Nonfiction
For a list of winners and finalists, see National Book Award for Nonfiction.General nonfiction for adult readers is a National Book Award category continuous only from 1984, when the general award was restored after two decades of awards in several nonfiction categories. From 1935 to 1941 there were six annual awards for general nonfiction, two for biography, and the Bookseller Discovery or Most Original Book was sometimes nonfiction.
| 1950 | Ralph L. Rusk | The Life of Ralph Waldo Emerson (biog. Ralph Waldo Emerson) |
| 1951 | Newton Arvin | Herman Melville (biog. Herman Melville) |
| 1952 | Rachel Carson | The Sea Around Us |
| 1953 | Bernard A. DeVoto | The Course of Empire |
| 1954 | Bruce Catton | A Stillness at Appomattox (third of 3 vols) |
| 1955 | Joseph Wood Krutch | The Measure of Man |
| 1956 | Herbert Kubly | An American in Italy |
| 1957 | George F. Kennan | Russia Leaves the War |
| 1958 | Catherine Drinker Bowen | The Lion and the Throne (see Edward Coke) |
| 1959 | J. Christopher Herold | Mistress to an Age: A Life of Madame de Staël (biog. Madame de Staël) |
| 1960 | Richard Ellmann | James Joyce (biog. James Joyce) |
| 1961 | William L. Shirer | The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich |
| 1962 | Lewis Mumford | The City in History: Its Origins, its Transformations and its Prospects |
| 1963 | Leon Edel | Henry James, volumes II and III (biog. Henry James) |
| 1984 | Robert V. Remini | Andrew Jackson: The Course of American Democracy, 1833-1845 (biog. Andrew Jackson) |
| 1985 | J. Anthony Lukas | Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families |
| 1986 | Barry Lopez | Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape |
| 1987 | Richard Rhodes | The Making of the Atomic Bomb |
| 1988 | Neil Sheehan | A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam |
| 1989 | Thomas L. Friedman | From Beirut to Jerusalem |
| 1990 | Ron Chernow | The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance |
| 1991 | Orlando Patterson | Freedom, Vol. 1: Freedom in the Making of Western Culture |
| 1992 | Paul Monette | Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story |
| 1993 | Gore Vidal | United States: Essays 1952-1992 |
| 1994 | Sherwin B. Nuland | How We Die: Reflections on Life's Final Chapter |
| 1995 | Tina Rosenberg | The Haunted Land: Facing Europe's Ghosts After Communism |
| 1996 | James P. Carroll | An American Requiem: God, My Father, and the War that Came Between Us |
| 1997 | Joseph J. Ellis | American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson |
| 1998 | Edward Ball | Slaves in the Family |
| 1999 | John W. Dower | Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II |
| 2000 | Nathaniel Philbrick | In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex |
| 2001 | Andrew Solomon | The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression |
| 2002 | Robert A. Caro | Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson |
| 2003 | Carlos Eire | Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy |
| 2004 | Kevin Boyle | Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age |
| 2005 | Joan Didion | The Year of Magical Thinking |
| 2006 | Timothy Egan | The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl |
| 2007 | Tim Weiner | Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA |
| 2008 | Annette Gordon-Reed | The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family |
| 2009 | T.J. Stiles | The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt (biog. Cornelius Vanderbilt) |
| 2010 | Patti Smith | Just Kids |
| 2011 | Stephen Greenblatt | The Swerve: How the World Became Modern |
| 2012 | Katherine Boo | Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity |
Read more about this topic: List Of Winners Of The National Book Award, Current Award Categories