1980s
- 1980: Been in the Storm So Long by Leon F. Litwack
- 1981: American Education: The National Experience, 1783–1876 by Lawrence A. Cremin
- 1982: Mary Chesnut's Civil War by C. Vann Woodward
- 1983: The Transformation of Virginia, 1740–1790 by Rhys L. Isaac
- 1984: no award given
- 1985: Prophets of Regulation by Thomas K. McCraw
- 1986: ...the Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age by Walter A. McDougall
- 1987: Voyagers to the West: A Passage in the Peopling of America on the Eve of the Revolution by Bernard Bailyn
- 1988: The Launching of Modern American Science, 1846–1876 by Robert V. Bruce
- 1989: Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era by James M. McPherson
- 1989: Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954–1963 by Taylor Branch
Read more about this topic: Pulitzer Prize For History