| 2025 |
Benjamin Nathans |
| 2023 |
Robert Samuels
Toluse Olorunnipa |
| 2022 |
Andrea Elliott |
| 2021 |
David Zucchino |
| 2020 |
Anne Boyer — The Undying
Greg Grandin — The End of the Myth |
| 2019 |
Eliza Griswold — Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America |
| 2018 |
James Forman, Jr. |
| 2017 |
Matthew Desmond — Evicted |
| 2016 |
Joby Warrick — Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS |
| 2015 |
Elizabeth Kolbert |
| 2014 |
Dan Fagin |
| 2013 |
Gilbert King |
| 2012 |
Stephen Greenblatt — The Swerve: How the World Became Modern |
| 2011 |
Siddhartha Mukherjee — The Emperor of All Maladies |
| 2010 |
David E. Hoffman |
| 2009 |
Douglas A. Blackmon |
| 2008 |
Saul Friedländer |
| 2007 |
Lawrence Wright — The Looming Tower |
| 2006 |
Caroline Elkins |
| 2005 |
Steve Coll — Ghost Wars |
| 2004 |
Anne Applebaum |
| 2003 |
Samantha Power |
| 2002 |
Diane McWhorter — Carry Me Home |
| 2001 |
Herbert P. Bix — Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan |
| 2000 |
John W. Dower — Embracing Defeat |
| 1999 |
John McPhee |
| 1998 |
Jared Diamond — Guns, Germs, and Steel |
| 1997 |
Richard Kluger |
| 1996 |
Tina Rosenberg |
| 1995 |
Jonathan Weiner — The Beak of the Finch |
| 1994 |
David Remnick — Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire (1st edition) |
| 1993 |
Garry Wills |
| 1992 |
Daniel Yergin — The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power |
| 1991 |
Bert Hölldobler — The Ants
Edward O. Wilson — The Ants |
| 1989 |
Neil Sheehan — A Bright Shining Lie |
| 1987 |
David K. Shipler |
| 1986 |
J. Anthony Lukas
Joseph Lelyveld |
| 1985 |
Studs Terkel |
| 1984 |
Paul Starr — The Social Transformation of American Medicine |
| 1983 |
Susan Sheehan |
| 1982 |
Tracy Kidder — The Soul of a New Machine |
| 1980 |
Douglas Hofstadter |
| 1979 |
Edward O. Wilson — On Human Nature |
| 1978 |
Carl Sagan — The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence |
| 1977 |
William W. Warner |
| 1976 |
Robert N. Butler |
| 1975 |
Annie Dillard — Pilgrim at Tinker Creek |
| 1974 |
Ernest Becker |
| 1973 |
Frances FitzGerald — Fire in the Lake
Robert Coles |
| 1972 |
Barbara W. Tuchman — Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-45 |
| 1971 |
John Toland |
| 1970 |
Erik Erikson — Gandhi's Truth |
| 1969 |
Norman Mailer — The Armies of the Night
René Dubos |
| 1968 |
Ariel Durant — The Story of Civilization
Will Durant — The Story of Civilization |
| 1967 |
David Brion Davis — The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture |
| 1966 |
Edwin Way Teale |
| 1965 |
Howard Mumford Jones |
| 1964 |
Richard Hofstadter |
| 1963 |
Barbara W. Tuchman — The Guns of August |
| 1962 |
Theodore H. White |