Pulitzer Prize for History Winners by Year (1917–2026)

Year	Title & Author	Historical Context
2026	We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution by Jill Lepore	The book won the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for History and was written by Jill Lepore, a Harvard historian and staff writer at The New Yorker.
2025	Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom During the Civil War by Edda L. Fields-Black	The book shared the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for History and centers on the Combahee River raid of June 1863, the only American military operation plann...
2025	Native Nations: A Millennium in North America by Kathleen DuVal	The book shared the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for History and was written by Kathleen DuVal, a historian at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
2024	No Right to an Honest Living: The Struggles of Boston's Black Workers in the Civil War Era by Jacqueline Jones	The book earned the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for History and was written by Jacqueline Jones, a longtime historian of labor and race at the University o...
2023	Freedom's Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power by Jefferson Cowie	The book won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for History and centers on Barbour County, Alabama, the home county of segregationist governor George Wallace.
2022	Cuba: An American History by Ada Ferrer	Ferrer, born in Cuba and raised in the United States, shared the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for History with Nicole Eustace.
2022	Covered with Night: A Story of Murder and Indigenous Justice in Early America by Nicole Eustace	Eustace shared the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for History with Ada Ferrer in a year with two winning titles.
2021	Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America by Marcia Chatelain	Chatelain, a professor at Georgetown University, won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 2021.
2020	Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America by W. Caleb McDaniel	McDaniel, a historian at Rice University, won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 2020.
2019	Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom by David W. Blight	Blight, a Yale historian, won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 2019 for this biography.
2018	The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea by Jack E. Davis	Davis, a professor at the University of Florida, won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 2018.
2017	Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy by Heather Ann Thompson	Thompson's book won both the Pulitzer Prize for History and the Bancroft Prize in 2017.
2016	Custer's Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America by T. J. Stiles	The award gave T. J. Stiles his second Pulitzer, after his 2010 win in biography for The First Tycoon.
2015	Encounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan People by Elizabeth A. Fenn	Fenn, a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 2015.
2014	The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832 by Alan Taylor	The win gave Alan Taylor his second Pulitzer Prize for History, after his 1996 award for William Cooper's Town.
2013	Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam by Fredrik Logevall	Logevall, a historian at Cornell when the book appeared, won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 2013.
2012	Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable	Marable died just days before the book appeared in 2011, and it won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 2012.
2011	The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery by Eric Foner	Eric Foner won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for History along with the Lincoln Prize and the Bancroft Prize for this book.
2010	Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World by Liaquat Ahamed	Liaquat Ahamed won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for History for this study of interwar central banking.
2009	The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family by Annette Gordon-Reed	Annette Gordon-Reed won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for History and the National Book Award for this family history.
2008	What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848 by Daniel Walker Howe	Daniel Walker Howe wrote this volume for the Oxford History of the United States series and won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for History.
2007	The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff	Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff shared the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for History for this study of civil rights journalism.
2006	Polio: An American Story by David Oshinsky	David Oshinsky won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for History for this account of the fight against polio.
2005	Washington's Crossing by David Hackett Fischer	David Hackett Fischer won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for History for this narrative of the 1776 Delaware campaign.
2004	A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration by Steven Hahn	Steven Hahn won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for History as well as the Bancroft Prize for this work.
2003	An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942–1943 by Rick Atkinson	An Army at Dawn opened Rick Atkinson's Liberation Trilogy and won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for History.
2002	The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America by Louis Menand	Louis Menand received the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for History for this account of pragmatist thought.
