Every winner, newest first

National Book Award for Non-Fiction Winners

1950 to 2025

Winners by year

Newest first. The year links to everything published or awarded that year.

National Book Award for Non-Fiction Winners, newest first
Year	Book and author
2025	One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad
2024	Soldiers and Kings by Jason De León
2023	The Rediscovery of America by Ned Blackhawk
2022	South to America by Imani Perry
2021	All That She Carried by Tiya Miles
2020	The Dead Are Arising by Les & Tamara Payne
2019	The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom
2018	The New Negro by Jeffrey C. Stewart
2017	The Future Is History by Masha Gessen
2016	Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi
2015	Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
2014	Age of Ambition by Evan Osnos
2013	The Unwinding by George Packer
2012	Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo
2011	The Swerve by Stephen Greenblatt
2010	Just Kids by Patti Smith
2009	The First Tycoon by T.J. Stiles
2008	The Hemingses of Monticello by Annette Gordon-Reed
2007	Legacy of Ashes by Tim Weiner
2006	The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan
2005	The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
2004	Arc of Justice by Kevin Boyle
2003	Waiting for Snow in Havana by Carlos Eire
2002	Master of the Senate by Robert A. Caro
2001	The Noonday Demon by Andrew Solomon
2000	In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick
1999	Embracing Defeat by John W. Dower
1998	Slaves in the Family by Edward Ball
1997	American Sphinx by Joseph J. Ellis
1996	An American Requiem by James Carroll
1995	The Haunted Land by Tina Rosenberg
1994	How We Die by Sherwin B. Nuland
1993	United States: Essays 1952-1992 by Gore Vidal
1992	Becoming a Man by Paul Monette
1991	Freedom (Vol. 1) by Orlando Patterson
1990	The House of Morgan by Ron Chernow
1989	From Beirut to Jerusalem by Thomas L. Friedman
1988	A Bright Shining Lie by Neil Sheehan
1987	The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes
1986	Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez
1985	Common Ground by J. Anthony Lukas
1984	Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Democracy by Robert V. Remini
1983	China: Alive in the Bitter Sea by Fox Butterfield
1982	The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder
1981	China Men by Maxine Hong Kingston
1980	The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe
1979	The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen
1978	The Path Between the Seas by David McCullough
1977	World of Our Fathers by Irving Howe
1976	The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution by David Brion Davis
1975	The Life of Emily Dickinson by Richard B. Sewall
1974	Macaulay: The Shaping of the Historian by John Clive
1973	George Washington: Anguish and Farewell by James Thomas Flexner
1972	Eleanor and Franklin by Joseph P. Lash
1971	Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom by James MacGregor Burns
1970	Huey Long by T. Harry Williams
1969	White Over Black by Winthrop D. Jordan
1968	Memoirs (1925-1950) by George F. Kennan
1967	The Enlightenment, Vol. I: The Rise of Modern Paganism by Peter Gay
1966	A Thousand Days by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
1965	The Life of Lenin by Louis Fischer
1964	The Rise of the West by William H. McNeill
1963	Henry James, Vol. II: The Conquest of London and Vol. III: The Middle Years by Leon Edel
1962	The City in History by Lewis Mumford
1961	The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer
1960	James Joyce by Richard Ellmann
1959	Mistress to an Age: A Life of Madame de Staël by J. Christopher Herold
1958	The Lion and the Throne by Catherine Drinker Bowen
1957	Russia Leaves the War by George F. Kennan
1956	An American in Italy by Herbert Kubly
1955	The Measure of Man by Joseph Wood Krutch
1954	A Stillness at Appomattox by Bruce Catton
1953	The Course of Empire by Bernard DeVoto
1952	The Sea Around Us by Rachel Carson
1951	Herman Melville by Newton Arvin
1950	The Life of Ralph Waldo Emerson by Ralph L. Rusk

About the National Book Award for Non-Fiction

The National Book Award for Non-Fiction celebrates the finest American non-fiction writing each year. Awarded since 1972, it honors works of history, biography, journalism, and social commentary.

Awarded by: National Book Foundation
First awarded: 1950
Country: United States
Winner receives: $10,000

When it is announced

Winners are announced at a ceremony in November, after a longlist in September and finalists in October. See the full announcement calendar.

How to enter

Publishers submit, for a fee, and the author must be a United States citizen. Submissions usually open in the spring and close in the summer.

Official prize site. Checked August 2026. Dates move year to year, so confirm on the official site before entering.