Every winner, newest first

Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction Winners

1962 to 2026

Winners by year

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

Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction Winners, newest first
Year	Book and author
2026	There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America by Brian Goldstone
2025	To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement by Benjamin Nathans
2024	A Day in the Life of Abed Salama by Nathan Thrall
2023	His Name Is George Floyd by Robert Samuels & Toluse Olorunnipa
2022	Invisible Child by Andrea Elliott
2021	Wilmington's Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy by David Zucchino
2020	The Undying by Anne Boyer
2020	The End of the Myth by Greg Grandin
2019	Amity and Prosperity by Eliza Griswold
2018	Locking Up Our Own by James Forman Jr.
2017	Evicted by Matthew Desmond
2016	Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS by Joby Warrick
2015	The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert
2014	Toms River by Dan Fagin
2013	Devil in the Grove by Gilbert King
2012	The Swerve by Stephen Greenblatt
2011	The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee
2010	The Dead Hand by David E. Hoffman
2009	Slavery by Another Name by Douglas A. Blackmon
2008	The Years of Extermination by Saul Friedländer
2007	The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright
2006	Imperial Reckoning by Caroline Elkins
2005	Ghost Wars by Steve Coll
2004	Gulag: A History by Anne Applebaum
2003	'A Problem from Hell' by Samantha Power
2002	Carry Me Home by Diane McWhorter
2001	Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan by Herbert P. Bix
2000	Embracing Defeat by John W. Dower
1999	Annals of the Former World by John McPhee
1998	Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
1997	Ashes to Ashes by Richard Kluger
1996	The Haunted Land by Tina Rosenberg
1995	The Beak of the Finch by Jonathan Weiner
1994	Lenin's Tomb by David Remnick
1993	Lincoln at Gettysburg by Garry Wills
1992	The Prize by Daniel Yergin
1991	The Ants by Bert Hölldobler & E.O. Wilson
1990	And Their Children After Them by Dale Maharidge & Michael Williamson
1989	A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam by Neil Sheehan
1988	The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes
1987	Arab and Jew by David K. Shipler
1986	Move Your Shadow by Joseph Lelyveld
1986	Common Ground by J. Anthony Lukas
1985	The Good War by Studs Terkel
1984	The Social Transformation of American Medicine by Paul Starr
1983	Is There No Place on Earth for Me? by Susan Sheehan
1982	The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder
1981	Fin-de-Siècle Vienna by Carl E. Schorske
1980	Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas R. Hofstadter
1979	On Human Nature by Edward O. Wilson
1978	The Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan
1977	Beautiful Swimmers by William W. Warner
1976	Why Survive? Being Old in America by Robert N. Butler
1975	Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
1974	The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker
1973	Fire in the Lake by Frances FitzGerald
1973	Children of Crisis, Volumes II and III by Robert Coles
1972	Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911–45 by Barbara W. Tuchman
1971	The Rising Sun by John Toland
1970	Gandhi's Truth by Erik H. Erikson
1969	The Armies of the Night by Norman Mailer
1969	So Human an Animal by René Dubos
1968	Rousseau and Revolution by Will and Ariel Durant
1967	The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture by David Brion Davis
1966	Wandering Through Winter by Edwin Way Teale
1965	O Strange New World by Howard Mumford Jones
1964	Anti-intellectualism in American Life by Richard Hofstadter
1963	The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman
1962	The Making of the President 1960 by Theodore H. White

About the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction

The Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction has recognized books by American authors since 1962. Its remit is work outside the other Pulitzer book categories, with winners ranging from science and philosophy to politics and reported accounts of everyday life. Browse the winners by award year below, then open a book for its summary and the story behind its prize.

Awarded by: Columbia University
First awarded: 1917
Country: United States
Winner receives: $15,000

When it is announced

Winners and finalists in every category are announced together in early May. See the full announcement calendar.

How to enter

Anyone may enter a book, including the author, for a fee. Books published in the first half of the year are due by mid June and those published in the second half by mid October.

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