kuhn, The Essential Tension: Selected Studies in Scientific Tradition and Change (1977) Anne W. Simon, The Thin Edge: Coast and Man in Crisis (1978)
1981 (8 categories)
Autobiography/ Biography (hc)	Justin Kaplan, Walt Whitman: A Life Robert K. Massie, Peter the Great: His Life and World James R. Mellow, Nathaniel Hawthorne in His Times Peter Štanský and William Abrahams, Orwell: The Transformation Ronald Steel, Walter Lippman and the American Century
Autobiography/ Biography (ppb)	Deirdre Bair, Samuel Beckett: A Biography (1978) E. K. Brown, Willa Cather: A Critical Biography (1953) Leon Edel, Bloomsbury: A House of Lions (1979) Maureen Howard, Facts of Life (autobiography) (1978) Meryle Secrest, Being Bernard Berenson (1979)
General Nonfiction (hc)	Maxine Hong Kingston, China Men Malcolm Cowley, The Dream of the Golden Mountains: Remembering the 1930s (autobiography) John Graves, From a Limestone Ledge (Texas Monthly essays) Victor S. Navasky, Naming Names (see Hollywood blacklist) Studs Terkel, American Dreams: Lost and Found
General Nonfiction (ppb)	Jane Kramer, The Last Cowboy: Europeans and The Politics of Memory (1977) Joan Didion, The White Album (1979) David Halberstam, The Powers That Be (about news media) (1979) Dan Morgan, Merchants of Grain: The Power and Profits of the Five Giant Companies at the Center of the World's Food Supply (1979) Paul Theroux, The Old Patagonian Express (travel memoir) (1979)
History (hc)	John Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality James H. Billington, Fire in the Minds of Men: Origins of the Revolutionary Faith Steven Ozment, The Age of Reform, 1250–1550: An Intellectual and Religious History of Late Medieval and Reformation Europe Carl E. Schorske, Fin-de-Siècle Vienna:Politics and Culture Page Smith, The Shaping of America: A People's History of the Young Republic
History (ppb)	Leon F. Litwack, Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery (1979) Richard Drinnon, The Metaphysics of Indian-Hating and Empire-Building (1980) A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr., In the Matter of Color: The Colonial Period (1978) Telford Taylor, Munich: The Price of Peace (1979) Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States (new)
Science (hc)	Stephen Jay Gould, The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections on Natural History Claude C. Albritton, The Abyss of Time: Changing Conceptions of the Earth's Antiquity after the Sixteenth Century René Dubos, The Wooing of Earth Timothy Ferris, Galaxies Carl Sagan, Cosmos
Science (ppb)	Lewis Thomas, The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher (1979) Carl Sagan, Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science (1979) Joseph Silk, The Big Bang: The Creation and Evolution of the Universe (new) Walter Sullivan, Black Holes: the Edge of the Space, the End of Time (1979)
1982 (8 categories)
Autobiography/ Biography (hc)	David McCullough, Mornings on Horseback (about Theodore Roosevelt) Gay Wilson Allen, Waldo Emerson: A Biography Dumas Malone, Jefferson and His Time: The Sage of Monticello (last of 6 vols.) William S. McFeely, Grant: A Biography (about Ulysses S. Grant) Milton Rugoff, The Beechers
Autobiography/ Biography (ppb)	Ronald Steel, Walter Lippmann and the American Century (1980) Joseph P. Lash, Helen and Teacher: The Story of Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan Macy (1980) Robert K. Massie, Peter the Great: His Life and World (1980) Ted Morgan, Maugham (about W. Somerset Maugham) (1980) Ernest Samuels, Bernard Berenson: The Making of a Connoisseur (1979)
General Nonfiction (hc)	Tracy Kidder, The Soul of a New Machine Guy Davenport, The Geography of the Imagination: Forty Essays James Fallows, National Defense Janet Malcolm, Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession Andrea Lee, Russian Journal
General Nonfiction (ppb)	Victor S. Navasky, Naming Names (1980) (see Hollywood blacklist) Norman Cousins, Anatomy of an Illness As Perceived by the Patient: Reflections on Healing (1979) Edward Hoagland, African Calliope: A Journey to the Sudan (1979) Landon Jones, Great Expectations: America and the Baby Boom Generation (1980) Barbara Novak, Nature and Culture: American Landscape Painting, 1825–1875 (1980)
