Pulitzer Prize for History

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.^[1] The Pulitzer Prize program has also recognized some historical work with its Biography prize, from 1917, and its General Non-Fiction prize, from 1952.

Finalists have been announced from 1980, ordinarily two others beside the winner.^[2]

Winners[edit]

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.^[2] Four people have won two each, Margaret Leech, Bernard Bailyn, Paul Horgan and Alan Taylor.

1917: With Americans of Past and Present Days by Jean Jules Jusserand
1918: A History of the Civil War, 1861-1865 by James Ford Rhodes
1919: no award given

1980s[edit]

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

1980: Been in the Storm So Long by Leon F. Litwack
- The Plains Across by John B. Unruh
- The Urban Crucible by Gary B. Nash
1981: American Education: The National Experience, 1783–1876 by Lawrence A. Cremin
- A Search for Power: The 'Weaker Sex' in Seventeenth Century New England by Lyle Koehler
- Over Here: The First World War and American Society by David M. Kennedy
1982: Mary Chesnut's Civil War by C. Vann Woodward
- Power and Culture: The Japanese-American War, 1941–1945 by Akira Iriye
- White Supremacy: A Comparative Study in American & South African History by George M. Fredrickson
1983: The Transformation of Virginia, 1740–1790 by Rhys L. Isaac
- Southern Honor: Ethics & Behavior in the Old South by Bertram Wyatt-Brown
- The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763–1789 by Robert Middlekauff
1984: no award given
1985: Prophets of Regulation by Thomas K. McCraw
- The Crucible of Race by Joel Williamson
- The Great Father: The United States Government and the American Indians by Francis Paul Prucha
1986: ...the Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age by Walter A. McDougall
- Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America by Kerby A. Miller
- Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow: Black Women, Work and the Family from Slavery to the Present by Jacqueline Jones
- Novus Ordo Seclorum: the Intellectual Origins of the Constitution by Forrest McDonald
1987: Voyagers to the West: A Passage in the Peopling of America on the Eve of the Revolution by Bernard Bailyn
- Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference by David Garrow
- Eisenhower: At War, 1943–1945 by David Eisenhower
1988: The Launching of Modern American Science, 1846–1876 by Robert V. Bruce
- The Care of Strangers: The Rise of America's Hospital System by Charles E. Rosenberg
- The Fall of the House of Labor by David Montgomery
1989: Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era by James M. McPherson
1989: Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954–1963 by Taylor Branch
- A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam by Neil Sheehan
- Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877 by Eric Foner

1990s[edit]

1990: In Our Image: America's Empire in the Philippines by Stanley Karnow
- American Genesis: A Century of Invention and Technological Enthusiasm 1870–1970 by Thomas P. Hughes
- The Image of the Black in Western Art, Volume IV: From the American Revolution to World War I by Hugh Honour
1991: A Midwife's Tale by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
- America in 1857: A Nation on the Brink by Kenneth M. Stampp
- Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919–1939 by Lizabeth Cohen
- The Civil Rights Era: Origins and Development of National Policy by Hugh David Graham
1992: The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties by Mark E. Neely, Jr.
- A Very Thin Line: The Iran-Contra Affairs by Theodore Draper
- Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West by William Cronon
- Profits in the Wilderness: Entrepreneurship and the Founding of New England Towns in the Seventeenth Century by John Frederick Martin
- The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650–1815 by Richard White
1993: The Radicalism of the American Revolution by Gordon S. Wood
- Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America by Garry Wills
- The Promise of the New South: Life After Reconstruction by Edward L. Ayers
1994: no award given
- Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK by Gerald Posner
- Crime and Punishment in American History by Lawrence M. Friedman
- William Faulkner and Southern History by Joel Williamson
1995: No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II by Doris Kearns Goodwin
- Lincoln in American Memory by Merrill D. Peterson
- Stories of Scottsboro by James Goodman
1996: William Cooper's Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic by Alan Taylor
- Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb by Richard Rhodes
- The Sacred Fire of Liberty: James Madison and the Founding of the Federal Republic by Lance Banning
1997: Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution by Jack N. Rakove
- Founding Mothers and Fathers by Mary Beth Norton
- The Battle for Christmas by Stephen Nissenbaum
1998: Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion by Edward J. Larson
- Big Trouble: A Murder in a Small Western Town Sets Off a Struggle for the Soul of America by J. Anthony Lukas
- Civic Ideals: Conflicting Visions of Citizenship in U.S. History by Rogers Smith
1999: Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 by Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace
- In a Barren Land: American Indian Dispossession and Survival by Paula Mitchell Marks
- The New Ocean: The Story of the First Space Age by William E. Burrows

