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History Books and Prize Winners
498 books from 22 lists, 1902 to 2026
The Pulitzer Prize for History began in 1917 and recognizes books on the history of the United States, with some years bringing no award. This shelf puts its winners alongside histories from the Baillie Gifford and National Book Award lists, biographies, historical fiction and other books about the past. It also includes representative books by Nobel laureates and selections from Never Won a Pulitzer or Booker. Open a book for its summary and the context behind its place in the catalog.
Books by prize
One shelf per list, newest first on each. The prize name opens its full list.
- 2026 Pride and Pleasure: The Schuyler Sisters in an Age of Revolution
- 2025 Every Living Thing: The Great and Deadly Race to Know All Life
- 2024 King: A Life
- 2023 G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century
- 2022 Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist's Memoir of the Jim Crow South
- 2021 The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X
- 2019 The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke
- 2018 Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder
- 2015 The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe
- 2014 Margaret Fuller: A New American Life
- 2013 The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo
- 2012 George F. Kennan: An American Life
- 2010 The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt
- 2009 American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House
- 2008 Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father
- 2005 de Kooning: An American Master
- 2002 John Adams
- 1999 Lindbergh
- 1995 Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life
- 1994 W. E. B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 1868–1919
- 1993 Truman
- 1991 Jackson Pollock: An American Saga
- 1990 Machiavelli in Hell
- 1989 Oscar Wilde
- 1988 Look Homeward: A Life of Thomas Wolfe
- 1987 Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
- 1985 The Life and Times of Cotton Mather
- 1984 Booker T. Washington: The Wizard of Tuskegee, 1901–1915
- 1982 Grant: A Biography
- 1981 Peter the Great: His Life and World
- 1980 The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt
- 1979 Days of Sorrow and Pain: Leo Baeck and the Berlin Jews
- 1978 Samuel Johnson
- 1977 A Prince of Our Disorder: The Life of T. E. Lawrence
- 1976 Edith Wharton: A Biography
- 1975 The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
- 1973 Luce and His Empire
- 1970 Huey Long
- 1969 The Man from New York: John Quinn and His Friends
- 1968 Memoirs
- 1967 Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain
- 1966 A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House
- 1965 Henry Adams
- 1960 John Paul Jones
- 1959 Woodrow Wilson, American Prophet
- 1958 George Washington, Vols. I-VII
- 1957 Profiles in Courage
- 1956 Benjamin Henry Latrobe
- 1955 The Taft Story
- 1954 The Spirit of St. Louis
- 1953 Edmund Pendleton 1721–1803
- 1952 Charles Evans Hughes
- 1950 John Quincy Adams and the Foundations of American Foreign Policy
- 1948 Forgotten First Citizen: John Bigelow
- 1947 The Autobiography of William Allen White
- 1946 Son of the Wilderness: The Life of John Muir
- 1945 George Bancroft: Brahmin Rebel
- 1944 The American Leonardo: The Life of Samuel F. B. Morse
- 1943 Admiral of the Ocean Sea
- 1942 Crusader in Crinoline: The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe
- 1941 Jonathan Edwards, 1703–1758: A Biography
- 1939 Benjamin Franklin
- 1938 Pedlar's Progress: The Life of Bronson Alcott
- 1938 The Life of Andrew Jackson
- 1937 Hamilton Fish
- 1936 The Thought and Character of William James
- 1935 R. E. Lee
- 1934 John Hay
- 1931 Charles W. Eliot, President of Harvard University, 1869–1909
- 1930 The Raven: A Biography of Sam Houston
- 1928 The American Orchestra and Theodore Thomas
- 1925 Barrett Wendell and His Letters
- 1922 A Daughter of the Middle Border
- 1920 The Life of John Marshall
- 1919 The Education of Henry Adams
- 2026 We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution
- 2025 Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom During the Civil War
- 2025 Native Nations: A Millennium in North America
- 2024 No Right to an Honest Living: The Struggles of Boston's Black Workers in the Civil War Era
- 2023 Freedom's Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power
- 2022 Covered with Night: A Story of Murder and Indigenous Justice in Early America
- 2022 Cuba: An American History
- 2021 Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America
- 2020 Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America