2001	Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation by Joseph J. Ellis	Joseph J. Ellis won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for History for this study of the founding generation.
2000	Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War by David M. Kennedy	The book formed part of the Oxford History of the United States series and earned David M. Kennedy the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for History.
1999	Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 by Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace	Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for History for this first volume of a planned history of New York City.
1998	Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion by Edward J. Larson	Edward J. Larson won the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for History for this account of the Scopes trial and its long afterlife.
1997	Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution by Jack N. Rakove	Jack N. Rakove won the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for History for this study of constitutional origins and the problem of original intent.
1996	William Cooper's Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic by Alan Taylor	Alan Taylor won the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for History, and the book also received the Bancroft Prize that year.
1995	No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II by Doris Kearns Goodwin	Doris Kearns Goodwin won the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for History for this account of the Roosevelt White House during the war.
1994	No Award	No Award
1993	The Radicalism of the American Revolution by Gordon S. Wood	Gordon S. Wood won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for History for this interpretation of the Revolution's social transformation.
1992	The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties by Mark E. Neely, Jr.	Mark E. Neely, Jr. won the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for History for this reassessment of wartime liberty under Lincoln.
1991	A Midwife's Tale by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich	Laurel Thatcher Ulrich won the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for History for this study, which a documentary film later adapted for the PBS series American E...
1990	In Our Image: America's Empire in the Philippines by Stanley Karnow	Stanley Karnow, a longtime foreign correspondent best known for his work on Vietnam, won the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for History for this book.
1989	Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era by James M. McPherson	James M. McPherson wrote the book as part of the Oxford History of the United States series, and it shared the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for History.
1989	Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-1963 by Taylor Branch	This volume is the first in Taylor Branch's America in the King Years trilogy and shared the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for History.
1988	The Launching of Modern American Science, 1846–1876 by Robert V. Bruce	Bruce won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1988 for this account of the rise of American science in the mid nineteenth century.
1987	Voyagers to the West: A Passage in the Peopling of America on the Eve of the Revolution by Bernard Bailyn	This volume in Bailyn's series on the peopling of British North America won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1987.
1986	...the Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age by Walter A. McDougall	McDougall won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1986 for this political account of the space age and the Cold War.
1985	Prophets of Regulation by Thomas K. McCraw	McCraw won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1985 for this study of the architects of American economic regulation.
1984	No Award	No Award
1983	The Transformation of Virginia, 1740–1790 by Rhys L. Isaac	Isaac, an Australian historian, won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1983 for this innovative ethnographic study of colonial Virginia.
1982	Mary Chesnut's Civil War by C. Vann Woodward	Woodward's edition won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1982 and drew renewed attention to Chesnut as a witness to the Confederate home front.
1981	American Education: The National Experience, 1783–1876 by Lawrence A. Cremin	This middle volume of Cremin's trilogy on American education won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1981.
1980	Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery by Leon F. Litwack	The book won both the Pulitzer Prize for History and the National Book Award in 1980, and its title comes from an old spiritual.
1979	The Dred Scott Case: Its Significance in American Law and Politics by Don E. Fehrenbacher	Fehrenbacher, who had completed David M. Potter's prizewinning manuscript two years earlier, won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1979 for this st...
1978	The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business by Alfred D. Chandler, Jr.	The book won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1978 and also took the Bancroft Prize, becoming a cornerstone of the field of business history.
1977	The Impending Crisis, 1848–1861 by David M. Potter	Potter died in 1971 before finishing the manuscript, which the historian Don E. Fehrenbacher completed and saw to publication, and it won the Pulit...
1976	Lamy of Santa Fe by Paul Horgan	Paul Horgan won his second Pulitzer Prize for History with this biography in 1976, the same churchman who inspired Willa Cather's novel Death Comes...
1975	Jefferson and His Time by Dumas Malone	Dumas Malone spent more than thirty years on his multivolume Jefferson biography, which won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1975.
