Archive Collection
Pulitzer Prize for History Winners
1917–2026
The Pulitzer Prize for History honours the finest book on the history of the United States, awarded annually since 1917. Past winners include landmark works by historians such as Bernard Bailyn, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and Jill Lepore.
About the Pulitzer Prize for History
- 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 | We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution | We the People won the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for History. The 2026 finalists were Scott Anderson for King of Kings and Bench Ansfield for Born in… |
| 2025 | Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom During the Civil War | Combee shared the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for History with Kathleen DuVal's Native Nations and also won the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize and the Tom… |
| 2025 | Native Nations: A Millennium in North America | Native Nations shared the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for History with Edda L. Fields-Black's Combee and also won the 2025 Bancroft Prize and the 2024… |
| 2024 | No Right to an Honest Living: The Struggles of Boston's Black Workers in the Civil War Era | No Right to an Honest Living won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for History, with the board's citation praising Jones's original reconstruction of free… |
| 2023 | Freedom's Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power | Freedom's Dominion won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for History. The 2023 finalists were Garrett M. Graff for Watergate and Michael John Witgen for Seeing… |
| 2022 | Cuba: An American History | Cuba: An American History shared the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for History with Nicole Eustace's Covered with Night, that year's sole finalist being Kate… |
| 2022 | Covered with Night: A Story of Murder and Indigenous Justice in Early America | Covered with Night shared the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for History with Ada Ferrer's Cuba: An American History. It was also a finalist for the 2021… |
| 2021 | Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America | Franchise won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for History along with the Hagley Prize in Business History, the Organization of American Historians' Lawrence… |
| 2020 | Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America | Sweet Taste of Liberty won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for History, making McDaniel the first Rice University professor to receive the award, and it also… |
| 2019 | Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom | Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for History along with the Bancroft Prize, the Francis Parkman Prize, the Gilder… |
| 2018 | The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea | The Gulf won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for History and the 2017 Kirkus Prize for nonfiction, and it was also a finalist for the National Book Critics… |
| 2017 | Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy | Blood in the Water won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for History and the Bancroft Prize the same year. Pantheon released the book in August 2016 to mark… |
| 2016 | Custer's Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America | Custer's Trials won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for History, T. J. Stiles's second Pulitzer after The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt… |
| 2015 | Encounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan People | Encounters at the Heart of the World won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for History, awarded the year after Hill and Wang published the book in March 2014.… |
| 2014 | The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832 | Alan Taylor won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for History for The Internal Enemy, his second win in the category after William Cooper's Town took the prize… |
| 2013 | Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam | Logevall won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for History, ahead of finalists Bernard Bailyn's The Barbarous Years: The Peopling of British North America and… |
| 2012 | Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention | Marable won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for History, posthumously, ahead of finalists Anne F. Hyde's Empires, Nations, and Families: A History of the… |
| 2011 | The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery | Foner won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for History, ahead of finalists Stephanie McCurry's Confederate Reckoning: Power and Politics in the Civil War… |
| 2010 | Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World | Ahamed won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for History, ahead of finalists Greg Grandin's Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City… |
| 2009 | The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family | Gordon-Reed won the 2008 National Book Award for Nonfiction and the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for History, ahead of finalists Drew Gilpin Faust's This… |
| 2008 | What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848 | Howe won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for History, ahead of finalists Robert Dallek's Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power and David Halberstam's The… |
| 2007 | The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation | The Race Beat won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for History, ahead of finalists James T. Campbell's Middle Passages: African American Journeys to Africa,… |
| 2006 | Polio: An American Story | Oshinsky won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for History, ahead of finalists Jill Lepore's New York Burning: Liberty, Slavery, and Conspiracy in Eighteenth… |