2000s[edit]

2000: Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945 by David M. Kennedy
- The Cousins' Wars: Religion, Politics and the Triumph of Anglo-America by Kevin Phillips
- Into the American Woods: Negotiators on the Pennsylvania Frontier by James H. Merrell
2001: Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation by Joseph J. Ellis
- The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States by Alexander Keyssar
- Way Out There in the Blue by Frances FitzGerald
2002: The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America by Louis Menand
- Deep Souths: Delta, Piedmont, and the Sea Island Society in the Age of Segregation by J. William Harris
- Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America by Daniel K. Richter
2003: An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa 1942–1943 by Rick Atkinson
- At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America by Philip Dray
- Rereading Sex: Battles Over Sexual Knowledge and Suppression in Nineteenth Century America by Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz
2004: A Nation Under Our Feet by Steven Hahn
- Great Fortune: The Epic of Rockefeller Center by Daniel Okrent
- They Marched Into Sunlight: War and Peace, Vietnam and America, October 1967 by David Maraniss
2005: Washington's Crossing by David Hackett Fischer
- Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age by Kevin Boyle
- Conjectures of Order: Intellectual Life and the American South, 1810-1860, volumes 1 & 2 by Michael O'Brien
2006: Polio: An American Story by David Oshinsky
- New York Burning by Jill Lepore
- The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln by Sean Wilentz
2007: The Race Beat by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff
- Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War by Nathaniel Philbrick
- Middle Passages: African American Journeys to Africa, 1787-2005 by James T. Campbell
2008: What Hath God Wrought: the Transformation of America, 1815–1848 by Daniel Walker Howe
- The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War by David Halberstam
- Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power by Robert Dallek
2009: The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family by Annette Gordon-Reed
- The Liberal Hour: Washington and the Politics of Change in the 1960s by G. Calvin Mackenzie and Robert Weisbrot
- This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust

2010s[edit]

2010: Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World by Liaquat Ahamed
- Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815 by Gordon S. Wood
- Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City by Greg Grandin
2011: The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery by Eric Foner
- Confederate Reckoning: Power and Politics in the Civil War South by Stephanie McCurry
- Eden on the Charles: The Making of Boston by Michael J. Rawson
2012: Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable
- Empires, Nations & Families: A History of the North American West, 1800-1860 by Anne F. Hyde
- The Eleventh Day: The Full Story of 9/11 and Osama Bin Laden by Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan
- Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America by Richard White
2013: Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam by Fredrik Logevall
- The Barbarous Years: The Peopling of British North America: The Conflict of Civilizations, 1600-1675 by Bernard Bailyn
- Lincoln’s Code: The Laws of War in American History by John Fabian Witt
2014: The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832 by Alan Taylor
- A Dreadful Deceit: The Myth of Race from the Colonial Era to Obama's America by Jacqueline Jones
- Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident and the Illusion of Safety by Eric Schlosser
2015: Encounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan People by Elizabeth A. Fenn^[3]
- Empire of Cotton: A Global History by Sven Beckert
- An Empire on the Edge: How Britain Came to Fight America by Nick Bunker
2016: Custer's Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America by T. J. Stiles^[4]
- Marching Home: Union Veterans and Their Unending Civil War by Brian Matthew Jordan
- Target Tokyo: Jimmy Doolittle and the Raid That Avenged Pearl Harbor by James M. Scott
- The Pentagon's Brain: An Uncensored History of DARPA, America's Top-Secret Military Research Agency by Annie Jacobsen
2017: Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy by Heather Ann Thompson^[5]
- Brothers at Arms: American Independence and the Men of France and Spain Who Saved It by Larrie D. Ferreiro
- New England Bound: Slavery and Colonization in Early America by Wendy Warren
2018: The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea by Jack E. Davis^[6]
- Fear City: New York’s Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics by Kim Phillips-Fein
- Hitler in Los Angeles: How Jews Foiled Nazi Plots against Hollywood and America by Steven J. Ross

Repeat winners[edit]

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^[7]
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.