1974	The Americans: The Democratic Experience by Daniel J. Boorstin	This final volume of Daniel J. Boorstin's trilogy The Americans won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1974.
1973	People of Paradox: An Inquiry Concerning the Origins of American Civilization by Michael Kammen	Michael Kammen's study of American identity won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1973.
1972	Neither Black nor White: Slavery and Race Relations in Brazil and the United States by Carl N. Degler	Carl N. Degler's comparative study of two slave societies won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1972.
1971	Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom by James MacGregor Burns	This second volume of James MacGregor Burns's Roosevelt biography won both the Pulitzer Prize for History and the National Book Award in 1971.
1970	Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department by Dean Acheson	Dean Acheson served as Secretary of State under President Harry Truman, and his memoir won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1970.
1969	Origins of the Fifth Amendment: The Right Against Self-Incrimination by Leonard W. Levy	Leonard W. Levy's study of constitutional liberty won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1969.
1968	The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution by Bernard Bailyn	Bernard Bailyn drew the book from his introduction to a collection of Revolutionary pamphlets, and it won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1968.
1967	Exploration and Empire: The Explorer and the Scientist in the Winning of the American West by William H. Goetzmann	This book won both the Pulitzer Prize for History and the Francis Parkman Prize in 1967.
1966	The Life of the Mind in America by Perry Miller	Perry Miller died in 1963 leaving the book incomplete, and it received the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1966 after his death.
1965	The Greenback Era: A Social and Political History of American Finance, 1865–1879 by Irwin Unger	This was Irwin Unger's first major book and it won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1965.
1964	Puritan Village: The Formation of a New England Town by Sumner Chilton Powell	Sumner Chilton Powell's microhistory of Sudbury, Massachusetts won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1964.
1963	Washington: Village and Capital, 1800–1878 by Constance McLaughlin Green	Constance McLaughlin Green won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1963 for the first volume of her social history of the nation's capital.
1962	The Triumphant Empire: Thunder-Clouds Gather in the West, 1763–1766 by Lawrence H. Gipson	This installment of Lawrence H. Gipson's fifteen volume series The British Empire Before the American Revolution won the Pulitzer Prize for History...
1961	Between War and Peace: The Potsdam Conference by Herbert Feis	Herbert Feis, a former State Department economic adviser, won the Pulitzer Prize for History for this account of the 1945 Potsdam Conference in 1961.
1960	In the Days of McKinley by Margaret Leech	Margaret Leech became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for History twice, taking the award in 1960 after an earlier win in 1942.
1959	The Republican Era: 1869–1901 by Leonard D. White and Jean Schneider	This volume capped Leonard D. White's four part history of United States administration and earned the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1959.
1958	Banks and Politics in America by Bray Hammond	Bray Hammond, a former assistant secretary of the Federal Reserve Board, won the Pulitzer Prize for History for this book in 1958.
1957	Russia Leaves the War: Soviet-American Relations, 1917–1920 by George F. Kennan	George F. Kennan, the diplomat who authored the influential containment policy, won the Pulitzer Prize for History and the National Book Award for ...
1956	The Age of Reform by Richard Hofstadter	Columbia historian Richard Hofstadter won this Pulitzer in 1956 and a second in 1964 for Anti intellectualism in American Life.
1955	Great River: The Rio Grande in North American History by Paul Horgan	Paul Horgan won a second Pulitzer Prize for History in 1963 for Lamy of Santa Fe, making him a two time winner in the category.
1954	A Stillness at Appomattox by Bruce Catton	This final volume of Bruce Catton's Army of the Potomac trilogy won both the Pulitzer Prize for History and the National Book Award in 1954.
1953	The Era of Good Feelings by George Dangerfield	English born journalist and historian George Dangerfield won the Pulitzer Prize for History and the Bancroft Prize for this study in 1953.
1952	The Uprooted by Oscar Handlin	Handlin opened the book by writing that he once set out to write a history of immigrants in America, then realized the immigrants were American his...
1951	The Old Northwest, Pioneer Period 1815–1840 by R. Carlyle Buley	Buley, an Indiana University historian, spent years compiling the two volume study from regional records of the early frontier.
1950	Art and Life in America by Oliver W. Larkin	Larkin taught art history at Smith College, and the book became a standard survey of American art for college courses for many years.
1949	The Disruption of American Democracy by Roy Franklin Nichols	Nichols, a University of Pennsylvania historian, centered the book on the failure of the 1860 Democratic conventions that divided the party on the ...
1948	Across the Wide Missouri by Bernard DeVoto	The book formed part of DeVoto's trilogy on westward expansion and was loosely adapted into a 1951 MGM film starring Clark Gable.
1947	Scientists Against Time by James Phinney Baxter III	Baxter served as official historian of the wartime Office of Scientific Research and Development, giving him access to the programs he described.
1946	The Age of Jackson by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.	Schlesinger wrote the book in his twenties, and it won him the first of his two Pulitzer Prizes.
