National Book Awards | Fiction, Nonfiction & Poetry | Britannica (original) (raw)
1950
The Life of Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph L. Rusk
1951
Herman Melville
Newton Arvin
1952
The Sea Around Us
Rachel Carson
1953
The Course of Empire
Bernard A. De Voto
1954
A Stillness at Appomattox
Bruce Catton
1955
The Measure of Man: On Freedom, Human Values, Survival, and the Modern Temper
Joseph Wood Krutch
1956
American in Italy
Herbert Kubly
1957
Russia Leaves the War
George F. Kennan
1958
The Lion and the Throne: The Life and Times of Sir Edward Coke (1552–1634)
Catherine Drinker Bowen
1959
Mistress to an Age: A Life of Madame de Staël
J. Christopher Herold
1960
James Joyce
Richard Ellmann
1961
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany
William L. Shirer
1962
The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects
Lewis Mumford
1963
Henry James, Vol. II: The Conquest of London (1870–1881); Vol. III: The Middle Years (1882–1895)
Leon Edel
1964
The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community (history and biography)
William H. McNeill
John Keats: The Making of a Poet (arts and letters)
Aileen Ward
Man-made America: Chaos or control?: An Inquiry into Selected Problems of Design in the Urbanized Landscape (science, philosophy, and religion)
Christopher Tunnard and Boris Pushkarev
1965
The Life of Lenin (history and biography)
Louis Fischer
Oysters of Locmariaquer (arts and letters)
Eleanor Clark
God and Golem, Inc.: A Comment on Certain Points Where Cybernetics Impinges on Religion
Norbert Wiener
1966
A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House (history and biography)
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
Paris Journal, 1944–1965 (arts and letters)
Janet Flanner
1967
The Enlightenment: An Interpretation, Vol. I: The Rise of Modern Paganism (history and biography)
Peter Gay
Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain: A Biography (arts and letters)
Justin Kaplan
La Vida: A Puerto Rican Family in the Culture of Poverty (science, philosophy, and religion)
Oscar Lewis
History of My Life (translation of Mémoires by Giacomo Casanova)
Willard Trask (translator)
1968
Memoirs: 1925–1950 (history and biography)
George F. Kennan
Selected Essays (arts and letters)
William Troy
Death at an Early Age: The Destruction of the Hearts and Minds of Negro Children in the Boston Public Schools (science, philosophy, and religion)
Jonathan Kozol
Søren Kierkegaard's Journals and Papers (translation of manuscripts)
Howard and Edna Hong (translators)
1969
White over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550–1812 (history and biography)
Winthrop D. Jordan
The Armies of the Night: History as a Novel, the Novel as History (arts and letters)
Norman Mailer
Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima (the sciences)
Robert J. Lifton
1970
Huey Long (history and biography)
T. Harry Williams
An Unfinished Woman: A Memoir (arts and letters)
Lillian Hellman
Gandhi's Truth: On the Origins of Militant Nonviolence (philosophy and religion)
Erik H. Erikson
1971
Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom (history and biography)
James MacGregor Burns
Cocteau: A Biography (arts and letters)
Francis Steegmuller
Science in the British Colonies of America (the sciences)
Raymond Phineas Sterns
1972
Eleanor and Franklin: The Story of Their Relationship, Based on Eleanor Roosevelt's Private Papers (biography)
Joseph P. Lash
Ordeal of the Union, Vol. VII: The Organized War, 1863–1864 and Vol. VIII: The Organized War to Victory, 1864–1865 (history)
Allan Nevins
The Classical Style: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven (arts and letters)
Charles Rosen
The Last Whole Earth Catalogue: Access to Tools (contemporary affairs)
Stewart Brand (editor)
Righteous Empire: The Protestant Experience in America (philosophy and religion)
Martin E. Marty
The Blue Whale (the sciences)
George L. Small
Chance and Necessity: An Essay on the Natural Philosophy of Modern Biology (translated from Hasard et la nécessité by Jacques Monod)
Austryn Wainhouse (translator)
1973
George Washington, Vol. IV: Anguish and Farewell, 1793–1799 (biography)
James Thomas Flexner
The Children of Pride: A True Story of Georgia and the Civil War (history)
Robert Manson Myers
Judenrat: The Jewish Councils in Eastern Europe Under Nazi Occupation (history)
Isaiah Trunk
Diderot (arts and letters)
Arthur M. Wilson
Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam (contemporary affairs)
Frances FitzGerald
