Archive Collection
Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction Winners
1962–2026
The Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction is awarded annually for the best American work of non-fiction, recognising outstanding history, biography, and social commentary since 1962.
About the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction
- Awarded by
- Columbia University
- First awarded
- 1917
- Country
- United States
- Winner receives
- $15,000
When it is announced
Winners and finalists in every category are announced together in early May. See the full announcement calendar.
How to enter
Anyone may enter a book, including the author, for a fee. Books published in the first half of the year are due by mid June and those published in the second half by mid October.
Official prize site · Checked August 2026. Dates move year to year, so confirm on the official site before entering.
| Year | Title & Author | Historical Context |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America | The Pulitzer board gave There Is No Place for Us the 2026 Prize for General Nonfiction on May 4, 2026. The finalists were Haley Cohen Gilliland's A… |
| 2025 | To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement | The Pulitzer board gave Benjamin Nathans the 2025 Prize for General Nonfiction for To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause, published by Princeton… |
| 2024 | A Day in the Life of Abed Salama | The Pulitzer board gave Nathan Thrall the 2024 Prize for General Nonfiction for A Day in the Life of Abed Salama, published in 2023 by Metropolitan… |
| 2023 | His Name Is George Floyd | The Pulitzer board gave Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa the 2023 Prize for General Nonfiction for His Name Is George Floyd, published in May… |
| 2022 | Invisible Child | The Pulitzer board gave Andrea Elliott the 2022 Prize for General Nonfiction for Invisible Child, published in October 2021 by Random House,… |
| 2021 | Wilmington's Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy | The Pulitzer board gave David Zucchino the 2021 Prize for General Nonfiction for Wilmington's Lie, published in January 2020 by Atlantic Monthly… |
| 2020 | The Undying | The Pulitzer board named Anne Boyer's The Undying, published in September 2019 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, a co winner of the 2020 Prize for… |
| 2020 | The End of the Myth | The Pulitzer board named Greg Grandin's The End of the Myth, published in 2019 by Henry Holt and Company, as a co winner of the 2020 Prize for… |
| 2019 | Amity and Prosperity | The Pulitzer board gave Eliza Griswold the 2019 Prize for General Nonfiction for Amity and Prosperity, published in 2018 by Farrar, Straus and… |
| 2018 | Locking Up Our Own | The Pulitzer board gave James Forman Jr. the 2018 Prize for General Nonfiction for Locking Up Our Own, published in April 2017 by Farrar, Straus and… |
| 2017 | Evicted | The Pulitzer board gave Matthew Desmond the 2017 Prize for General Nonfiction for Evicted, published in March 2016 by Crown. It also won the National… |
| 2016 | Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS | The Pulitzer board gave Joby Warrick the 2016 Prize for General Nonfiction for Black Flags, published in 2015 by Doubleday, citing a deeply reported… |
| 2015 | The Sixth Extinction | The Pulitzer board gave Elizabeth Kolbert the 2015 Prize for General Nonfiction for The Sixth Extinction, published in 2014 by Henry Holt and… |
| 2014 | Toms River | The Pulitzer board gave Dan Fagin the 2014 Prize for General Nonfiction for Toms River, published in March 2013 by Bantam Books. The finalists that… |
| 2013 | Devil in the Grove | The Pulitzer board gave Gilbert King the 2013 Prize for General Nonfiction for Devil in the Grove, published in 2012 by HarperCollins. It was runner… |
| 2012 | The Swerve | The Swerve arrived in 2011, amid the public argument between the new atheists and their critics, and its celebration of an ancient materialist poem… |
| 2011 | The Emperor of All Maladies | The Pulitzer board gave Siddhartha Mukherjee the 2011 Prize for General Nonfiction for The Emperor of All Maladies, published in November 2010 by… |
| 2010 | The Dead Hand | The Pulitzer board gave David E. Hoffman the 2010 Prize for General Nonfiction for The Dead Hand, published in September 2009 by Doubleday, citing a… |
| 2009 | Slavery by Another Name | The Pulitzer board gave Douglas A. Blackmon the 2009 Prize for General Nonfiction for Slavery by Another Name, published in 2008 by Doubleday. The… |
| 2008 | The Years of Extermination | The Pulitzer board gave Saul Friedländer the 2008 Prize for General Nonfiction for The Years of Extermination, published in April 2007 by… |
