Pulitzer Prize: General Nonfiction

Christchurch City Libraries lists literary prize winners and links to catalogue searches, but we may not hold copies of all titles mentioned.

The Pulitzer Prizes are annual awards for achievements in American journalism, letters, drama and music. The prizes have been awarded by the Pulitzer Prize Board at Columbia University since 1917; however the Prize for General Nonfiction has been awarded only since 1962.

See the other Pulitzer Prize categories winners and all the other literary prize winners we list.

2024

• A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy Nathan Thrall Winner
• Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives Siddharth Kara 
• Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World John Vaillant

2023

• His Name is George Floyd by Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa Winner
• Kingdom of Characters: The Language Revolution That Made China Modern by Jing Tsu  
• Sounds Wild and Broken: Sonic Marvels, Evolution’s Creativity, and the Crisis of Sensory Extinction by David George Haskell  
• Under the Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives and on the Health of Our Nation by Linda Villarosa 

2022

• Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City by Andrea Elliot Winner
• Home, Land, Security: Deradicalization and the Journey Back from Extremism by Carla Power
• The Family Roe: An American Story by Joshua Prage

2021

• Wilmington’s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy, by David Zucchino Winner
• Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning, by Cathy Park Hong  
• Yellow Bird: Oil, Murder, and a Woman's Search for Justice in Indian Country, by Sierra Crane Murdoch

2020

• The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America, by Greg Grandin Winner (tie)
• The Undying: Pain, Vulnerability, Mortality, Medicine, Art, Time, Dreams, Data, Exhaustion, Cancer, and Care, by Anne Boyer Winner (tie)
• Elderhood: Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, Reimagining Life, by Louise Aronson
• Solitary, by Albert Woodfox with Leslie George

2019

•  Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America Eliza Griswold Winner
• In a Day’s Work: The Fight to End Sexual Violence Against America’s Most Vulnerable Workers Bernice Yeung 
• Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore Elizabeth Rush

2018

• Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America James Forman Jr. Winner
• Notes on a Foreign Country: An American Abroad in a Post-America World Suzy Hansen
• The Evolution of Beauty: How Darwin’s Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World—and Us Richard O. Prum

2017

• Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City Matthew Desmond Winner
• In a Different Key: The Story of Autism John Donvan and Caren Zucker
• The Politics of Mourning: Death and Honor in Arlington National Cemetery Micki McElya

2016

• Between the World and Me Ta-Nehisi Coates
• If the Oceans Were Ink: An Unlikely Friendship and a Journey to the Heart of the Quran Carla Power
• Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS Joby Warrick Winner

2015

• The sixth extinction: an unnatural history Elizabeth Kolbert Winner
• No good men among the living: America, the Taliban and the war through Afghan eyes Anand Gopal
• Age of ambition: chasing fortune, truth, and faith in the new China Evan Osnos

2014

• Toms River: a story of science and salvation Dan Fagin Winner
• The blood telegram: Nixon, Kissinger and a forgotten genocide Gary J. Bass
• The insurgents: David Petraeus and the plot to change the American way of war Fred Kaplan

2013

• Devil in the grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland boys and the dawn of new America Gilbert King Winner
• Behind the beautiful forevers: life, death and hope in a Mumbai undercity Katherine Boo
• The forest unseen: a year's watch in nature David George Haskell

2012

• The swerve: how the world became modern Stephen Greenblatt

2011

• The emperor of all maladies: a biography of cancer Siddhartha Mukherjee

2010

• The dead hand: the untold story of the Cold War arms race and its dangerous legacy David E. Hoffman

2009

• Slavery by another name: the re-enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II Douglas A. Blackmon

2008

• The years of extermination Saul Friedlander

2007

• The looming tower Lawrence Wright

2006

• Imperial reckoning: the untold story of Britain’s gulag in Kenya Caroline Elkins

2005

• Ghost wars Steve Coll

2004

• Gulag: a history Anne Applebaum

2003

• "A problem from hell": America and the age of genocide Samantha Power

2002

• Carry me home: Birmingham, Alabama, the climactic battle of the Civil Rights revolution Diane McWhorter

2001

• Hirohito and the making of modern Japan Herbert P. Bix

2000

• Embracing defeat: Japan in the wake of World War II John W. Dower

1999

• Annals of the former world John McPhee

1998

• Guns, germs, and steel: the fates of human societies Jared Diamond

1997

• Ashes to ashes: America’s hundred-year cigarette war, the public health, and the unabashed triumph of Philip Morris Richard Kluger

1996

• The haunted land: facing Europe’s ghosts after communism Tina Rosenberg

1995

• The beak of the finch: a story of evolution in our time Jonathan Weiner

1994

• Lenin’s tomb: the last days of the Soviet Empire David Remnick

1993

• Lincoln at Gettysburg: the words that remade America Gary Wills

1992

• The prize: the epic quest for oil, money & power Daniel Yergin

1991

• The ants Bert Holldobler and Edward O. Wilson

1990

• And their children after them Dale Maharidge, photographer, and Michael Williamson, reporter

1989

• A bright shining lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam Neil Sheehan

1988

• The making of the atomic bomb Richard Rhodes

1987

• Arab and Jew: wounded spirits in a promised land David K. Shipler

1986

• Common ground: a turbulent decade in the lives of three American families J. Anthony Lucas
• Move your shadow: South Africa black and white Joseph Lelyveld

1985

• The good war: an oral history of World War Two Studs Terkel

1984

• The social transformation of American medicine Paul Starr

1983

• Is there no place on earth for me Susan Sheehan

1982

• The soul of a new machine Tracy Kidder

1981

• Fin-de siecle Vienna: politics and culture Carl E. Schorske

1980

• Godel, Escher, Bach: an eternal golden braid Douglas R. Hofstadter

1979

• On human nature Edward O. Wilson

1978

• The dragons of Eden: speculations on the evolution of human intelligence Carl Sagan

1977

• Beautiful swimmers William W. Warner

1976

• Why survive? Being old in America Robert N. Butler

1975

• Pilgrim at Tinker Creek Annie Dillard

1974

• The denial of death Ernest Becker

1973

• Fire in the lake: the Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam Frances FitzGerald
• Children of crisis, Vols. II and III Robert Coles

1972

• Stilwell and the American experience in China 1911-1945 Barbara W. Tuchman

1971

• The rising sun: the decline and fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945 John Toland

1970

• Gandhi’s truth Erik H. Erikson

1969

• The armies of the night: history as a novel: the novel as history Norman Mailer
• So human an animal Rene Jules Dubos

1968

• Rousseau and revolution (the tenth and concluding volume of The story of civilization) Will and Ariel Durant

1967

• The problem of slavery in Western culture David Brion Davis

1966

• Wandering through winter Edwin Way Teale

1965

• O strange new world Howard Mumford Jones

1964

• Anti-intellectualism in American life Richard Hofstadter

1963

• The guns of August Barbara W. Tuchman

1962

• The making of the President 1960 Theodore H. White