A Religious History of the American People (philosophy and religion)
S.E. Ahlstrom
The Serengeti Lion: A Study in Predator-Prey Relations (the sciences)
George B. Schaller
1974
Macaulay: The Shaping of the Historian (biography/history)
John Clive
Malcolm Lowry: A Biography (biography)
Douglas Day
Deeper into the Movies (arts and letters)
Pauline Kael
The Briar Patch: The People of the State of New York v. Lumumba Shakur et al. (contemporary affairs)
Murray Kempton
Edmund Husserl: Philosopher of Infinite Tasks (philosophy and religion)
Maurice Natanson
Life: The Unfinished Experiment (the sciences)
S.E. Luria
The Confessions of Lady Nijō (translated from Towazu-gatari by Lady Nijō)
Karen Brazell (translator)
1975
The Life of Emily Dickinson (biography)
Richard B. Sewall
The Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson (history)
Bernard Bailyn
Marcel Proust (arts and letters)
Roger Shattuck
The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher (arts and letters/the sciences)
Lewis Thomas
All God's Dangers: The Life of Nate Shaw (contemporary affairs)
Theodore Rosengarten
Anarchy, State, and Utopia (philosophy and religion)
Robert Nozick
Interpretation of Schizophrenia (the sciences)
Silvano Arieti
The Agony of Christianity and Essays on Faith (translation of Agonía del cristianismo by Miguel de Unamuno)
Anthony Kerrigan (translator)
1976
The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770–1823 (history and biography)
David Brion Davis
The Great War and Modern Memory (arts and letters)
Paul Fussell
Passage to Ararat (contemporary affairs)
Michael J. Arlen
1977
Norman Thomas: The Last Idealist (biography and autobiography)
W.A. Swanberg
World of Our Fathers (history)
Irving Howe
The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales (contemporary thought)
Bruno Bettelheim
1978
Samuel Johnson (biography and autobiography)
W. Jackson Bate
The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870–1914 (history)
David McCullough
Winners and Losers: Battles, Retreats, Gains, Losses, and Ruins from a Long War (contemporary thought)
Gloria Emerson
In the Deserts of This Earth (translation of In den Wüsten dieser Erde by Uwe George)
Howard Nemerov (translator)
1979
Robert Kennedy and His Times (biography and autobiography)
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
Intellectual Life in the Colonial South, 1585–1763 (history)
Richard Beale Davis
The Snow Leopard (contemporary thought)
Peter Matthiessen
1980*
Lauren Bacall, By Myself (hardcover autobiography)
Lauren Bacall
And I Worked at the Writer's Trade: Chapters of Literary History, 1918–1978 (paperback autobiography)
Malcolm Cowley
The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (hardcover biography)
Edmund Morris
Max Perkins: Editor of Genius (paperback biography)
A. Scott Berg
Julia Child and More Company (hardcover current interest)
Julia Child
The Culture of Narcissism (paperback current interest)
Christopher Lasch
The Right Stuff (hardcover general nonfiction)
Tom Wolfe
The Snow Leopard (paperback general nonfiction)
Peter Matthiessen
The Complete Directory of Prime Time Network TV Shows: 1946–Present(paperback general reference)
Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh
The White House Years (hardcover history)
Henry A. Kissinger
A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century (paperback history)
Barbara W. Tuchman
The Gnostic Gospels (hardcover religious/inspiration)
Elaine Pagels
A Severe Mercy (paperback religion/inspiration)
Sheldon Vanauken
Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (hardcover science)
Douglas Hofstadter
The Dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overview of the New Physics (paperback science)
Gary Zukav
Osip E. Mandelstam's Complete Critical Prose and Letters (translation of manuscripts by Osip E. Mandelstam)
Jane Gary Harris and Constance Link (translators)
1981
Walt Whitman, A Life (hardcover biography)
Justin Kaplan
Samuel Beckett (paperback biography)
Deirdre Blair
China Men (hardcover general nonfiction)
Maxine Hong Kingston
The Last Cowboy (paperback general nonfiction)
Jane Kramer
Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century (hardcover history)
John Boswell
Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery (paperback history)
Leon F. Litwak
The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History (hardcover science)
Stephen Jay Gould
The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher (paperback science)
Lewis Thomas