| 2007 | The Looming Tower | The Pulitzer board gave Lawrence Wright the 2007 Prize for General Nonfiction for The Looming Tower, published in 2006 by Alfred A. Knopf. It was a… |
| 2006 | Imperial Reckoning | Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya was published in 2005 and won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. Elkins… |
| 2005 | Ghost Wars | The Pulitzer board gave Steve Coll the 2005 Prize for General Nonfiction for Ghost Wars, published in 2004 by Penguin Press. The finalists that year… |
| 2004 | Gulag: A History | The Pulitzer board gave Applebaum the 2004 award for general nonfiction for a book Doubleday had published the previous year, and the book also won… |
| 2003 | 'A Problem from Hell' | The Pulitzer board gave Power the 2003 award for general nonfiction for a book Basic Books had published the previous year, and the book also won the… |
| 2002 | Carry Me Home | The Pulitzer board gave McWhorter the 2002 award for general nonfiction for a book Simon and Schuster had published the previous year, and the book… |
| 2001 | Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan | The Pulitzer board gave Bix the 2001 award for general nonfiction for a book HarperCollins had published the previous September. That year's other… |
| 2000 | Embracing Defeat | Dower wrote as the fiftieth anniversaries of the war's end forced both countries back over the record, and after his War Without Mercy had documented… |
| 1999 | Annals of the Former World | The Pulitzer board gave McPhee the 1999 award for general nonfiction for the collected edition Farrar, Straus and Giroux published in 1998, decades… |
| 1998 | Guns, Germs, and Steel | Guns, Germs, and Steel won the Science Book Prize in 1998, the same season it took the Pulitzer for general nonfiction, making Jared Diamond the… |
| 1997 | Ashes to Ashes | The Pulitzer board gave Kluger the 1997 award for general nonfiction for a book Alfred A. Knopf had published the previous year. That year's other… |
| 1996 | The Haunted Land | Rosenberg wrote at the exact moment the questions were live, in the early 1990s, when the files were opening, the trials beginning, and every post… |
| 1995 | The Beak of the Finch | The Pulitzer board gave Weiner the 1995 award for general nonfiction for a book Knopf had published the previous year. That year's other finalists… |
| 1994 | Lenin's Tomb | The Pulitzer board gave Remnick the 1994 award for general nonfiction. That year's other finalists were Peter Gay's The Cultivation of Hatred: The… |
| 1993 | Lincoln at Gettysburg | The Pulitzer board gave Wills the 1993 award for general nonfiction, and the book also won the 1992 National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism.… |
| 1992 | The Prize | The Pulitzer board gave Yergin the 1992 award for general nonfiction for a book Simon and Schuster had published in December 1990. That year's other… |
| 1991 | The Ants | The Pulitzer board gave Hölldobler and Wilson the 1991 award for general nonfiction, Wilson's second Pulitzer after On Human Nature won the prize in… |
| 1990 | And Their Children After Them | The Pulitzer board gave Maharidge and Williamson the 1990 award for general nonfiction for a book published the previous year. That year's other… |
| 1989 | A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam | The book won the 1988 National Book Award for nonfiction and the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction. That year's other Pulitzer finalists… |
| 1988 | The Making of the Atomic Bomb | Simon & Schuster published the book in 1986, at the late Cold War's peak of nuclear anxiety, and it gave a public debating warheads a full account of… |
| 1987 | Arab and Jew | The Pulitzer board gave Shipler the 1987 award for general nonfiction for a book published the previous year. That year's other finalists were Cyra… |
| 1986 | Move Your Shadow | The Pulitzer board gave the 1986 award for general nonfiction jointly to Lelyveld's Move Your Shadow and to J. Anthony Lukas's Common Ground: A… |
| 1986 | Common Ground | Busing was the northern front of the civil rights story, and Boston's violence, mobs stoning school buses in the cradle of abolition, forced the… |
| 1985 | The Good War | The Pulitzer board gave Terkel the 1985 award for general nonfiction for a book Pantheon Books had published the previous year. That year's other… |
| 1984 | The Social Transformation of American Medicine | The Pulitzer board gave Starr the 1984 award for general nonfiction, and the book also won that year's Bancroft Prize for American history, a rare… |