History (hc)	Peter J. Powell, People of the Sacred Mountain: A History of the Northern Cheyenne Chiefs and Warrior Societies, 1830–1879 Ray Huang, 1587, a Year of No Significance: The Ming Dynasty in Decline Donald Neff, Warriors at Suez: Eisenhower Takes America into the Middle East (see Suez Crisis) Russell F. Weigley, Eisenhower's Lieutenants: The Campaign of France and Germany, 1944–1945 C. Vann Woodward, editor, Mary Chestnut's Civil War (diary revised by Chestnut)
History (ppb)	Robert Wohl, The Generation of 1914 (see Lost Generation) (1979) Malcolm Cowley, The Dream of the Golden Mountains (1980) Robert Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932–1945 (1980) Carl N. Degler, At Odds: Women and the Family in America from the Revolution to the Present (1980) Charles Rembar, The Law of the Land: The Evolution of Our Legal System (1980)
Science (hc)	Donald C. Johanson and Maitland A. Edey, Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind Gene Bylinsky, Life in Darwin's Universe: Evolution and the Cosmos Eric Chaisson, Cosmic Dawn: The Origins of Matter and Life Steven J. Gould, The Mismeasure of Man Steven M. Stanley, The New Evolutionary Timetable: Fossils, Genes and the Origin of Species
Science (ppb)	Fred Alan Wolf, Taking the Quantum Leap: The New Physics for Nonscientists (new) Freeman Dyson, Disturbing the Universe (1979) Howard E. Gruber, Darwin on Man: A Psychological Study of Scientific Creativity (1974) Bernd Heinrich, Bumblebee Economics (1979) Guy Murchie, The Seven Mysteries of Life: An Exploration in Science & Philosophy (1979)
1983 (8 categories)
Autobiography/ Biography (hc)	Judith Thurman, Isak Dinesen: The Life of a Storyteller Russell Baker, Growing Up (first of two) Robert A. Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnso]: The Path to Power (first of 3 vols.) Robert J. Donovan, Tumultuous Years: The Presidency of Harry S. Truman, 1949–1953 Lewis Mumford, Sketches from Life: The Autobiography of Lewis Mumford: The Early Years
Autobiography/ Biography (ppb)	James R. Mellow, Nathaniel Hawthorne in His Times (1980) Dumas Malone, Jefferson and His Time: The Sage of Monticello (last of 6 vols.) (1981) Paul Mariani, William Carlos Williams: A New World Naked (1981) William S. McFeely, Grant: A Biography (about Ulysses S. Grant) (1981) Jean Strouse, Alice James: A Biography (1980)
General Nonfiction (hc)	Fox Butterfield, China: Alive in the Bitter Sea George F. Kennan, The Nuclear Delusion: Soviet-American Relations in the Atomic Age David McClintock, Indecent Exposure: A True Story of Hollywood and Wall Street (about the Begelman affair) Jonathan Schell, The Fate of the Earth Susan Sheehan, Is There No Place on Earth for Me?
General Nonfiction (ppb)	James Fallows, National Defense (1981) Edwin R. Bayley, Joe McCarthy and the Press (1981) Paul Fussell, Abroad: British Literary Traveling Between the Wars (1980) Al Santoli, Everything We Had: An Oral History of the Vietnam War (1981) Joanna Stratton, Pioneer Women: Voices from the Kansas Frontier (new)
History (hc)	Alan Brinkley, Voices of Protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin and the Great Depression Gordon A. Craig, The Germans Robert Darnton, The Literary Underground of the Old Regime John Putnam Demos, Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England (see Salem witch trials) William H. McNeill, The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed Force and Society Since A.D. 1000 Bertram Wyatt-Brown, Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old South
History (ppb)	Frank E. Manuel and Fritzie P. Manuel, Utopian Thought in the Western World (1979) George M. Fredrickson, White Supremacy: A Comparative Study in American and South African History (1981) Ray Huang, 1587, a Year of No Significance: The Ming Dynasty in Decline (1981) John Noble Wilford, The Mapmakers (about cartography) (1981)
Science (hc)	Abraham Pais, "Subtle is the Lord ...": The Science and Life of Albert Einstein Philip J. Hilts, Scientific Temperaments: Three Lives in Contemporary Science (bio Robert R. Wilson, Mark Ptashne, John McCarthy) Melvin Konner, The Tangled Wing: Biological Constraints on the Human Spirit Ernst Mayr, The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution and Inheritance Heinz R. Pagels, Cosmic Code: Quantum Physics as the Language of Nature
Science (ppb)	Philip J. Davis and Reuben Hersh, The Mathematical Experience (1981) Morris Kline, Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty (1980) Cynthia Moss, Portrait in the Wild: Animal Behavior in the Western World (1979) Berton Roueché, The Medical Detectives (1980) G. Ledyard Stebbins, Darwin to DNA: Molecules to Humanity (new)