The Letters of Gustave Flaubert (translation of manuscripts by Gustave Flaubert)
Francis Steegmuller (translator)
1982
Mornings on Horseback (hardcover biography)
David McCullough
Walter Lippmann and the American Century (paperback biography)
Ronald Steel
The Soul of a New Machine (hardcover general nonfiction)
Tracy Kidder
Naming Names (paperback general nonfiction)
Victor S. Navasky
People of the Sacred Mountain: A History of the Northern Cheyenne Chiefs and Warrior Societies,1830–1879 (hardcover history)
Peter John Powell
The Generation of 1914 (paperback history)
Robert Wohl
Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind (hardcover science)
Donald C. Johanson and Maitland A. Edey
Taking the Quantum Leap: The New Physics for Nonscientists (paperback science)
Fred Alan Wolf
In the Shade of Spring Leaves: The Life and Writings of Higuchi Ichiyō, a Woman of Letters in Meiji Japan (translation of Higuchi Ichiyō)
Robert Lyons Danly (translator)
1983
Isak Dinesen: The Life of a Storyteller (hardcover biography)
Judith Thurman
Nathaniel Hawthorne in His Times (paperback biography)
James R. Mellow
China: Alive in the Bitter Sea (hardcover general nonfiction)
Fox Butterfield
National Defense (paperback general nonfiction)
James Fallows
Voices of Protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin, and the Great Depression (hardcover history)
Alan Brinkley
Utopian Thought in the Western World (paperback history)
Frank E. Manuel and Fritzie P. Manuel
"Subtle Is the Lord...": The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein (hardcover science)
Abraham Pais
The Mathematical Experience (paperback science)
Philip J. Davis and Reuben Hersh
1984
Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Democracy, 1833–1845
Robert V. Remini
1985
Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families
J. Anthony Lukas
1986
Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape
Barry Lopez
1987**
The Making of the Atomic Bomb
Richard Rhodes
1988
A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam
Neil Sheehan
1989
From Beirut to Jerusalem
Thomas L. Friedman
1990
The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance
Ron Chernow
1991
Freedom, Vol. I: Freedom in the Making of Western Culture
Orlando Patterson
1992
Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story
Paul Monette
1993
United States: Essays, 1952–1992
Gore Vidal
1994
How We Die: Reflections on Life's Final Chapter
Sherwin B. Nuland
1995
The Haunted Land: Facing Europe's Ghosts After Communism
Tina Rosenberg
1996
An American Requiem: God, My Father, and the War That Came Between Us
James Carroll
1997
American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson
Joseph J. Ellis
1998
Slaves in the Family
Edward Ball
1999
Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II
John W. Dower
2000
In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex
Nathaniel Philbrick
2001
The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression
Andrew Solomon
2002
Master of the Senate, Vol. III: The Years of Lyndon Johnson
Robert A. Caro
2003
Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy
Carlos Eire
2004
Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age
Kevin Boyle
2005
The Year of Magical Thinking
Joan Didion
2006
The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl
Timothy Egan
2007
Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA
Tim Weiner
2008
The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family
Annette Gordon-Reed
2009
The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt
T.J. Stiles
2010
Just Kids
Patti Smith
2011
The Swerve: How the World Became Modern
Stephen Greenblatt
2012
Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity
Katherine Boo
2013
The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America
George Packer
2014
Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China
Evan Osnos
2015
Between the World and Me
Ta-Nehisi Coates
2016
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
Ibram X. Kendi
2017
The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia
Masha Gessen
2018
The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke
Jeffrey C. Stewart
2019
The Yellow House
Sarah M. Broom
2020
The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X
Les Payne, Tamara Payne
2021
All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake
Tiya Miles
2022
South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation
Imani Perry
2023
The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History
Ned Blackhawk