Pulitzer Prize for History

Template:Short description Template:More citations needed Template:Pulitzer The Pulitzer Prize for History, administered by Columbia University, is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It has been presented since 1917 for a distinguished book about the history of the United States. Thus it is one of the original Pulitzers, for the program was inaugurated in 1917 with seven prizes, four of which were awarded that year.<ref>"1917 Winners" Template:Webarchive. The Pulitzer Prizes (pulitzer.org). Retrieved 2013-12-19.</ref> The Pulitzer Prize program has also recognized some historical work with its Biography prize, from 1917, and its General Nonfiction prize, from 1962.

Finalists have been announced since 1980, ordinarily two others beside the winner.<ref name=prize/>

Winners

In its first 97 years to 2013, the History Pulitzer was awarded 95 times. Two prizes were given in 1989; none in 1919, 1984, and 1994.<ref name=prize/>

1980s

Entries from this point on include the finalists listed after the winner for each year.

Pulitzer Prize for History winners, 1980-1989<ref name=":1" />

Year	Author	Title	Result	Ref.
1980	Template:Sortname	Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery	Winner
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist
1981	Template:Sortname	American Education: The National Experience, 1783–1876	Winner	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Template:Sortname	Over Here: The First World War and American Society	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist
1982	Template:Sortname	Mary Chesnut's Civil War	Winner
	Template:Sortname	White Supremacy: A Comparative Study in American & South African History	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Power and Culture: The Japanese-American War, 1941–1945	Finalist
1983	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Winner
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Southern Honor: Ethics & Behavior in the Old South	Finalist
1984	No Award presented
1985	Template:Sortname	Prophets of Regulation: Charles Francis Adams, Louis D. Brandeis, James M. Landis, Alfred E. Kahn	Winner
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist
1986	Template:Sortname	...the Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age	Winner
	Template:Sortname	Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow: Black Women, Work and the Family from Slavery to the Present	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Novus Ordo Seclorum: the Intellectual Origins of the Constitution	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America	Finalist
1987	Template:Sortname	Voyagers to the West: A Passage in the Peopling of America on the Eve of the Revolution	Winner
	Template:Sortname	Eisenhower: At War, 1943–1945	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference	Finalist
1988	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Winner
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist
1989	Template:Sortname	Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-1963	Winner
	Template:Sortname	Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era	Winner
	Template:Sortname	Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution – 1863–1877	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist

1990s

Pulitzer Prize for History winners, 1990-1999<ref name=":1" />

Year	Author	Title	Result	Ref.
1990	Template:Sortname	In Our Image: America's Empire in the Philippines	Winner
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	American Genesis: A Century of Invention and Technological Enthusiasm 1870–1970	Finalist
1991	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Winner
	Template:Sortname	Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919–1939	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	America in 1857: A Nation on the Brink	Finalist
1992	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Winner
	Template:Sortname	Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Profits in the Wilderness: Entrepreneurship and the Founding of New England Towns in the Seventeenth Century	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist
1993	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Winner
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America	Finalist
1994	No award given
	Template:Sortname	Crime and Punishment in American History	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	William Faulkner and Southern History	Finalist
1995	Template:Sortname	No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II	Winner
	Template:Sortname	Stories of Scottsboro	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Lincoln in American Memory	Finalist
1996	Template:Sortname	William Cooper's Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic	Winner
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb	Finalist
1997	Template:Sortname	Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution	Winner
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Founding Mothers and Fathers: Gendered Power and the Forming of American Society	Finalist
1998	Template:Sortname	Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion	Winner	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Template:Sortname	Big Trouble: A Murder in a Small Western Town Sets Off a Struggle for the Soul of America	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Civic Ideals: Conflicting Visions of Citizenship in U.S. History	Finalist
1999	Template:Sortname and Mike Wallace	Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898	Winner	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Template:Sortname	This New Ocean: The Story of the First Space Age	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	In a Barren Land: American Indian Dispossession and Survival	Finalist

2000s

Pulitzer Prize for History winners, 2000-2009<ref name=":1" />

Year	Author	Title	Result	Ref.
2000	Template:Sortname	Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War	Winner
	Template:Sortname	Into the American Woods: Negotiators on the Pennsylvania Frontier	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist
2001	Template:Sortname	Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation	Winner	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Template:Sortname	Way Out There in the Blue: Reagan, Star Wars and the End of the Cold War	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist
2002	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Winner
	Template:Sortname	Deep Souths: Delta, Piedmont, and the Sea Island Society in the Age of Segregation	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America	Finalist
2003	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Winner
	Template:Sortname	At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Rereading Sex: Battles Over Sexual Knowledge and Suppression in Nineteenth Century America	Finalist
2004	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Winner
	Template:Sortname	They Marched into Sunlight: War and Peace, Vietnam and America, October 1967	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Great Fortune: The Epic of Rockefeller Center	Finalist
2005	Template:Sortname	Washington's Crossing	Winner
	Template:Sortname	Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Conjectures of Order: Intellectual Life and the American South, 1810-1860, volumes 1 & 2	Finalist
2006	Template:Sortname	Polio: An American Story	Winner
	Template:Sortname	New York Burning: Liberty, Slavery, and Conspiracy in Eighteenth-Century Manhattan	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist
2007	Template:Sortname and Hank Klibanoff	Template:Sort	Winner
	Template:Sortname	Middle Passages: African American Journeys to Africa, 1787-2005	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War	Finalist
2008	Template:Sortname	What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848	Winner
	Template:Sortname	Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist
2009	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Winner	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Template:Sortname	This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War	Finalist
	Template:Sortname and Robert Weisbrot	Template:Sort	Finalist