1945	Unfinished Business by Stephen Bonsal	Bonsal served as a personal interpreter to President Woodrow Wilson and Colonel House at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, giving him firsthand acce...
1944	The Growth of American Thought by Merle Curti	Curti, a leading figure in American intellectual history, taught at the University of Wisconsin and helped establish the field as a serious area of...
1943	Paul Revere and the World He Lived In by Esther Forbes	While researching this biography, Forbes wrote the children's novel Johnny Tremain, which won the Newbery Medal the same year this book won the Pul...
1942	Reveille in Washington, 1860–1865 by Margaret Leech	Leech was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for History, and she later won a second for her study of the McKinley years.
1941	The Atlantic Migration, 1607–1860 by Marcus Lee Hansen	Hansen died in 1938 and the book was published after his death, edited by Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr., making it a posthumous Pulitzer winner.
1940	Abraham Lincoln: The War Years by Carl Sandburg	Sandburg, a poet rather than an academic historian, won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1940 for these four volumes covering Lincoln's presidency.
1939	A History of American Magazines by Frank Luther Mott	Mott, a journalism scholar and educator, won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1939 for the early volumes of this long running series on American p...
1938	The Road to Reunion, 1865–1900 by Paul Herman Buck	Buck, a Harvard historian, won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1938 for this study of post Civil War reconciliation.
1937	The Flowering of New England, 1815–1865 by Van Wyck Brooks	This was the first book in Brooks's Makers and Finders series, and it won both the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1937 and a National Book Award.
1936	A Constitutional History of the United States by Andrew C. McLaughlin	McLaughlin, a University of Chicago historian, won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1936 for this survey of American constitutional development.
1935	The Colonial Period of American History by Charles McLean Andrews	The first volume of this multivolume series won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1935, capping the career of a leading Yale historian of the imper...
1934	The People's Choice by Herbert Agar	Agar, a journalist and editor, received the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1934 for this account of the American presidency.
1933	The Significance of Sections in American History by Frederick Jackson Turner	Turner had died in 1932, and the book won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1933, awarded after the death of the historian best known for his front...
1932	My Experiences in the World War by John J. Pershing	Pershing, the only American to hold the rank of General of the Armies during his lifetime, won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1932 for this memoir.
1931	The Coming of the War, 1914 by Bernadotte E. Schmitt	Published in 1930, this work earned Schmitt, a University of Chicago historian, the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1931.
1930	The War of Independence by Claude H. Van Tyne	Van Tyne died in 1930, the same year the book received the Pulitzer Prize for History, leaving the planned sequel volumes unfinished.
1929	The Organization and Administration of the Union Army, 1861–1865 by Fred Albert Shannon	This two volume study won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1929 and grew out of Shannon's doctoral research on Northern military organization.
1928	Main Currents in American Thought by Vernon Louis Parrington	Parrington died in 1929 with the third volume of his study left unfinished, and the work won the prize shortly after the first two volumes appeared.
1927	Pinckney's Treaty by Samuel Flagg Bemis	Bemis won a second Pulitzer Prize for History in 1950 for his biography of John Quincy Adams.
1926	The History of the United States, Vol. VI: The War for Southern Independence (1849–1865) by Edward Channing	Channing, a Harvard professor, died in 1931 before completing his planned multivolume history of the United States.
1925	A History of the American Frontier by Frederic L. Paxson	Paxson's book extended the frontier thesis of his fellow historian Frederick Jackson Turner into a full narrative history.
1924	The American Revolution: A Constitutional Interpretation by Charles Howard McIlwain	McIlwain was a Harvard professor of political science whose interpretation sparked decades of debate among constitutional historians.
1923	The Supreme Court in United States History by Charles Warren	Warren was a Boston lawyer and former assistant attorney general whose multivolume study long served as a standard reference on the Court.
1922	The Founding of New England by James Truslow Adams	Adams later popularized the phrase the American Dream in his 1931 book The Epic of America.
1921	The Victory at Sea by William Sowden Sims and Burton J. Hendrick	Sims commanded United States naval forces in European waters during the First World War, giving the book its authority as a firsthand account.
1920	The War with Mexico by Justin H. Smith	Smith spent years researching in Mexican and American archives, and his work remained the standard scholarly account of the war for decades.
1919	No Award	No Award
1918	A History of the Civil War, 1861-1865 by James Ford Rhodes	Rhodes was a Cleveland businessman who retired from industry to write history and became one of the most read American historians of his generation.
1917	With Americans of Past and Present Days by Jean Jules Jusserand	This volume by the French ambassador to the United States won the very first Pulitzer Prize for History in 1917.