| 2005 | Washington's Crossing | Washington's Crossing won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for History, ahead of finalists Kevin Boyle's Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and… |
| 2004 | A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration | Hahn won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for History, ahead of finalists David Maraniss's They Marched into Sunlight: War and Peace, Vietnam and America,… |
| 2003 | An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942–1943 | An Army at Dawn won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for History, ahead of finalists Philip Dray's At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black… |
| 2002 | The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America | Menand won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for History, ahead of finalists J. William Harris's Deep Souths: Delta, Piedmont, and the Sea Island Society in… |
| 2001 | Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation | The Pulitzer board awarded this the 2001 Prize for History. Ellis had already won a National Book Award for American Sphinx, his study of Jefferson,… |
| 2000 | Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War | Kennedy won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for History, ahead of finalists James H. Merrell's Into the American Woods: Negotiators on the Pennsylvania… |
| 1999 | Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 | Burrows and Wallace won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for History, ahead of finalists William E. Burrows's This New Ocean: The Story of the First Space Age… |
| 1998 | Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion | Larson won the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for History, ahead of finalists J. Anthony Lukas's Big Trouble: A Murder in a Small Western Town Sets Off a… |
| 1997 | Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution | Published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1996, the book won the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for History and the 1998 Cox Book Prize from the Society of the… |
| 1996 | William Cooper's Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic | Published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1995, the book won the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for History along with the Bancroft Prize and the Beveridge Award. That… |
| 1995 | No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II | Published by Simon & Schuster in 1994, the book won the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for History; that year's finalists were James Goodman's Stories of… |
| 1994 | No Award | No Award |
| 1993 | The Radicalism of the American Revolution | Published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1992, the book won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for History; Wood's earlier book, The Creation of the American Republic,… |
| 1992 | The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties | Published by Oxford University Press in 1991, the book won the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for History and the Bell I. Wiley Award. That year's Pulitzer… |
| 1991 | A Midwife's Tale | A Midwife's Tale won an unusually full set of prizes in 1991: the Pulitzer Prize for History, the Bancroft Prize, the John H. Dunning Prize, the Joan… |
| 1990 | In Our Image: America's Empire in the Philippines | Published by Random House in 1989, the book won the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for History; that year's finalists were Hugh Honour's The Image of the Black… |
| 1989 | Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era | Published by Oxford University Press in February 1988, the book shared the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for History with Taylor Branch's Parting the Waters;… |
| 1989 | Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-1963 | Parting the Waters shared the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for History with James M. McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom, two full awards given the same year… |
| 1988 | The Launching of Modern American Science, 1846–1876 | The book won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for History; that year's finalists were David Montgomery's The Fall of the House of Labor and Charles E.… |
| 1987 | Voyagers to the West: A Passage in the Peopling of America on the Eve of the Revolution | Published by Knopf in 1986, the book won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for History, Bailyn's second, distinct from his first Pulitzer Prize for History in… |
| 1986 | ...the Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age | Published in 1985, the book won the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for History; that year's finalists were Jacqueline Jones's Labor of Love, Forrest McDonald's… |
| 1985 | Prophets of Regulation | Prophets of Regulation, published in 1984, won the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for History and the Thomas Newcomen Award the following year; that year's… |
| 1984 | No Award | No Award |
| 1983 | The Transformation of Virginia, 1740–1790 | The Transformation of Virginia won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for History, making Isaac the first Australian historian to receive the prize; that year's… |
| 1982 | Mary Chesnut's Civil War | Woodward's edition won the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for History; that year's finalists were George M. Fredrickson's White Supremacy and Akira Iriye's… |
| 1981 | American Education: The National Experience, 1783–1876 | American Education: The National Experience won the 1981 Pulitzer Prize for History; that year's finalists were David M. Kennedy's Over Here and Lyle… |
| 1980 | Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery | Published by Knopf in 1979, the book took the 1980 Pulitzer Prize for History and the 1980 Francis Parkman Prize, and its first paperback edition won… |
| 1979 | The Dred Scott Case: Its Significance in American Law and Politics | The Dred Scott Case won the 1979 Pulitzer Prize for History, two years after Fehrenbacher had seen David M. Potter's own prizewinning book, The… |