Nonfiction finalists, 1984 to date

1983/1984

1983 entries were published during 1982, the pattern established for 1949 books in 1950. Winners in 27 categories were announced April 13 and privately celebrated April 28, 1983.

The awards practically went out of business that spring. Their salvation with a reduced program to be determined was announced in November. The revamp was completed only next summer, with an autumn program recognizing books published during the award year (initially, preceding November to current October). There were no awards for books published in 1983 before November.

By this time the awards were sponsored by the book publishers alone. From 1980 (for 1979 books) they were termed "American Book Awards", and the National Book Awards were considered to have been discontinued after 1979.

1984 entries for the "revamped" awards in merely three categories were published November 1983 to October 1984; that is, approximately during the award year. Eleven finalists were announced October 17. Winners were announced and celebrated November 15, 1984.

Nonfiction 1950 to 1963

The first awards in the current series were presented to the best books of 1949 at the annual convention dinner of the booksellers, book publishers, and book manufacturers in New York City, March 16, 1950. There were honorable mentions ("special citations") in the non-fiction category only.

1950: Ralph L. Rusk, The Life of Ralph Waldo Emerson  (biography of Ralph Waldo Emerson)

• Lincoln Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein
• Harry Allen Overstreet, The Mature Mind
• Eleanor Roosevelt, This I Remember (memoir)
• Lillian Smith, Killers of the Dream
• Kenneth P. Williams, Lincoln Finds a General [Volume 1]

1951: Newton Arvin, Herman Melville  (biography of Herman Melville)

• No runners up.

1952: Rachel Carson, The Sea Around Us

• 16 other finalists.

1953: Bernard De Voto, The Course of Empire

• 20 other finalists.

1954: Bruce Catton, A Stillness at Appomattox

• No runners up.

1955: Joseph Wood Krutch, The Measure of Man

• 11 other finalists.

1956: Herbert Kubly, An American in Italy

• 12 other finalists.

1957: George F. Kennan, Russia Leaves the War'

• 17 other finalists.

1958: Catherine Drinker Bowen, The Lion and the Throne  (see Edward Coke)

• 13 other finalists.

1959: J. Christopher Herold, Mistress to an Age: A Life of Madame de Staël (biography of Madame de Staël)

• 12 other finalists.

1960: Richard Ellmann, James Joyce  (biography of James Joyce)

• 28 other finalists.

1961: William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

• 11 other finalists.

1962: Lewis Mumford, The City in History: Its Origins, its Transformations and its Prospects

• 12 other finalists.

1963: Leon Edel, Henry James, volumes II and III  (biography of Henry James)

• 8 other finalists.

Early awards

The National Book Awards for 1935 to 1940 annually recognized the "most distinguished" or "favorite" book of General Nonfiction or simply Nonfiction. In 1935 and 1936 there was distinct award to the most distinguished Biography; both winners were autobiographies. Meanwhile, four of the six general nonfiction winners were autobiographical and one more was a biography. Furthermore, all books were eligible for the "Bookseller Discovery" and "Most Original Book" (two awards); nonfiction winners are listed here. In 1937 and 1939 alone, the New York Times reported close seconds and runners up respectively.

There was only one National Book Award for 1941, the Bookseller Discovery, which recognized a novel; then none until their 1950 revival for 1949 books in three categories including general Nonfiction.

Nonfiction

1935: Anne Morrow Lindbergh, North to the Orient

Biography: Vincent Sheean, Personal History

1936: Van Wyck Brooks, The Flowering of New England: 1815–1865

1937: Ève Curie, Madame Curie

• Lin Yutang, The Importance of Living

1938: Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Listen! The Wind

1939: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Wind, Sand and Stars

• Pierre van Paassen, Days of Our Years

1940: Hans Zinsser, As I Remember Him: The Biography of R.S.

Bookseller Discovery (1936 to 1941)

Nonfiction books constituted two winners and no other known finalist (both were novels).

1936: see fiction

1937: see fiction

1938: David Fairchild, The World Was My Garden: Travels of a Plant Explorer

1939: see fiction

1940: Perry Burgess, Who Walk Alone

1941: see fiction

Most Original Book (1935 to 1939)

Nonfiction books constituted three winners and no other known finalist (both were novels).

1935: see fiction

1936: Della T. Lutes, The Country Kitchen

1937: Carl Crow, Four Hundred Million Customers: The Experiences—Some Happy, Some Sad, of an American Living in China, and What They Taught Him

• see fiction

1938: Margaret Halsey, With Malice Toward Some

1939: see fiction

Repeat winners

See also Winners of multiple U.S. National Book Awards

Three books have won two literary National Book Awards (that is, excluding graphics), all in nonfiction subcategories of 1964 to 1983.

• John Clive, Thomas Babington Macaulay: The Shaping of the Historian

1974 Biography; 1974 History

• Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard

1979 Contemporary Thought; 1980 General Nonfiction, Paperback

• Lewis Thomas, The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher

1975 Arts and Letters; 1975 Science

Matthiessen and Thomas won three Awards (as did Saul Bellow, all fiction). Matthiessen won the 2008 fiction award. Thomas is one of several authors of two Award-winning books in nonfiction categories.

• Justin Kaplan, 1961, 1981 (Arts and Letters, Biography/Autobiography)
• George F. Kennan, 1957, 1968 (Nonfiction, History and Biography)
• Anne Morrow Lindbergh, 1936, 1939 (Non-Fiction, Non-Fiction)
• David McCullough, 1978, 1982 (History, Autobiography/Biography)
• Arthur Schlesinger, 1966, 1979 (History and Biography, Biography and Autobiography)
• Frances Steegmuller, 1971, 1981 (Arts and Letters, Translation)
• Lewis Thomas, 1975, 1981 (Arts and Letters and Science, Science)

See also

• List of winners of the National Book Award, winners only.