2026

We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution by Jill Lepore

The book won the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for History and was written by Jill Lepore, a Harvard historian and staff writer at The New Yorker.

2025

Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom During the Civil War by Edda L. Fields-Black

The book shared the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for History and centers on the Combahee River raid of June 1863, the only American military operation plann...

2025

Native Nations: A Millennium in North America by Kathleen DuVal

The book shared the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for History and was written by Kathleen DuVal, a historian at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

2024

No Right to an Honest Living: The Struggles of Boston's Black Workers in the Civil War Era by Jacqueline Jones

The book earned the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for History and was written by Jacqueline Jones, a longtime historian of labor and race at the University o...

2023

Freedom's Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power by Jefferson Cowie

The book won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for History and centers on Barbour County, Alabama, the home county of segregationist governor George Wallace.

2022

Cuba: An American History by Ada Ferrer

Ferrer, born in Cuba and raised in the United States, shared the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for History with Nicole Eustace.

2022

Covered with Night: A Story of Murder and Indigenous Justice in Early America by Nicole Eustace

Eustace shared the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for History with Ada Ferrer in a year with two winning titles.

2021

Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America by Marcia Chatelain

Chatelain, a professor at Georgetown University, won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 2021.

2020

Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America by W. Caleb McDaniel

McDaniel, a historian at Rice University, won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 2020.

2019

Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom by David W. Blight

Blight, a Yale historian, won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 2019 for this biography.

2018

The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea by Jack E. Davis

Davis, a professor at the University of Florida, won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 2018.

2017

Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy by Heather Ann Thompson

Thompson's book won both the Pulitzer Prize for History and the Bancroft Prize in 2017.

2016

Custer's Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America by T. J. Stiles

The award gave T. J. Stiles his second Pulitzer, after his 2010 win in biography for The First Tycoon.

2015

Encounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan People by Elizabeth A. Fenn

Fenn, a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 2015.

2014

The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832 by Alan Taylor

The win gave Alan Taylor his second Pulitzer Prize for History, after his 1996 award for William Cooper's Town.

2013

Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam by Fredrik Logevall

Logevall, a historian at Cornell when the book appeared, won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 2013.

2012

Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable

Marable died just days before the book appeared in 2011, and it won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 2012.

2011

The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery by Eric Foner

Eric Foner won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for History along with the Lincoln Prize and the Bancroft Prize for this book.

2010

Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World by Liaquat Ahamed

Liaquat Ahamed won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for History for this study of interwar central banking.

2009

The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family by Annette Gordon-Reed

Annette Gordon-Reed won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for History and the National Book Award for this family history.

2008

What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848 by Daniel Walker Howe

Daniel Walker Howe wrote this volume for the Oxford History of the United States series and won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for History.

2007

The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff

Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff shared the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for History for this study of civil rights journalism.

2006

Polio: An American Story by David Oshinsky

David Oshinsky won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for History for this account of the fight against polio.

2005

Washington's Crossing by David Hackett Fischer

David Hackett Fischer won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for History for this narrative of the 1776 Delaware campaign.

2004

A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration by Steven Hahn

Steven Hahn won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for History as well as the Bancroft Prize for this work.

2003

An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942–1943 by Rick Atkinson

An Army at Dawn opened Rick Atkinson's Liberation Trilogy and won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for History.

2002

The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America by Louis Menand

Louis Menand received the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for History for this account of pragmatist thought.

2001

Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation by Joseph J. Ellis

Joseph J. Ellis won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for History for this study of the founding generation.

2000

Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War by David M. Kennedy

The book formed part of the Oxford History of the United States series and earned David M. Kennedy the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for History.

1999

Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 by Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace

Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for History for this first volume of a planned history of New York City.

1998

Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion by Edward J. Larson

Edward J. Larson won the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for History for this account of the Scopes trial and its long afterlife.

1997

Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution by Jack N. Rakove

Jack N. Rakove won the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for History for this study of constitutional origins and the problem of original intent.

1996

William Cooper's Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic by Alan Taylor

Alan Taylor won the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for History, and the book also received the Bancroft Prize that year.