| 1978 | The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business | The Visible Hand won the 1978 Pulitzer Prize for History and the Bancroft Prize the same year. Chandler, described within his field as the doyen of… |
| 1977 | The Impending Crisis, 1848–1861 | The Impending Crisis, 1848 to 1861 won the 1977 Pulitzer Prize for History, six years after Potter's death in February 1971 and one year after Don E.… |
| 1976 | Lamy of Santa Fe | Lamy of Santa Fe won the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for History, Horgan's second Pulitzer for History after Great River: The Rio Grande in North American… |
| 1975 | Jefferson and His Time | Jefferson and His Time won the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for History for the biography as Malone had built it so far, five volumes published across nearly… |
| 1974 | The Americans: The Democratic Experience | The Americans: The Democratic Experience won the 1974 Pulitzer Prize for History, completing a trilogy that had begun with The Colonial Experience in… |
| 1973 | People of Paradox: An Inquiry Concerning the Origins of American Civilization | People of Paradox won the 1973 Pulitzer Prize for History. Kammen earned his doctorate at Harvard under Bernard Bailyn, who had won the same prize… |
| 1972 | Neither Black nor White: Slavery and Race Relations in Brazil and the United States | Neither Black nor White won the 1972 Pulitzer Prize for History. Degler, who taught at Vassar College before moving to Stanford University, where he… |
| 1971 | Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom | Burns wrote the book at the end of the 1960s, with another president conducting another war, and readers in 1970 could not miss the contrast between… |
| 1970 | Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department | Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department won the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for History, a year after its 1969 publication. Reviewers… |
| 1969 | Origins of the Fifth Amendment: The Right Against Self-Incrimination | Origins of the Fifth Amendment won the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for History. No finalists were published that year; the Pulitzer board began naming them… |
| 1968 | The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution | The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution won the 1968 Pulitzer Prize for History and the Bancroft Prize the same year. No finalists were… |
| 1967 | Exploration and Empire: The Explorer and the Scientist in the Winning of the American West | Exploration and Empire won both the Francis Parkman Prize and the 1967 Pulitzer Prize for History, together the two most prestigious prizes in… |
| 1966 | The Life of the Mind in America | The Life of the Mind in America won the 1966 Pulitzer Prize for History, awarded three years after Miller's death in December 1963 at Harvard… |
| 1965 | The Greenback Era: A Social and Political History of American Finance, 1865–1879 | The Greenback Era won the 1965 Pulitzer Prize for History, a striking result for a first book on a subject as unglamorous as postwar currency policy.… |
| 1964 | Puritan Village: The Formation of a New England Town | Puritan Village won the 1964 Pulitzer Prize for History, the year after its 1963 publication, and no finalists were published that year; the Pulitzer… |
| 1963 | Washington: Village and Capital, 1800–1878 | Washington: Village and Capital, 1800 to 1878 won the 1963 Pulitzer Prize for History, the first volume of what became a two book history of the… |
| 1962 | The Triumphant Empire: Thunder-Clouds Gather in the West, 1763–1766 | The Triumphant Empire won the 1962 Pulitzer Prize for History, one of several volumes from Gipson's British Empire Before the American Revolution… |
| 1961 | Between War and Peace: The Potsdam Conference | Between War and Peace, published by Princeton University Press in 1960, won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize for History. It was one of eleven books Feis… |
| 1960 | In the Days of McKinley | In the Days of McKinley won the 1960 Pulitzer Prize for History and the Bancroft Prize the same year, making Leech, who had already won the Pulitzer… |
| 1959 | The Republican Era: 1869–1901 | White and Schneider won the 1959 Pulitzer Prize for History, a posthumous honor for White, who had died the previous year. It made him one of… |
| 1958 | Banks and Politics in America | Banks and Politics in America won the 1958 Pulitzer Prize for History for its 1957 publication. Hammond had served as assistant secretary of the… |
| 1957 | Russia Leaves the War: Soviet-American Relations, 1917–1920 | Russia Leaves the War won the 1957 Pulitzer Prize for History for its 1956 publication, along with the National Book Award. Kennan had already become… |
| 1956 | The Age of Reform | The Age of Reform won the 1956 Pulitzer Prize for History for its 1955 publication. The book set off a long argument about Populism that has never… |
| 1955 | Great River: The Rio Grande in North American History | Great River won the 1955 Pulitzer Prize for History for its 1954 publication, along with the Bancroft Prize; no finalists were named, since the… |
| 1954 | A Stillness at Appomattox | Catton was a Michigan newspaperman who grew up listening to Union veterans and came to history late; the trilogy he finished with this book began the… |
| 1953 | The Era of Good Feelings | The Era of Good Feelings won the 1953 Pulitzer Prize for History for its 1952 publication, along with the 1953 Bancroft Prize; no finalists were… |
| 1952 | The Uprooted | The Uprooted won the 1952 Pulitzer Prize for History for its 1951 publication; no finalists were named, since the category did not publish them… |
| 1951 | The Old Northwest, Pioneer Period 1815–1840 | The Old Northwest, Pioneer Period 1815 to 1840 won the 1951 Pulitzer Prize for History for its 1950 publication; no finalists were named, since the… |
| 1950 | Art and Life in America | Art and Life in America won the 1950 Pulitzer Prize for History for its 1949 publication, the first time the prize in this category went to a work of… |
