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Award Winning Political Books
273 books from 20 lists, 1830 to 2026
Politics on this page means power and what it does to people, so a study of a presidency sits next to a novel about a regime that never existed. Dystopian fiction earns its place here rather than in science fiction alone, since its subject was always the government rather than the technology.
Books by prize
One shelf per list, newest first on each. The prize name opens its full list.
- 2026 Ars Poeticas
- 2000 Repair
- 1969 Of Being Numerous
- 1953 Collected Poems 1917–1952
- 2026 The Everlasting
- 2022 A Desolation Called Peace
- 2020 A Memory Called Empire
- 2016 The Fifth Season
- 2014 Ancillary Justice
- 2000 A Deepness in the Sky
- 1997 Blue Mars
- 1994 Green Mars
- 1992 Barrayar
- 1989 Cyteen
- 1982 Downbelow Station
- 1975 The Dispossessed
- 1970 The Left Hand of Darkness
- 1969 Stand on Zanzibar
- 1967 The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
- 1966 Dune
- 1960 Starship Troopers
- 1956 Double Star
- 2026 There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America
- 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
- 2022 Invisible Child
- 2021 Wilmington's Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy
- 2020 The End of the Myth
- 2019 Amity and Prosperity
- 2018 Locking Up Our Own
- 2017 Evicted
- 2016 Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS
- 2010 The Dead Hand
- 2007 The Looming Tower
- 2005 Ghost Wars
- 2004 Gulag: A History
- 2003 'A Problem from Hell'
- 1996 The Haunted Land
- 1994 Lenin's Tomb
- 1993 Lincoln at Gettysburg
- 1992 The Prize
- 1987 Arab and Jew
- 1970 Gandhi's Truth
- 1969 The Armies of the Night
- 1964 Anti-intellectualism in American Life
- 1962 The Making of the President 1960
- 2026 We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution
- 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
- 2017 Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy
- 2010 Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World
- 2008 What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848
- 2004 A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration
- 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
- 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
- 1993 The Radicalism of the American Revolution
- 1992 The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties
- 1990 In Our Image: America's Empire in the Philippines
- 1989 Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-1963
- 1986 ...the Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age
- 1985 Prophets of Regulation
- 1983 The Transformation of Virginia, 1740–1790
- 1979 The Dred Scott Case: Its Significance in American Law and Politics
- 1977 The Impending Crisis, 1848–1861
- 1975 Jefferson and His Time
- 1973 People of Paradox: An Inquiry Concerning the Origins of American Civilization
- 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
- 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
- 1953 The Era of Good Feelings
- 1949 The Disruption of American Democracy
- 1946 The Age of Jackson
- 1945 Unfinished Business
- 1938 The Road to Reunion, 1865–1900
- 1936 A Constitutional History of the United States
- 1934 The People's Choice
- 1933 The Significance of Sections in American History
- 1931 The Coming of the War, 1914
- 1928 Main Currents in American Thought
- 1927 Pinckney's Treaty
- 1924 The American Revolution: A Constitutional Interpretation
- 1923 The Supreme Court in United States History
- 1917 With Americans of Past and Present Days
- 2025 One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
- 2024 Soldiers and Kings
- 2017 The Future Is History
- 2014 Age of Ambition
- 2013 The Unwinding
- 2012 Behind the Beautiful Forevers
- 2007 Legacy of Ashes
- 2002 Master of the Senate
- 1997 American Sphinx
- 1993 United States: Essays 1952-1992
- 1991 Freedom (Vol. 1)
- 1989 From Beirut to Jerusalem
- 1984 Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Democracy
- 1983 China: Alive in the Bitter Sea
- 1973 George Washington: Anguish and Farewell
- 1970 Huey Long
- 1968 Memoirs (1925-1950)
- 1966 A Thousand Days
- 1965 The Life of Lenin
- 1957 Russia Leaves the War
- 2025 We Do Not Part
- 2024 My Friends
- 2012 Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk
- 2023 G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century