1995

No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Doris Kearns Goodwin won the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for History for this account of the Roosevelt White House during the war.

1994

No Award

1993

The Radicalism of the American Revolution by Gordon S. Wood

Gordon S. Wood won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for History for this interpretation of the Revolution's social transformation.

1992

The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties by Mark E. Neely, Jr.

Mark E. Neely, Jr. won the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for History for this reassessment of wartime liberty under Lincoln.

1991

A Midwife's Tale by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich won the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for History for this study, which a documentary film later adapted for the PBS series American E...

1990

In Our Image: America's Empire in the Philippines by Stanley Karnow

Stanley Karnow, a longtime foreign correspondent best known for his work on Vietnam, won the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for History for this book.

1989

Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era by James M. McPherson

James M. McPherson wrote the book as part of the Oxford History of the United States series, and it shared the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for History.

1989

Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-1963 by Taylor Branch

This volume is the first in Taylor Branch's America in the King Years trilogy and shared the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for History.

1988

The Launching of Modern American Science, 1846–1876 by Robert V. Bruce

Bruce won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1988 for this account of the rise of American science in the mid nineteenth century.

1987

Voyagers to the West: A Passage in the Peopling of America on the Eve of the Revolution by Bernard Bailyn

This volume in Bailyn's series on the peopling of British North America won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1987.

1986

...the Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age by Walter A. McDougall

McDougall won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1986 for this political account of the space age and the Cold War.

1985

Prophets of Regulation by Thomas K. McCraw

McCraw won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1985 for this study of the architects of American economic regulation.

1984

No Award

1983

The Transformation of Virginia, 1740–1790 by Rhys L. Isaac

Isaac, an Australian historian, won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1983 for this innovative ethnographic study of colonial Virginia.

1982

Mary Chesnut's Civil War by C. Vann Woodward

Woodward's edition won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1982 and drew renewed attention to Chesnut as a witness to the Confederate home front.

1981

American Education: The National Experience, 1783–1876 by Lawrence A. Cremin

This middle volume of Cremin's trilogy on American education won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1981.

1980

Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery by Leon F. Litwack

The book won both the Pulitzer Prize for History and the National Book Award in 1980, and its title comes from an old spiritual.

1979

The Dred Scott Case: Its Significance in American Law and Politics by Don E. Fehrenbacher

Fehrenbacher, who had completed David M. Potter's prizewinning manuscript two years earlier, won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1979 for this st...

1978

The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business by Alfred D. Chandler, Jr.

The book won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1978 and also took the Bancroft Prize, becoming a cornerstone of the field of business history.

1977

The Impending Crisis, 1848–1861 by David M. Potter

Potter died in 1971 before finishing the manuscript, which the historian Don E. Fehrenbacher completed and saw to publication, and it won the Pulit...

1976

Lamy of Santa Fe by Paul Horgan

Paul Horgan won his second Pulitzer Prize for History with this biography in 1976, the same churchman who inspired Willa Cather's novel Death Comes...

1975

Jefferson and His Time by Dumas Malone

Dumas Malone spent more than thirty years on his multivolume Jefferson biography, which won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1975.

1974

The Americans: The Democratic Experience by Daniel J. Boorstin

This final volume of Daniel J. Boorstin's trilogy The Americans won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1974.

1973

People of Paradox: An Inquiry Concerning the Origins of American Civilization by Michael Kammen

Michael Kammen's study of American identity won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1973.

1972

Neither Black nor White: Slavery and Race Relations in Brazil and the United States by Carl N. Degler

Carl N. Degler's comparative study of two slave societies won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1972.

1971

Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom by James MacGregor Burns

This second volume of James MacGregor Burns's Roosevelt biography won both the Pulitzer Prize for History and the National Book Award in 1971.

1970

Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department by Dean Acheson

Dean Acheson served as Secretary of State under President Harry Truman, and his memoir won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1970.

1969

Origins of the Fifth Amendment: The Right Against Self-Incrimination by Leonard W. Levy

Leonard W. Levy's study of constitutional liberty won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1969.

1968

The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution by Bernard Bailyn

Bernard Bailyn drew the book from his introduction to a collection of Revolutionary pamphlets, and it won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1968.