- 2019 Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom
- 2018 The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea
- 2017 Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy
- 2016 Custer's Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America
- 2015 Encounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan People
- 2014 The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832
- 2013 Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam
- 2012 Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention
- 2011 The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery
- 2010 Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World
- 2009 The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family
- 2008 What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848
- 2007 The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation
- 2006 Polio: An American Story
- 2005 Washington's Crossing
- 2004 A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration
- 2003 An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942–1943
- 2002 The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America
- 2001 Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation
- 2000 Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War
- 1999 Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898
- 1998 Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion
- 1997 Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution
- 1996 William Cooper's Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic
- 1995 No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II
- 1993 The Radicalism of the American Revolution
- 1992 The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties
- 1991 A Midwife's Tale
- 1990 In Our Image: America's Empire in the Philippines
- 1989 Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era
- 1989 Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-1963
- 1988 The Launching of Modern American Science, 1846–1876
- 1987 Voyagers to the West: A Passage in the Peopling of America on the Eve of the Revolution
- 1986 ...the Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age
- 1985 Prophets of Regulation
- 1983 The Transformation of Virginia, 1740–1790
- 1982 Mary Chesnut's Civil War
- 1981 American Education: The National Experience, 1783–1876
- 1980 Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery
- 1979 The Dred Scott Case: Its Significance in American Law and Politics
- 1978 The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business
- 1977 The Impending Crisis, 1848–1861
- 1976 Lamy of Santa Fe
- 1975 Jefferson and His Time
- 1974 The Americans: The Democratic Experience
- 1973 People of Paradox: An Inquiry Concerning the Origins of American Civilization
- 1972 Neither Black nor White: Slavery and Race Relations in Brazil and the United States
- 1970 Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department
- 1969 Origins of the Fifth Amendment: The Right Against Self-Incrimination
- 1968 The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution
- 1967 Exploration and Empire: The Explorer and the Scientist in the Winning of the American West
- 1966 The Life of the Mind in America
- 1965 The Greenback Era: A Social and Political History of American Finance, 1865–1879
- 1964 Puritan Village: The Formation of a New England Town
- 1963 Washington: Village and Capital, 1800–1878
- 1962 The Triumphant Empire: Thunder-Clouds Gather in the West, 1763–1766
- 1961 Between War and Peace: The Potsdam Conference
- 1960 In the Days of McKinley
- 1959 The Republican Era: 1869–1901
- 1958 Banks and Politics in America
- 1957 Russia Leaves the War: Soviet-American Relations, 1917–1920
- 1956 The Age of Reform
- 1955 Great River: The Rio Grande in North American History
- 1954 A Stillness at Appomattox
- 1953 The Era of Good Feelings
- 1952 The Uprooted
- 1951 The Old Northwest, Pioneer Period 1815–1840
- 1950 Art and Life in America
- 1949 The Disruption of American Democracy
- 1948 Across the Wide Missouri
- 1947 Scientists Against Time
- 1946 The Age of Jackson
- 1945 Unfinished Business
- 1944 The Growth of American Thought
- 1943 Paul Revere and the World He Lived In
- 1942 Reveille in Washington, 1860–1865
- 1941 The Atlantic Migration, 1607–1860
- 1940 Abraham Lincoln: The War Years
- 1939 A History of American Magazines
- 1938 The Road to Reunion, 1865–1900
- 1937 The Flowering of New England, 1815–1865
- 1936 A Constitutional History of the United States
- 1935 The Colonial Period of American History
- 1934 The People's Choice
- 1933 The Significance of Sections in American History
- 1932 My Experiences in the World War
- 1931 The Coming of the War, 1914
- 1930 The War of Independence
- 1929 The Organization and Administration of the Union Army, 1861–1865