| 1949 | The Disruption of American Democracy | The Disruption of American Democracy won the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for History for its 1948 publication; no finalists were named, since the category… |
| 1948 | Across the Wide Missouri | Across the Wide Missouri won the 1948 Pulitzer Prize for History for its 1947 publication, along with the inaugural Bancroft Prize the same year; no… |
| 1947 | Scientists Against Time | Scientists Against Time won the 1947 Pulitzer Prize for History for its 1946 publication. Baxter wrote the book as the part time official historian… |
| 1946 | The Age of Jackson | The Age of Jackson won the 1946 Pulitzer Prize for History. Schlesinger was still in his twenties when the book appeared in 1945, an unusually young… |
| 1945 | Unfinished Business | Unfinished Business won the 1945 Pulitzer Prize for History for its 1944 publication; no finalists were named, since the category did not publish… |
| 1944 | The Growth of American Thought | The Growth of American Thought won the 1944 Pulitzer Prize for History. Curti taught at Columbia from 1931 and then for more than two decades at the… |
| 1943 | Paul Revere and the World He Lived In | Paul Revere and the World He Lived In won the 1943 Pulitzer Prize for History for its 1942 publication. Forbes drew on the same research for a second… |
| 1942 | Reveille in Washington, 1860–1865 | Reveille in Washington won the 1942 Pulitzer Prize for History, making Leech the first woman to win the prize in this category. Leech, who had… |
| 1941 | The Atlantic Migration, 1607–1860 | The Atlantic Migration won the 1941 Pulitzer Prize for History, three years after Hansen's death in 1938, making it a posthumous award. The book… |
| 1940 | Abraham Lincoln: The War Years | Abraham Lincoln: The War Years won the 1940 Pulitzer Prize for History; no finalists were named, since the category did not publish them before 1980.… |
| 1939 | A History of American Magazines | These two volumes won the 1939 Pulitzer Prize for History; no finalists were named that year, since the category did not begin publishing them until… |
| 1938 | The Road to Reunion, 1865–1900 | The Road to Reunion won the 1938 Pulitzer Prize for History. Buck had joined the Harvard history faculty in the 1920s, and the book, published the… |
| 1937 | The Flowering of New England, 1815–1865 | The Flowering of New England won the 1937 Pulitzer Prize for History and a National Book Award for Nonfiction, an unusual double for a work more… |
| 1936 | A Constitutional History of the United States | A Constitutional History of the United States won the 1936 Pulitzer Prize for History the year after its 1935 publication, arriving late in a career… |
| 1935 | The Colonial Period of American History | The Colonial Period of American History won the 1935 Pulitzer Prize for History for its first volume, published in 1934. Andrews would go on to… |
| 1934 | The People's Choice | The People's Choice won the 1934 Pulitzer Prize for History the year after its 1933 publication, becoming Agar's best known book. Agar wrote it while… |
| 1933 | The Significance of Sections in American History | The Significance of Sections in American History won the 1933 Pulitzer Prize for History after Turner's death in March 1932, making the award… |
| 1932 | My Experiences in the World War | My Experiences in the World War won the 1932 Pulitzer Prize for History, recognition that arrived more than a decade after the armistice for a memoir… |
| 1931 | The Coming of the War, 1914 | The Coming of the War, 1914 won the 1931 Pulitzer Prize for History after already receiving the American Historical Association's George Louis Beer… |
| 1930 | The War of Independence | The War of Independence won the 1930 Pulitzer Prize for History, an award that arrived after Van Tyne's death on March 21, 1930, making the… |
| 1929 | The Organization and Administration of the Union Army, 1861–1865 | The Organization and Administration of the Union Army won the 1929 Pulitzer Prize for History the year after its 1928 publication, an early… |
| 1928 | Main Currents in American Thought | Main Currents in American Thought won the 1928 Pulitzer Prize for History for its first two volumes, the only portion Parrington completed and saw… |
| 1927 | Pinckney's Treaty | Pinckney's Treaty won the 1927 Pulitzer Prize for History, an early recognition for Bemis at the start of a career that would make him one of the… |
| 1926 | A History of the United States, Vol. VI: The War for Southern Independence (1849–1865) | The History of the United States, Vol. VI won the 1926 Pulitzer Prize for History the year after its 1925 publication. Channing was sixty nine when… |
| 1925 | History of the American Frontier | History of the American Frontier won the 1925 Pulitzer Prize for History the year after its 1924 publication. Paxson wrote it while holding the same… |
| 1924 | The American Revolution: A Constitutional Interpretation | The American Revolution: A Constitutional Interpretation won the 1924 Pulitzer Prize for History the year after its 1923 publication, establishing… |
| 1923 | The Supreme Court in United States History | The Supreme Court in United States History won the 1923 Pulitzer Prize for History after Warren published the three volumes in 1922. Justice Louis… |
| 1922 | The Founding of New England | The Founding of New England won the 1922 Pulitzer Prize for History, the first installment of what would grow into Adams's full New England trilogy,… |
| 1921 | The Victory at Sea | The Victory at Sea won the 1921 Pulitzer Prize for History, the fifth prize given in the category and the first to go to a book about naval warfare.… |
| 1920 | The War with Mexico | The War with Mexico won the 1920 Pulitzer Prize for History, the prize's fourth year, following the board's decision to give no award at all in 1919.… |
| 1919 | No Award | No Award |
| 1918 | A History of the Civil War, 1861–1865 | A History of the Civil War won the 1918 Pulitzer Prize for History, only the second time the young prize had been awarded, continuing the pattern its… |
| 1917 | With Americans of Past and Present Days | With Americans of Past and Present Days won the very first Pulitzer Prize for History in 1917, the inaugural year of a category that has run every… |