1967

Exploration and Empire: The Explorer and the Scientist in the Winning of the American West by William H. Goetzmann

This book won both the Pulitzer Prize for History and the Francis Parkman Prize in 1967.

1966

The Life of the Mind in America by Perry Miller

Perry Miller died in 1963 leaving the book incomplete, and it received the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1966 after his death.

1965

The Greenback Era: A Social and Political History of American Finance, 1865–1879 by Irwin Unger

This was Irwin Unger's first major book and it won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1965.

1964

Puritan Village: The Formation of a New England Town by Sumner Chilton Powell

Sumner Chilton Powell's microhistory of Sudbury, Massachusetts won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1964.

1963

Washington: Village and Capital, 1800–1878 by Constance McLaughlin Green

Constance McLaughlin Green won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1963 for the first volume of her social history of the nation's capital.

1962

The Triumphant Empire: Thunder-Clouds Gather in the West, 1763–1766 by Lawrence H. Gipson

This installment of Lawrence H. Gipson's fifteen volume series The British Empire Before the American Revolution won the Pulitzer Prize for History...

1961

Between War and Peace: The Potsdam Conference by Herbert Feis

Herbert Feis, a former State Department economic adviser, won the Pulitzer Prize for History for this account of the 1945 Potsdam Conference in 1961.

1960

In the Days of McKinley by Margaret Leech

Margaret Leech became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for History twice, taking the award in 1960 after an earlier win in 1942.

1959

The Republican Era: 1869–1901 by Leonard D. White and Jean Schneider

This volume capped Leonard D. White's four part history of United States administration and earned the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1959.

1958

Banks and Politics in America by Bray Hammond

Bray Hammond, a former assistant secretary of the Federal Reserve Board, won the Pulitzer Prize for History for this book in 1958.

1957

Russia Leaves the War: Soviet-American Relations, 1917–1920 by George F. Kennan

George F. Kennan, the diplomat who authored the influential containment policy, won the Pulitzer Prize for History and the National Book Award for ...

1956

The Age of Reform by Richard Hofstadter

Columbia historian Richard Hofstadter won this Pulitzer in 1956 and a second in 1964 for Anti intellectualism in American Life.

1955

Great River: The Rio Grande in North American History by Paul Horgan

Paul Horgan won a second Pulitzer Prize for History in 1963 for Lamy of Santa Fe, making him a two time winner in the category.

1954

A Stillness at Appomattox by Bruce Catton

This final volume of Bruce Catton's Army of the Potomac trilogy won both the Pulitzer Prize for History and the National Book Award in 1954.

1953

The Era of Good Feelings by George Dangerfield

English born journalist and historian George Dangerfield won the Pulitzer Prize for History and the Bancroft Prize for this study in 1953.

1952

The Uprooted by Oscar Handlin

Handlin opened the book by writing that he once set out to write a history of immigrants in America, then realized the immigrants were American his...

1951

The Old Northwest, Pioneer Period 1815–1840 by R. Carlyle Buley

Buley, an Indiana University historian, spent years compiling the two volume study from regional records of the early frontier.

1950

Art and Life in America by Oliver W. Larkin

Larkin taught art history at Smith College, and the book became a standard survey of American art for college courses for many years.

1949

The Disruption of American Democracy by Roy Franklin Nichols

Nichols, a University of Pennsylvania historian, centered the book on the failure of the 1860 Democratic conventions that divided the party on the ...

1948

Across the Wide Missouri by Bernard DeVoto

The book formed part of DeVoto's trilogy on westward expansion and was loosely adapted into a 1951 MGM film starring Clark Gable.

1947

Scientists Against Time by James Phinney Baxter III

Baxter served as official historian of the wartime Office of Scientific Research and Development, giving him access to the programs he described.

1946

The Age of Jackson by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.

Schlesinger wrote the book in his twenties, and it won him the first of his two Pulitzer Prizes.

1945

Unfinished Business by Stephen Bonsal

Bonsal served as a personal interpreter to President Woodrow Wilson and Colonel House at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, giving him firsthand acce...

1944

The Growth of American Thought by Merle Curti

Curti, a leading figure in American intellectual history, taught at the University of Wisconsin and helped establish the field as a serious area of...

