2010 Pulitzer Prize for History Winner

With penetrating insights for today, this vital history of the world economic collapse of the late 1920s offers unforgettable portraits of the four men whose personal and professional actions as heads of their respective central banks changed the course of the 20th century. …More

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2009 Pulitzer Prize for History Winner
2008 National Book Award- Winner Nonfiction

Praise for The Hemingses of Monticello: "Annette Gordon-Reed has broken a path into territory that has hitherto eluded historians: what happens to intimate human relations, those between lover and loved, parent and child, brother and sister, when one among them is enslaved to another. The result is not simply a fascinating story in itself, but a new perspective on how the humanity of slaves and a slave owner could adjust and survive in circumstances designed to obliterate it." -Edmund S. Morgan, author of American Slavery "Thomas Jefferson often described his slaves at Monticello as 'my family.' Annette Gordon-Reed has taken that description seriously. Surely more seriously than Jefferson ever intended! The result, the story of the Hemings family, is the most comprehensive account of one slave family ever written. It is not a pretty story, but it is poignant beyond belief. And it demonstrates conclusively that we must put aside Gone with the Wind forever and begin to study Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!" -Joseph J. Ellis, author of American Sphinx "This is not only a riveting history of a slave family on a grand scale, it is also a rarely seen portrait of the family in the Big House, with a remarkable account of the relationship of white and black families. This work catapults Gordon-Reed into the very first rank of historians of slavery." -John Hope Franklin, author of From Slavery to Freedom "From years of painstaking research, Annette Gordon-Reed has crafted a brave, compelling, and moving family saga about slavery and freedom. This work is a beautifully written, textured story about race, tragedy, and sometimes hope-America's story. If this country has a modern Shakespeare looking for material, Gordon-Reed has provided it." -David W. Blight, Yale University, author of A Slave No More "Annette Gordon-Reed's splendid achievement will have the last word on Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, for one cannot imagine another historian matching her exhaustive research and interpretive balance." -David Levering Lewis, author of W. E. B. Du Bois "Annette Gordon-Reed is a prodigiously gifted historian and The Hemingses of Monticello is her masterpiece. Bringing the Hemings family out of the shadows and into vibrant life, Gordon-Reed restores them to their proper role at Thomas Jefferson's mountaintop home. Jefferson's Virginia-and Jefferson himself-will never look the same." -Peter Onuf, author of Jefferson's Empire: The Language of American Nationhood …More

Winner - 2008 Pulitzer Prize for History

Historian Howe illuminates the period of American history from the battle of New Orleans to the end of the Mexican-American War, an era when the United States expanded to the Pacific and won control over the richest part of the North American continent. …More

Winner - 2007 Pulitzer Prize for History
Drawing on private correspondence, notes from secret meetings, unpublished articles, and interviews, veteran journalists Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff go behind the headlines and datelines to show how a dedicated cadre of newsmen revealed to a nation its most shameful shortcomings and propelled its citizens to act. …More

Winner-2006 Pulitzer Prize for History
Drawing on newly available papers of Jonas Salk, Albert Sabin, and other key players, Oshinsky paints a remarkable portrait of America in the early 1950s, using the widespread panic over polio to shed light on national obsessions and fears. …More

Winner-2005 Pulitzer Prize for History
Massachusetts Book Award - 2005 Nonfiction Honor
Winner - 2005 ALA Notable Non-Fiction Selection
In a dramatic and colorful narrative of a pivotal moment in American history, we see how the campaign developed in a web of hard choices by many actors on both sides of the Delaware. 91 halftones,15 maps. …More

Winner-2004 Pulitzer Prize for History
Presenting both an inspiring and a troubling perspective on American democracy, this 2004 Pulitzer Prize winner is the epic story of how African Americans, in the six decades following slavery, transformed themselves to a political people--an embryonic black nation. …More

Winner-2003 Pulitzer Prize for History

In this first volume of the Liberation Trilogy, Atkinson shows why no modern reader can understand the ultimate victory of the Allied powers without a grasp of the great drama that unfolded in North Africa in 1942 and 1943. Illustrations. 18 maps. …More

Winner-2002 Pulitzer Prize for History
In an absorbing narrative about personalities and social history, Menand discusses the Metaphysical Club, an informal group that met in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1872, to talk about ideas. Members included Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., William James, and Charles Sanders Peirce. 21 photos. …More

Winner - 2001 Pulitzer Prize for History
From the author of "American Sphinx", the award-winning biography of Thomas Jefferson, comes an illuminating study of the intertwined lives of the founders of the American republic--John Adams, Aaron Burr, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington. …More

Winner - 2000 Pulitzer Prize for History
The newest volume in the award-winning Oxford History of the United States--a brilliant narrative spanning the Great Depression, FDR's New Deal, and the Second World War. 58 illustrations. …More

Winner - 1999 Pulitzer Prize for History
The first volume in a truly monumental two-volume history of New York City, this magisterial work begins with the earliest Indian tribes and ends with the consolidation of the five boroughs into Greater New York in 1898. 150 photos & linecuts. 15 maps. …More

Winner - 1998 Pulitzer Prize for History
In the summer of 1925, the sleepy hamlet of Dayton, Tennessee, became the unlikely setting for one of our century's most contentious dramas: the Scopes trial and the ensuing debate over science, religion, and their place in education. Pairing archival material with the author's keen legal and historical analysis, this book provides a fresh interpretation of this pivotal event in American history. Illustrations. …More

Winner-1997 Pulitzer Prize for History
From abortion to same-sex marriage, today's most urgent political debates will hinge on this two-part question: What did the United States Constitution originally mean and who now understands its meaning best? Rakove chronicles the Constitution from inception to ratification and, in doing so, traces its complex weave of ideology and interest, showing how this document has meant different things at different times to different groups of Americans. …More

Winner - 1996 Pulitzer Prize for History
An innovative work of biography, social history, and literary analysis, this Pulitzer Prize-winning book presents the story of two men, William Cooper and his son, the novelist James Fennimore Cooper, who embodied the contradictions that divided America in the early years of the Republic. Taylor shows how Americans resolved their revolution through the creation of new social forms and new stories that evolved with the expansion of our frontier. of photos. …More