| 1983 | Is There No Place on Earth for Me? | The Pulitzer board gave Sheehan the 1983 award for general nonfiction. That year's other finalists were Diane Johnson's Terrorists and Novelists and… |
| 1982 | The Soul of a New Machine | Kidder published the book in 1981, after excerpts ran in The Atlantic Monthly and the year the IBM PC shipped, catching the computer industry at the… |
| 1981 | Fin-de-Siècle Vienna | The Pulitzer board gave Schorske the 1981 award for general nonfiction for a book Alfred A. Knopf first published in 1979. That year's other… |
| 1980 | Gödel, Escher, Bach | The Pulitzer board gave Hofstadter the 1980 award for general nonfiction, and the book also won that year's National Book Award for Science… |
| 1979 | On Human Nature | Harvard University Press published On Human Nature in 1978, and it won the 1979 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, Wilson's first Pulitzer; he… |
| 1978 | The Dragons of Eden | Random House published The Dragons of Eden in 1977, and it won the 1978 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, a recognition that helped cement… |
| 1977 | Beautiful Swimmers | The Atlantic Monthly Press and Little, Brown published Beautiful Swimmers in 1976, and it won the 1977 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction,… |
| 1976 | Why Survive? Being Old in America | Why Survive? Being Old in America appeared in 1975, and it won the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction the following year, arriving just as… |
| 1975 | Pilgrim at Tinker Creek | Harper's Magazine Press published Pilgrim at Tinker Creek in 1974, and it won the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, with Dillard winning at… |
| 1974 | The Denial of Death | Free Press published The Denial of Death in 1973, and Becker died of colon cancer in March 1974 at age forty nine, roughly two months before the… |
| 1973 | Fire in the Lake | Little, Brown published Fire in the Lake in 1972, and it won the 1973 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in the same tied year as Robert Coles's… |
| 1973 | Children of Crisis, Volumes II and III | Volumes II and III of Children of Crisis appeared in 1971, and together they won the 1973 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, a year the prize… |
| 1972 | Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911–45 | Macmillan published the book in 1971, and it won the 1972 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, Tuchman's second Pulitzer after The Guns of August… |
| 1971 | The Rising Sun | The Rising Sun appeared in 1970, and it won the 1971 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, recognition for a research method, extensive original… |
| 1970 | Gandhi's Truth | Norton published Gandhi's Truth in 1969, and it won both the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction and that year's National Book Award in the… |
| 1969 | The Armies of the Night | The Armies of the Night shared the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction with René Dubos's So Human an Animal, and in the same year it also won… |
| 1969 | So Human an Animal | Scribner published So Human an Animal in 1968, and it shared the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction with Norman Mailer's The Armies of the… |
| 1968 | Rousseau and Revolution | The volume appeared in 1967, and it won the 1968 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, honoring a series that had already become one of the best… |
| 1967 | The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture | Cornell University Press published the book in 1966, and it won the 1967 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, launching Davis toward a career built… |
| 1966 | Wandering Through Winter | Wandering Through Winter won the 1966 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, closing out a quartet that together covered more than seventy five… |
| 1965 | O Strange New World | Viking published O Strange New World in 1964, and it won the 1965 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction the following year, recognition that capped a… |
| 1964 | Anti-intellectualism in American Life | Knopf published the book in 1963, and it won the 1964 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, Hofstadter's second Pulitzer after The Age of Reform had… |
| 1963 | The Guns of August | Macmillan published The Guns of August in 1962, and it won the 1963 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, cementing Tuchman's reputation as a… |
| 1962 | The Making of the President 1960 | The Pulitzer board created its general nonfiction category in 1962, and White's book was the first winner, a choice that signaled the prize would… |