1943

Paul Revere and the World He Lived In by Esther Forbes

While researching this biography, Forbes wrote the children's novel Johnny Tremain, which won the Newbery Medal the same year this book won the Pul...

1942

Reveille in Washington, 1860–1865 by Margaret Leech

Leech was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for History, and she later won a second for her study of the McKinley years.

1941

The Atlantic Migration, 1607–1860 by Marcus Lee Hansen

Hansen died in 1938 and the book was published after his death, edited by Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr., making it a posthumous Pulitzer winner.

1940

Abraham Lincoln: The War Years by Carl Sandburg

Sandburg, a poet rather than an academic historian, won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1940 for these four volumes covering Lincoln's presidency.

1939

A History of American Magazines by Frank Luther Mott

Mott, a journalism scholar and educator, won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1939 for the early volumes of this long running series on American p...

1938

The Road to Reunion, 1865–1900 by Paul Herman Buck

Buck, a Harvard historian, won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1938 for this study of post Civil War reconciliation.

1937

The Flowering of New England, 1815–1865 by Van Wyck Brooks

This was the first book in Brooks's Makers and Finders series, and it won both the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1937 and a National Book Award.

1936

A Constitutional History of the United States by Andrew C. McLaughlin

McLaughlin, a University of Chicago historian, won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1936 for this survey of American constitutional development.

1935

The Colonial Period of American History by Charles McLean Andrews

The first volume of this multivolume series won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1935, capping the career of a leading Yale historian of the imper...

1934

The People's Choice by Herbert Agar

Agar, a journalist and editor, received the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1934 for this account of the American presidency.

1933

The Significance of Sections in American History by Frederick Jackson Turner

Turner had died in 1932, and the book won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1933, awarded after the death of the historian best known for his front...

1932

My Experiences in the World War by John J. Pershing

Pershing, the only American to hold the rank of General of the Armies during his lifetime, won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1932 for this memoir.

1931

The Coming of the War, 1914 by Bernadotte E. Schmitt

Published in 1930, this work earned Schmitt, a University of Chicago historian, the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1931.

1930

The War of Independence by Claude H. Van Tyne

Van Tyne died in 1930, the same year the book received the Pulitzer Prize for History, leaving the planned sequel volumes unfinished.

1929

The Organization and Administration of the Union Army, 1861–1865 by Fred Albert Shannon

This two volume study won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1929 and grew out of Shannon's doctoral research on Northern military organization.

1928

Main Currents in American Thought by Vernon Louis Parrington

Parrington died in 1929 with the third volume of his study left unfinished, and the work won the prize shortly after the first two volumes appeared.

1927

Pinckney's Treaty by Samuel Flagg Bemis

Bemis won a second Pulitzer Prize for History in 1950 for his biography of John Quincy Adams.

1926

The History of the United States, Vol. VI: The War for Southern Independence (1849–1865) by Edward Channing

Channing, a Harvard professor, died in 1931 before completing his planned multivolume history of the United States.

1925

A History of the American Frontier by Frederic L. Paxson

Paxson's book extended the frontier thesis of his fellow historian Frederick Jackson Turner into a full narrative history.

1924

The American Revolution: A Constitutional Interpretation by Charles Howard McIlwain

McIlwain was a Harvard professor of political science whose interpretation sparked decades of debate among constitutional historians.

1923

The Supreme Court in United States History by Charles Warren

Warren was a Boston lawyer and former assistant attorney general whose multivolume study long served as a standard reference on the Court.

1922

The Founding of New England by James Truslow Adams

Adams later popularized the phrase the American Dream in his 1931 book The Epic of America.

1921

The Victory at Sea by William Sowden Sims and Burton J. Hendrick

Sims commanded United States naval forces in European waters during the First World War, giving the book its authority as a firsthand account.

1920

The War with Mexico by Justin H. Smith

Smith spent years researching in Mexican and American archives, and his work remained the standard scholarly account of the war for decades.

1919

No Award

1918

A History of the Civil War, 1861-1865 by James Ford Rhodes

Rhodes was a Cleveland businessman who retired from industry to write history and became one of the most read American historians of his generation.

1917

With Americans of Past and Present Days by Jean Jules Jusserand

This volume by the French ambassador to the United States won the very first Pulitzer Prize for History in 1917.