References[edit]

^ "1917 Winners". The Pulitzer Prizes (pulitzer.org). Retrieved 2013-12-19.
^ ^a ^b "History". The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved 2013-12-19.
^ "History". The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved 20 April 2015.
^ "The Pulitzer Prizes".
^ "History". Retrieved 11 April 2017.
^ "2018 Pulitzer Prize Winners". www.pulitzer.org.
^ Husna Haq (2014-04-14). "Donna Tartt's 'The Goldfinch' – a novel that has charmed critics and readers alike – wins the 2014 Pulitzer Prize". CSMonitor.com. Retrieved 2014-04-22.

External links[edit]

Media related to Pulitzer Prize for History winners at Wikimedia Commons

[1] "1917 Winners". The Pulitzer Prizes (pulitzer.org). Retrieved 2013-12-19.

[prize-2] "History". The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved 2013-12-19.

[3] "History". The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved 20 April 2015.

[4] "The Pulitzer Prizes".

[5] "History". Retrieved 11 April 2017.

[6] "2018 Pulitzer Prize Winners". www.pulitzer.org.

[7] Husna Haq (2014-04-14). "Donna Tartt's 'The Goldfinch' – a novel that has charmed critics and readers alike – wins the 2014 Pulitzer Prize". CSMonitor.com. Retrieved 2014-04-22.