- 1928 Main Currents in American Thought
- 1927 Pinckney's Treaty
- 1926 A History of the United States, Vol. VI: The War for Southern Independence (1849–1865)
- 1925 History of the American Frontier
- 1924 The American Revolution: A Constitutional Interpretation
- 1923 The Supreme Court in United States History
- 1922 The Founding of New England
- 1921 The Victory at Sea
- 1920 The War with Mexico
- 1918 A History of the Civil War, 1861–1865
- 1917 With Americans of Past and Present Days
- 2025 James
- 2024 Night Watch
- 2023 Trust
- 2022 The Netanyahus
- 2021 The Night Watchman
- 2020 The Nickel Boys
- 2017 The Underground Railroad
- 2015 All the Light We Cannot See
- 2006 March
- 2004 The Known World
- 2003 Middlesex
- 2001 The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
- 1998 American Pastoral
- 1997 Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer
- 1995 The Stone Diaries
- 1993 Beloved
- 1986 Lonesome Dove
- 1984 Ironweed
- 1975 The Killer Angels
- 1972 Angle of Repose
- 1968 The Confessions of Nat Turner
- 1967 The Fixer
- 1962 The Grapes of Wrath
- 1956 Andersonville
- 1951 The Town
- 1950 The Way West
- 1937 Gone with the Wind
- 1936 Honey in the Horn
- 1934 Lamb in His Bosom
- 1933 The Store
- 1932 The Good Earth
- 1924 The Able McLaughlins
- 2025 Satantango
- 2022 The Years
- 2021 Paradise
- 2015 Voices from Chernobyl
- 2012 Red Sorghum
- 2010 The Feast of the Goat
- 2009 The Hunger Angel
- 2008 Desert
- 2006 My Name Is Red
- 2002 Fatelessness
- 2001 A House for Mr Biswas
- 1999 The Tin Drum
- 1992 Omeros
- 1990 The Labyrinth of Solitude
- 1988 Palace Walk
- 1986 Death and the King's Horseman
- 1982 One Hundred Years of Solitude
- 1980 The Captive Mind
- 1978 The Family Moskat
- 1973 Voss
- 1967 Men of Maize
- 1966 Only Yesterday
- 1965 And Quiet Flows the Don
- 1961 The Bridge on the Drina
- 1958 Doctor Zhivago
- 1955 Independent People
- 1953 The Second World War
- 1944 The Long Journey
- 1939 Meek Heritage
- 1938 The Good Earth
- 1932 The Forsyte Saga
- 1929 Buddenbrooks
- 1928 Kristin Lavransdatter
- 1925 Saint Joan
- 1924 The Peasants
- 1921 Penguin Island
- 1916 The Charles Men
- 1912 The Weavers
- 1905 Quo Vadis
- 1902 The History of Rome
- 2025 The Safekeep
- 2020 Hamnet
- 2010 The Lacuna
- 2007 Half of a Yellow Sun
- 2003 Property
- 2000 When I Lived in Modern Times
- 2025 The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother)
- 2013 The Good Lord Bird
- 2008 Shadow Country
- 2005 Europe Central
- 2004 The News from Paraguay
- 2003 The Great Fire
- 2000 In America
- 1999 Waiting
- 1997 Cold Mountain
- 1990 Middle Passage
- 1981 Plains Song: For Female Voices
- 1973 Augustus
- 2025 To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement
- 2024 A Day in the Life of Abed Salama
- 2021 Wilmington's Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy
- 2020 The End of the Myth
- 2018 Locking Up Our Own
- 2016 Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS
- 2013 Devil in the Grove
- 2012 The Swerve
- 2011 The Emperor of All Maladies
- 2010 The Dead Hand
- 2009 Slavery by Another Name
- 2008 The Years of Extermination
- 2007 The Looming Tower
- 2006 Imperial Reckoning
- 2005 Ghost Wars
- 2004 Gulag: A History
- 2003 'A Problem from Hell'
- 2002 Carry Me Home
- 2001 Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan
- 2000 Embracing Defeat
- 1999 Annals of the Former World
- 1998 Guns, Germs, and Steel
- 1997 Ashes to Ashes
- 1996 The Haunted Land
- 1994 Lenin's Tomb
- 1993 Lincoln at Gettysburg
- 1992 The Prize
- 1990 And Their Children After Them
- 1989 A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam
- 1988 The Making of the Atomic Bomb
- 1987 Arab and Jew
- 1986 Common Ground
- 1986 Move Your Shadow
- 1985 The Good War
- 1984 The Social Transformation of American Medicine
- 1981 Fin-de-Siècle Vienna
- 1973 Fire in the Lake
- 1972 Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911–45
- 1971 The Rising Sun
- 1968 Rousseau and Revolution
- 1967 The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture
- 1965 O Strange New World
- 1964 Anti-intellectualism in American Life
- 1963 The Guns of August
- 1962 The Making of the President 1960
- 2025 We Do Not Part
- 2021 The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois
- 2005 The March
- 1997 The Blue Flower
- 2024 Flags on the Bayou
- 2013 Live by Night
- 2007 The Janissary Tree
- 2024 Question 7
- 2019 The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper
- 2018 Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy
- 2017 How to Survive a Plague
- 2016 East West Street
- 2012 Into the Silence
- 2011 Mao's Great Famine
- 2010 Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea
- 2008 The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher
- 2006 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare
- 2004 Stasiland
- 2002 Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World
- 2001 The Third Reich: A New History
- 1999 Stalingrad
- 2023 Freewater
- 2012 Dead End in Norvelt
- 2011 Moon Over Manifest
- 2008 Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village
- 2005 Kira-Kira
- 2003 Crispin: The Cross of Lead
- 2002 A Single Shard
- 2001 A Year Down Yonder
- 2000 Bud, Not Buddy
- 1998 Out of the Dust
- 1996 The Midwife's Apprentice
- 1990 Number the Stars
- 1988 Lincoln: A Photobiography
- 1986 Sarah, Plain and Tall
- 1981 Jacob Have I Loved
- 1980 A Gathering of Days: A New England Girl's Journal
- 1977 Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
- 1974 The Slave Dancer
- 1970 Sounder
- 1966 I, Juan de Pareja
- 1962 The Bronze Bow
- 1961 Island of the Blue Dolphins
- 1959 The Witch of Blackbird Pond
- 1958 Rifles for Watie
- 1956 Carry On, Mr. Bowditch
- 1951 Amos Fortune, Free Man
- 1950 The Door in the Wall
- 1949 King of the Wind
- 1944 Johnny Tremain
- 1943 Adam of the Road
- 1942 The Matchlock Gun
- 1940 Daniel Boone
- 1938 The White Stag
- 1937 Roller Skates
- 1936 Caddie Woodlawn
- 1934 Invincible Louisa
- 1930 Hitty, Her First Hundred Years
- 1929 The Trumpeter of Krakow
- 1924 The Dark Frigate
- 1922 The Story of Mankind
- 2023 The Rediscovery of America
- 2022 South to America
- 2021 All That She Carried
- 2017 The Future Is History
- 2016 Stamped from the Beginning
- 2013 The Unwinding
- 2009 The First Tycoon
- 2008 The Hemingses of Monticello
- 2007 Legacy of Ashes
- 2006 The Worst Hard Time
- 2004 Arc of Justice
- 2000 In the Heart of the Sea
- 1998 Slaves in the Family
- 1991 Freedom (Vol. 1)
- 1990 The House of Morgan
- 1988 A Bright Shining Lie
- 1983 China: Alive in the Bitter Sea
- 1980 The Right Stuff
- 1978 The Path Between the Seas
- 1977 World of Our Fathers
- 1976 The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution
- 1969 White Over Black
- 1967 The Enlightenment, Vol. I: The Rise of Modern Paganism
- 1966 A Thousand Days
- 1964 The Rise of the West
- 1962 The City in History
- 1961 The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
- 1958 The Lion and the Throne
- 1957 Russia Leaves the War
- 1953 The Course of Empire
- 2023 The Reformatory
- 2022 A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth
- 2016 The Invention of Nature
- 2012 The Information
- 2009 The Age of Wonder
- 2006 Electric Universe
- 2004 A Short History of Nearly Everything
- 1997 The Wisdom of the Bones
- 1996 Plague's Progress
- 1992 The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee
- 1991 Wonderful Life
- 1989 Bones of Contention
- 2017 Lincoln in the Bardo
- 2013 The Luminaries
- 2012 Bring Up the Bodies
- 2009 Wolf Hall
- 2001 True History of the Kelly Gang
- 2000 The Blind Assassin
- 1992 Sacred Hunger
- 1988 Oscar and Lucinda
- 1987 Moon Tiger
- 1982 Schindler's List
- 1981 Midnight's Children
- 1980 Rites of Passage
- 1977 Staying On
- 1975 Heat and Dust
- 1973 The Siege of Krishnapur
- 1972 G.
- 2017 Olio
- 1996 The Dream of the Unified Field
- 1987 Thomas and Beulah
- 1979 Now and Then
- 1951 Complete Poems
- 1947 Lord Weary's Castle
- 1944 Western Star
- 1933 Conquistador
- 1929 John Brown's Body
- 2017 Pachinko
- 2016 A Gentleman in Moscow
- 2013 Life After Life
- 2009 The Help
- 2005 The Historian
- 2004 Cloud Atlas
- 2004 The Plot Against America
- 1998 The Poisonwood Bible
- 1997 Underworld
- 1994 The Alienist
- 1985 Blood Meridian
- 1982 The House of the Spirits
- 1980 The Clan of the Cave Bear
- 1958 Things Fall Apart
- 1947 The Diary of a Young Girl
- 1936 Absalom, Absalom!
- 1927 Death Comes for the Archbishop
- 2016 Finding Winnie: The True Story of the World's Most Famous Bear
- 2014 Locomotive
- 2004 The Man Who Walked Between the Towers
- 2001 So You Want to Be President?
- 1999 Snowflake Bentley
- 1994 Grandfather's Journey
- 1984 The Glorious Flight: Across the Channel with Louis Bleriot
- 1980 Ox-Cart Man
- 1977 Ashanti to Zulu: African Traditions
- 1941 They Were Strong and Good
- 1940 Abraham Lincoln
- 2012 The Buddha in the Attic
- 2005 War Trash
- 2003 The Caprices
- 1994 Operation Shylock
- 1993 Postcards
- 1988 World's End
- 1982 The Chaneysville Incident
- 1981 How German Is It?
- 2007 Soldier of Sidon
- 2003 The Facts of Life
- 2001 Declare
- 1999 The Antelope Wife
- 1984 The Dragon Waiting
Other subjects
Science Fiction and Fantasy, Mystery and Crime, Horror, Poetry, Children's Books, Biography and Memoir, Science and Nature, War, Race and Civil Rights, Immigration and Exile, Politics and Power, Coming of Age and Medicine and Illness. Or see all 14 subjects, browse by prize or browse by year.