- 2017 The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between
- 2015 The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe
- 2012 George F. Kennan: An American Life
- 2011 Washington: A Life
- 2009 American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House
- 2007 The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher
- 2004 Khrushchev: The Man and His Era
- 2003 Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson
- 2002 John Adams
- 2001 W. E. B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century 1919-1963
- 1998 Personal History
- 1993 Truman
- 1990 Machiavelli in Hell
- 1981 Peter the Great: His Life and World
- 1980 The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt
- 1975 The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
- 1973 Luce and His Empire
- 1970 Huey Long
- 1968 Memoirs
- 1966 A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House
- 1961 Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War
- 1959 Woodrow Wilson, American Prophet
- 1957 Profiles in Courage
- 1955 The Taft Story
- 1953 Edmund Pendleton 1721–1803
- 1952 Charles Evans Hughes
- 1951 John C. Calhoun: American Portrait
- 1950 John Quincy Adams and the Foundations of American Foreign Policy
- 1949 Roosevelt and Hopkins
- 1948 Forgotten First Citizen: John Bigelow
- 1947 The Autobiography of William Allen White
- 1945 George Bancroft: Brahmin Rebel
- 1940 Woodrow Wilson, Life and Letters, Vols. VII and VIII
- 1939 Benjamin Franklin
- 1938 The Life of Andrew Jackson
- 1937 Hamilton Fish
- 1934 John Hay
- 1933 Grover Cleveland: A Study in Courage
- 1932 Theodore Roosevelt: A Biography
- 1930 The Raven: A Biography of Sam Houston
- 1929 The Training of an American
- 1923 The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page
- 1920 The Life of John Marshall
- 1918 Benjamin Franklin, Self-Revealed
- 1917 Julia Ward Howe
- 2023 Prophet Song
- 2022 The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida
- 2019 The Testaments
- 2016 The Sellout
- 2015 A Brief History of Seven Killings
- 2012 Bring Up the Bodies
- 2009 Wolf Hall
- 2008 The White Tiger
- 2006 The Inheritance of Loss
- 2004 The Line of Beauty
- 1994 How Late It Was, How Late
- 1992 Sacred Hunger
- 1991 The Famished Road
- 1983 Life & Times of Michael K
- 1981 Midnight's Children
- 1977 Staying On
- 1974 The Conservationist
- 1971 In a Free State
- 1969 Something to Answer For
- 2023 The Saint of Bright Doors
- 2022 Babel, or the Necessity of Violence
- 2008 Powers
- 1999 Parable of the Talents
- 1994 Moving Mars
- 1993 Red Mars
- 1988 Falling Free
- 2023 Trust
- 2022 The Netanyahus
- 2021 The Night Watchman
- 2016 The Sympathizer
- 2013 The Orphan Master's Son
- 2008 The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
- 1998 American Pastoral
- 1967 The Fixer
- 1962 The Grapes of Wrath
- 1960 Advise and Consent
- 1947 All the King's Men
- 1943 Dragon's Teeth
- 2022 The Jasmine Throne
- 2020 Queen of the Conquered
- 2013 Alif the Unseen
- 2012 Osama
- 2003 Ombria in Shadow
- 1979 Gloriana
- 2019 Invisible Women
- 2018 Home Fire
- 2017 The Power
- 2010 The Lacuna
- 2016 A Gentleman in Moscow
- 2016 The Nix
- 2010 Freedom
- 2007 The Reluctant Fundamentalist
- 2004 The Plot Against America
- 1998 The Poisonwood Bible
- 1997 Underworld
- 1987 The Bonfire of the Vanities
- 1984 The Unbearable Lightness of Being
- 1982 The House of the Spirits
- 1974 Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
- 1969 The Godfather
- 1955 The Quiet American
- 1949 Nineteen Eighty-Four
- 1945 Animal Farm
- 1935 Mr Norris Changes Trains
- 1925 The Trial
- 1924 A Passage to India
- 1906 The Jungle
- 2010 The Feast of the Goat
- 2007 The Golden Notebook
- 2005 The Birthday Party
- 1997 Accidental Death of an Anarchist
- 1991 July's People
- 1988 Palace Walk
- 1987 Less Than One
- 1980 The Captive Mind
- 1972 The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum
- 1970 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
- 1967 Men of Maize
- 1937 The Thibaults
- 1930 Babbitt
- 1921 Penguin Island
- 1912 The Weavers
- 2006 Citizen Vince
- 1985 Briarpatch
- 1976 Hopscotch
- 1972 The Day of the Jackal
- 1965 The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
- 2005 War Trash
- 2001 The Human Stain
- 1994 Operation Shylock
- 1992 Mao II
- 1991 Philadelphia Fire
- 1988 World's End
- 1981 How German Is It?
- 1973 Augustus