2010s

Pulitzer Prize for History winners, 2010-2019<ref name=":1" />

Year	Author	Title	Result	Ref.
2010	Template:Sortname	Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World	Winner	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Template:Sortname	Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789–1815	Finalist
2011	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Winner	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Template:Sortname	Confederate Reckoning: Power and Politics in the Civil War South	Finalist	<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
	Template:Sortname	Eden on the Charles: The Making of Boston	Finalist	<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>
2012	Template:Sortname	Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention	Winner	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Template:Sortname	Empires, Nations & Families: A History of the North American West, 1800-1860	Finalist
	Template:Sortname and Robbyn Swan	Template:Sort	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America	Finalist
2013	Template:Sortname	Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam	Winner	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Lincoln’s Code: The Laws of War in American History	Finalist
2014	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Winner	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety	Finalist
2015	Template:Sortname	Encounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan People	Winner	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Template:Sortname	Empire of Cotton: A Global History	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist
2016	Template:Sortname	Custer's Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America	Winner	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Marching Home: Union Veterans and Their Unending Civil War	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Target Tokyo: Jimmy Doolittle and the Raid That Avenged Pearl Harbor	Finalist
2017	Template:Sortname	Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy	Winner	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Template:Sortname	Brothers at Arms: American Independence and the Men of France and Spain Who Saved It	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	New England Bound: Slavery and Colonization in Early America	Finalist
2018	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Winner	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name=":4">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Template:Sortname	Fear City: New York’s Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics	Finalist	<ref name=":3" />
	Template:Sortname	Hitler in Los Angeles: How Jews Foiled Nazi Plots against Hollywood and America	Finalist	<ref name=":3" />
2019	Template:Sortname	Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom	Winner	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Template:Sortname	Civilizing Torture: An American Tradition	Finalist	<ref name=":5" />
	Template:Sortname	American Eden: David Hosack, Botany, and Medicine in the Garden of the Early Republic	Finalist	<ref name=":5" />

2020s

Pulitzer Prize for History winners, 2020-2024<ref name=":1" />

Year	Author	Title	Result	Ref.
2020	Template:Sortname	Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America	Winner	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist	<ref name=":02" />
	Template:Sortname	Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership	Finalist	<ref name=":02" />
2021	Template:Sortname	Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America	Winner	<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=":12">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist	<ref name=":12" />
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist	<ref name=":12" />
2022	Template:Sortname	Covered with Night: A Story of Murder and Indigenous Justice in Early America	Winner	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name=":6">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name=":7">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Template:Sortname	Cuba: An American History	Winner	<ref name=":2" /><ref name=":6" /><ref name=":7" />
	Template:Sortname	Until Justice Be Done: America's First Civil Rights Movement, from the Revolution to Reconstruction	Finalist	<ref name=":2" />
2023	Template:Sortname	Freedom's Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power	Winner	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Template:Sortname	Watergate: A New History	Finalist	<ref name=":0" />
	Michael John Witgen	Seeing Red: Indigenous Land, American Expansion, and the Political Economy of Plunder in North America	Finalist	<ref name=":0" />
2024	Template:Sortname	No Right to an Honest Living: The Struggles of Boston’s Black Workers in the Civil War Era	Winner	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Template:Sortname	Continental Reckoning: The American West in the Age of Expansion	Finalist	<ref name=":8" />
	Template:Sortname	American Anarchy: The Epic Struggle between Immigrant Radicals and the US Government at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century	Finalist	<ref name=":8" />
2025	Template:Sortname	Native Nations: A Millennium in North America	Winner
	Template:Sortname	Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom during the Civil War	Winner
	Template:Sortname	Plantation Goods: A Material History of American Slavery	Finalist

Repeat winners

Five people have won the Pulitzer Prize for History twice.

• Margaret Leech, 1942 for Reveille in Washington, 1860–1865 and 1960 for In the Days of McKinley
• Bernard Bailyn, 1968 for The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution and 1987 for Voyagers to the West: A Passage in the Peopling of America on the Eve of the Revolution
• Paul Horgan, 1955 for Great River: The Rio Grande in North American History and 1976 for Lamy of Santa Fe
• Alan Taylor, 1996 for William Cooper's Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic and 2014 for The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

• Don E. Fehrenbacher completed The Impending Crisis by David Potter, for which Potter posthumously won the 1977 prize, and won the 1979 prize himself for The Dred Scott Case: Its Significance in American Law and Politics.

See also

• List of history awards

External links

• Template:Commons category inline