Every winner, newest first

Pulitzer Prize for History Winners

1917 to 2026

Winners by year

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

Pulitzer Prize for History Winners, newest first
Year	Book and author
2026	We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution by Jill Lepore
2025	Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom During the Civil War by Edda L. Fields-Black
2025	Native Nations: A Millennium in North America by Kathleen DuVal
2024	No Right to an Honest Living: The Struggles of Boston's Black Workers in the Civil War Era by Jacqueline Jones
2023	Freedom's Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power by Jefferson Cowie
2022	Cuba: An American History by Ada Ferrer
2022	Covered with Night: A Story of Murder and Indigenous Justice in Early America by Nicole Eustace
2021	Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America by Marcia Chatelain
2020	Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America by W. Caleb McDaniel
2019	Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom by David W. Blight
2018	The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea by Jack E. Davis
2017	Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy by Heather Ann Thompson
2016	Custer's Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America by T. J. Stiles
2015	Encounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan People by Elizabeth A. Fenn
2014	The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832 by Alan Taylor
2013	Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam by Fredrik Logevall
2012	Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable
2011	The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery by Eric Foner
2010	Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World by Liaquat Ahamed
2009	The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family by Annette Gordon-Reed
2008	What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848 by Daniel Walker Howe
2007	The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff
2006	Polio: An American Story by David Oshinsky
2005	Washington's Crossing by David Hackett Fischer
2004	A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration by Steven Hahn
2003	An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942–1943 by Rick Atkinson
2002	The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America by Louis Menand
2001	Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation by Joseph J. Ellis
2000	Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War by David M. Kennedy
1999	Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 by Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace
1998	Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion by Edward J. Larson
1997	Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution by Jack N. Rakove
1996	William Cooper's Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic by Alan Taylor
1995	No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II by Doris Kearns Goodwin
1994	No Award
1993	The Radicalism of the American Revolution by Gordon S. Wood
1992	The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties by Mark E. Neely, Jr.
1991	A Midwife's Tale by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
1990	In Our Image: America's Empire in the Philippines by Stanley Karnow
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
1988	The Launching of Modern American Science, 1846–1876 by Robert V. Bruce
1987	Voyagers to the West: A Passage in the Peopling of America on the Eve of the Revolution by Bernard Bailyn
1986	...the Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age by Walter A. McDougall
1985	Prophets of Regulation by Thomas K. McCraw
1984	No Award
1983	The Transformation of Virginia, 1740–1790 by Rhys L. Isaac
1982	Mary Chesnut's Civil War by C. Vann Woodward
1981	American Education: The National Experience, 1783–1876 by Lawrence A. Cremin
1980	Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery by Leon F. Litwack
1979	The Dred Scott Case: Its Significance in American Law and Politics by Don E. Fehrenbacher
1978	The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business by Alfred D. Chandler, Jr.
1977	The Impending Crisis, 1848–1861 by David M. Potter
1976	Lamy of Santa Fe by Paul Horgan
1975	Jefferson and His Time by Dumas Malone
1974	The Americans: The Democratic Experience by Daniel J. Boorstin
1973	People of Paradox: An Inquiry Concerning the Origins of American Civilization by Michael Kammen
1972	Neither Black nor White: Slavery and Race Relations in Brazil and the United States by Carl N. Degler
1971	Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom by James MacGregor Burns
1970	Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department by Dean Acheson
1969	Origins of the Fifth Amendment: The Right Against Self-Incrimination by Leonard W. Levy
1968	The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution by Bernard Bailyn
1967	Exploration and Empire: The Explorer and the Scientist in the Winning of the American West by William H. Goetzmann
1966	The Life of the Mind in America by Perry Miller
1965	The Greenback Era: A Social and Political History of American Finance, 1865–1879 by Irwin Unger
1964	Puritan Village: The Formation of a New England Town by Sumner Chilton Powell
1963	Washington: Village and Capital, 1800–1878 by Constance McLaughlin Green
1962	The Triumphant Empire: Thunder-Clouds Gather in the West, 1763–1766 by Lawrence H. Gipson
1961	Between War and Peace: The Potsdam Conference by Herbert Feis
1960	In the Days of McKinley by Margaret Leech
1959	The Republican Era: 1869–1901 by Leonard D. White and Jean Schneider
1958	Banks and Politics in America by Bray Hammond
1957	Russia Leaves the War: Soviet-American Relations, 1917–1920 by George F. Kennan
1956	The Age of Reform by Richard Hofstadter
1955	Great River: The Rio Grande in North American History by Paul Horgan
1954	A Stillness at Appomattox by Bruce Catton
1953	The Era of Good Feelings by George Dangerfield
1952	The Uprooted by Oscar Handlin
1951	The Old Northwest, Pioneer Period 1815–1840 by R. Carlyle Buley
1950	Art and Life in America by Oliver W. Larkin
1949	The Disruption of American Democracy by Roy Franklin Nichols
1948	Across the Wide Missouri by Bernard DeVoto
1947	Scientists Against Time by James Phinney Baxter III
1946	The Age of Jackson by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.
1945	Unfinished Business by Stephen Bonsal
1944	The Growth of American Thought by Merle Curti
1943	Paul Revere and the World He Lived In by Esther Forbes
1942	Reveille in Washington, 1860–1865 by Margaret Leech
1941	The Atlantic Migration, 1607–1860 by Marcus Lee Hansen
1940	Abraham Lincoln: The War Years by Carl Sandburg
1939	A History of American Magazines by Frank Luther Mott
1938	The Road to Reunion, 1865–1900 by Paul Herman Buck
1937	The Flowering of New England, 1815–1865 by Van Wyck Brooks
1936	A Constitutional History of the United States by Andrew C. McLaughlin
1935	The Colonial Period of American History by Charles McLean Andrews
1934	The People's Choice by Herbert Agar
1933	The Significance of Sections in American History by Frederick Jackson Turner
1932	My Experiences in the World War by John J. Pershing
1931	The Coming of the War, 1914 by Bernadotte E. Schmitt
1930	The War of Independence by Claude H. Van Tyne
1929	The Organization and Administration of the Union Army, 1861–1865 by Fred Albert Shannon
1928	Main Currents in American Thought by Vernon Louis Parrington
1927	Pinckney's Treaty by Samuel Flagg Bemis
1926	A History of the United States, Vol. VI: The War for Southern Independence (1849–1865) by Edward Channing
1925	History of the American Frontier by Frederic L. Paxson
1924	The American Revolution: A Constitutional Interpretation by Charles Howard McIlwain
1923	The Supreme Court in United States History by Charles Warren
1922	The Founding of New England by James Truslow Adams
1921	The Victory at Sea by William Sowden Sims and Burton J. Hendrick
1920	The War with Mexico by Justin H. Smith
1919	No Award
1918	A History of the Civil War, 1861–1865 by James Ford Rhodes
1917	With Americans of Past and Present Days by Jean Jules Jusserand

About the Pulitzer Prize for History

The Pulitzer Prize for History honors the finest book on the history of the United States, awarded annually since 1917. Past winners include landmark works by historians such as Bernard Bailyn, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and Jill Lepore.

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.