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v t e Pulitzer Prize for History
1917–1919	1917: With Americans of Past and Present Days by Jean Jules Jusserand 1918: A History of the Civil War, 1861–1865 by James Ford Rhodes 1919: no award given
1920–1929	1920: The War with Mexico by Justin H. Smith 1921: The Victory at Sea by William Sowden Sims and Burton J. Hendrick 1922: The Founding of New England by James Truslow Adams 1923: The Supreme Court in United States History by Charles Warren 1924: The American Revolution: A Constitutional Interpretation by Charles Howard McIlwain 1925: History of the American Frontier by Frederic L. Paxson 1926: A History of the United States by Edward Channing 1927: Pinckney's Treaty by Samuel Flagg Bemis 1928: Main Currents in American Thought by Vernon Louis Parrington 1929: The Organization and Administration of the Union Army, 1861–1865 by Fred Albert Shannon
1930–1939	1930: The War of Independence by Claude H. Van Tyne 1931: The Coming of the War, 1914 by Bernadotte E. Schmitt 1932: My Experiences in the World War by John J. Pershing 1933: The Significance of Sections in American History by Frederick J. Turner 1934: The People's Choice by Herbert Agar 1935: The Colonial Period of American History by Charles McLean Andrews 1936: A Constitutional History of the United States by Andrew C. McLaughlin 1937: The Flowering of New England, 1815–1865 by Van Wyck Brooks 1938: The Road to Reunion, 1865–1900 by Paul Herman Buck 1939: A History of American Magazines by Frank Luther Mott
1940–1949	1940: Abraham Lincoln: The War Years by Carl Sandburg 1941: The Atlantic Migration, 1607–1860 by Marcus Lee Hansen 1942: Reveille in Washington, 1860–1865 by Margaret Leech 1943: Paul Revere and the World He Lived In by Esther Forbes 1944: The Growth of American Thought by Merle Curti 1945: Unfinished Business by Stephen Bonsal 1946: The Age of Jackson by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. 1947: Scientists Against Time by James Phinney Baxter III 1948: Across the Wide Missouri by Bernard DeVoto 1949: The Disruption of American Democracy by Roy Franklin Nichols
1950–1959	1950: Art and Life in America by Oliver W. Larkin 1951: The Old Northwest, Pioneer Period 1815–1840 by R. Carlyle Buley 1952: The Uprooted by Oscar Handlin 1953: The Era of Good Feelings by George Dangerfield 1954: A Stillness at Appomattox by Bruce Catton 1955: Great River: The Rio Grande in North American History by Paul Horgan 1956: The Age of Reform by Richard Hofstadter 1957: Russia Leaves the War: Soviet-American Relations, 1917–1920 by George F. Kennan 1958: Banks and Politics in America by Bray Hammond 1959: The Republican Era: 1869–1901 by Leonard D. White and Jean Schneider
1960–1969	1960: In the Days of McKinley by Margaret Leech 1961: Between War and Peace: The Potsdam Conference by Herbert Feis 1962: The Triumphant Empire: Thunder-Clouds Gather in the West, 1763–1766 by Lawrence H. Gipson 1963: Washington, Village and Capital, 1800–1878 by Constance McLaughlin Green 1964: Puritan Village: The Formation of a New England Town by Sumner Chilton Powell 1965: The Greenback Era by Irwin Unger 1966: The Life of the Mind in America by Perry Miller 1967: Exploration and Empire: The Explorer and the Scientist in the Winning of the American West by William H. Goetzmann 1968: The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution by Bernard Bailyn 1969: Origins of the Fifth Amendment by Leonard W. Levy
1970–1979	1970: Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department by Dean Acheson 1971: Roosevelt: The Soldier Of Freedom by James MacGregor Burns 1972: Neither Black Nor White by Carl N. Degler 1973: People of Paradox: An Inquiry Concerning the Origins of American Civilization by Michael Kammen 1974: The Americans: The Democratic Experience by Daniel J. Boorstin 1975: Jefferson and His Time by Dumas Malone 1976: Lamy of Santa Fe by Paul Horgan 1977: The Impending Crisis, 1848–1861 by David M. Potter (Completed and edited by Don E. Fehrenbacher) 1978: The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business by Alfred D. Chandler Jr. 1979: The Dred Scott Case: Its Significance in American Law and Politics by Don E. Fehrenbacher
1980–1989	1980: Been in the Storm So Long by Leon F. Litwack 1981: American Education: The National Experience, 1783–1876 by Lawrence A. Cremin 1982: Mary Chesnut's Civil War by C. Vann Woodward 1983: The Transformation of Virginia, 1740–1790 by Rhys L. Isaac 1984: no award given 1985: Prophets of Regulation by Thomas K. McCraw 1986: ...the Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age by Walter A. McDougall 1987: Voyagers to the West: A Passage in the Peopling of America on the Eve of the Revolution by Bernard Bailyn 1988: The Launching of Modern American Science, 1846–1876 by Robert V. Bruce 1989: Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era by James M. McPherson 1989: Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954–1963 by Taylor Branch
1990–1999	1990: In Our Image: America's Empire in the Philippines by Stanley Karnow 1991: A Midwife's Tale by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich 1992: The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties by Mark E. Neely Jr. 1993: The Radicalism of the American Revolution by Gordon S. Wood 1994: no award given 1995: No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II by Doris Kearns Goodwin 1996: William Cooper's Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic by Alan Taylor 1997: Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution by Jack N. Rakove 1998: Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion by Edward J. Larson 1999: Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 by Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace
2000–2009	2000: Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945 by David M. Kennedy 2001: Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation by Joseph J. Ellis 2002: The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America by Louis Menand 2003: An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa 1942–1943 by Rick Atkinson 2004: A Nation under Our Feet by Steven Hahn 2005: Washington's Crossing by David Hackett Fischer 2006: Polio: An American Story by David Oshinsky 2007: The Race Beat by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff 2008: What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848 by Daniel Walker Howe 2009: The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family by Annette Gordon-Reed
2010-2019	2010: Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World by Liaquat Ahamed 2011: The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery by Eric Foner 2012: Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable 2013: Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam by Fredrik Logevall 2014: The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832 by Alan Taylor 2015: Encounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan People by Elizabeth A. Fenn 2016: Custer's Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America by T. J. Stiles 2017: Blood in the Water: The Attica Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy by Heather Ann Thompson 2018: The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea by Jack E. Davis

Pulitzer Prize for History

Contents

Winners[edit]

1920s[edit]

1930s[edit]

1940s[edit]

1950s[edit]

1960s[edit]

1970s[edit]