| Year |
|
Winner |
Winner Work |
| 2013 |
|
George Packer |
The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America |
| 2012 |
|
Katherine Boo |
Behind the Beautiful Forevers |
| 2011 |
|
Stephen Greenblatt |
The Swerve: How the World Became Modern |
| 2010 |
|
Patti Smith |
Just Kids |
| 2009 |
|
T.J. Stiles |
The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt |
| 2008 |
|
Annette Gordon-Reed |
The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family |
| 2007 |
|
Tim Weiner |
Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA |
| 2006 |
|
Timothy Egan |
The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl |
| 2005 |
|
Joan Didion |
The Year of Magical Thinking |
| 2004 |
|
Kevin Boyle |
Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age |
| 2003 |
|
Carlos Eire |
Waiting for Snow in Havana |
| 2002 |
|
Robert Caro |
Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson |
| 2001 |
|
Andrew Solomon |
The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression |
| 2000 |
|
Nathaniel Philbrick |
In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex |
| 1999 |
|
John W. Dower |
Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II |
| 1998 |
|
Edward Ball |
Slaves in the Family |
| 1997 |
|
Joseph J. Ellis |
American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson |
| 1996 |
|
James P. Carroll |
An American Requiem: God, My Father, and the War that Came Between Us |
| 1995 |
|
Tina Rosenberg |
The Haunted Land: Facing Europe's Ghosts After Communism |
| 1994 |
|
Sherwin B. Nuland |
How We Die: Reflections on Life's Final Chapter |
| 1993 |
|
Gore Vidal |
United States: Essays 1952-1992 |
| 1992 |
|
Paul Monette |
Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story |
| 1991 |
|
Orlando Patterson |
Freedom |
| 1990 |
|
Ron Chernow |
The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance |
| 1989 |
|
Thomas L. Friedman |
From Beirut to Jerusalem |
| 1988 |
|
Neil Sheehan |
A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam |
| 1987 |
|
Richard Rhodes |
The Making of the Atomic Bomb |
| 1986 |
|
Barry Lopez |
Arctic Dreams |
| 1985 |
|
J. Anthony Lukas |
Common Ground |
| 1984 |
|
Robert V. Remini |
Andrew Jackson & the Course of American Democracy, 1833-1845 |
| 1963 |
|
Leon Edel |
Henry James, Vol. II: The Conquest of London, Henry James, Vol. III: The Middle Years |
| 1962 |
|
Lewis Mumford |
The City in History |
| 1961 |
|
William L. Shirer |
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich |
| 1960 |
|
Richard Ellmann |
James Joyce |
| 1959 |
|
J. Christopher Herold |
Mistress to an Age: A Life of Madame De Stael |
| 1958 |
|
Catherine Drinker Bowen |
The Lion and the Throne |
| 1957 |
|
George F. Kennan |
Russia Leaves the War |
| 1956 |
|
Herbert Kubly |
An American in Italy |
| 1955 |
|
Joseph Wood Krutch |
The Measure of Man |
| 1954 |
|
Bruce Catton |
A Stillness at Appomattox |
| 1953 |
|
Bernard DeVoto |
The Course of Empire |
| 1952 |
|
Rachel Carson |
The Sea Around Us |
| 1951 |
|
Newton Arvin |
Herman Melville |
| 1950 |
|
Ralph L. Rusk |
Ralph Waldo Emerson |
| 1940 |
|
Hans Zinsser |
As I Remember Him, the Biography of R. S |
| 1939 |
|
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry |
Wind, Sand and Stars |
| 1938 |
|
Anne Morrow Lindbergh |
Listen! the Wind |
| 1937 |
|
Ève Curie |
Madame Curie |
| 1936 |
|
Van Wyck Brooks |
The Flowering of New England, 1815-1865 |
| 1935 |
|
Anne Morrow Lindbergh |
North to the Orient |
