The Pulitzer Prize for History has been awarded since 1917 for a distinguished book upon the history of the United States. Many history books have also been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction and Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography
Three people have won the Pulitzer Prize for History twice: Margaret Leech, for Reveille in Washington, 1860–1865 in 1941 and In the Days of McKinley in 1960, Bernard Bailyn, for The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (1968) and Voyagers to the West: A Passage in the Peopling of America on the Eve of the Revolution (1987), and Gordon S. Wood, for “The Radicalism of the American Revolution” (1993) and “Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815” (2010).
1910s
- 1917:With Americans of Past and Present Days by Jean Jules Jusserand
- 1918:A History of the Civil War, 1861–1865 by James Ford Rhodes
- 1919: no award given
1920s
- 1920:The War with Mexico by Justin H. Smith
- 1921:The Victory at Sea by William Sowden Sims and Burton J. Hendrick
- 1922:The Founding of New England by James Truslow Adams
- 1923:The Supreme Court in United States History by Charles Warren
- 1924:The American Revolution: A Constitutional Interpretation by Charles Howard McIlwain
- 1925:History of the American Frontier by Frederic L. Paxson
- 1926:A History of the United States by Edward Channing
- 1927:Pinckney’s Treaty by Samuel Flagg Bemis
- 1928:Main Currents in American Thought by Vernon Louis Parrington
- 1929:The Organization and Administration of the Union Army, 1861–1865 by Fred Albert Shannon
1930s
- 1930:The War of Independence by Claude H. Van Tyne
- 1931:The Coming of the War, 1914 by Bernadotte E. Schmitt
- 1932:My Experiences in the World War by John J. Pershing
- 1933:The Significance of Sections in American History by Frederick J. Turner
- 1934:The People’s Choice by Herbert Agar
- 1935:The Colonial Period of American History by Charles McLean Andrews
- 1936:A Constitutional History of the United States by Andrew C. McLaughlin
- 1937:The Flowering of New England, 1815–1865 by Van Wyck Brooks
- 1938:The Road to Reunion, 1865–1900 by Paul Herman Buck
- 1939:A History of American Magazines by Frank Luther Mott
1940s
- 1940:Abraham Lincoln: The War Years by Carl Sandburg
- 1941:The Atlantic Migration, 1607–1860 by Marcus Lee Hansen
- 1942:Reveille in Washington, 1860–1865 by Margaret Leech
- 1943:Paul Revere and the World He Lived In by Esther Forbes
- 1944:The Growth of American Thought by Merle Curti
- 1945:Unfinished Business by Stephen Bonsal
- 1946:The Age of Jackson by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
- 1947:Scientists Against Time by James Phinney Baxter III
- 1948:Across the Wide Missouri by Bernard DeVoto
- 1949:The Disruption of American Democracy by Roy Franklin Nichols
1950s
- 1950:Art and Life in America by Oliver W. Larkin
- 1951:The Old Northwest, Pioneer Period 1815–1840 by R. Carlyle Buley
- 1952:The Uprooted by Oscar Handlin
- 1953:The Era of Good Feelings by George Dangerfield
- 1954:A Stillness at Appomattox by Bruce Catton
- 1955:Great River: The Rio Grande in North American History by Paul Horgan
- 1956:The Age of Reform by Richard Hofstadter
- 1957:Russia Leaves the War: Soviet-American Relations, 1917–1920 by George F. Kennan
- 1958:Banks and Politics in America by Bray Hammond
- 1959:The Republican Era: 1869–1901 by Leonard D. White and Jean Schneider
1960s
- 1960:In the Days of McKinley by Margaret Leech
- 1961:Between War and Peace: The Potsdam Conference by Herbert Feis
- 1962:The Triumphant Empire: Thunder-Clouds Gather in the West, 1763–1766 by Lawrence H. Gipson
- 1963:Washington, Village and Capital, 1800–1878 by Constance McLaughlin Green
- 1964:Puritan Village: The Formation of a New England Town by Sumner Chilton Powell
- 1965:The Greenback Era by Irwin Unger
- 1966:The Life of the Mind in America by Perry Miller
- 1967:Exploration and Empire: The Explorer and the Scientist in the Winning of the American West by William H. Goetzmann
- 1968:The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution by Bernard Bailyn
- 1969:Origins of the Fifth Amendment by Leonard W. Levy
1970s
- 1970:Present At The Creation: My Years in the State Department by Dean Acheson
- 1971:Roosevelt: The Soldier Of Freedom by James MacGregor Burns
- 1972:Neither Black Nor White by Carl N. Degler
- 1973:People of Paradox: An Inquiry Concerning the Origins of American Civilization by Michael Kammen
- 1974:The Americans: The Democratic Experience by Daniel J. Boorstin
- 1975:Jefferson and His Time by Dumas Malone
- 1976:Lamy of Santa Fe by Paul Horgan
- 1977:The Impending Crisis, 1848–1861 by David M. Potter (Completed and edited by Don E. Fehrenbacher)
- 1978:The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business by Alfred D. Chandler, Jr.
- 1979:The Dred Scott Case: Its Significance in American Law and Politics by Don E. Fehrenbacher
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
1990s
- 1990:In Our Image: America’s Empire in the Philippines by Stanley Karnow
- 1991:A Midwife’s Tale by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
- 1992:The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties by Mark E. Neely, Jr.
- 1993:The Radicalism of the American Revolution by Gordon S. Wood
- 1994: no award given
- 1995:No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II by Doris Kearns Goodwin
- 1996:William Cooper’s Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic by Alan Taylor
- 1997:Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution by Jack N. Rakove
- 1998:Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America’s Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion by Edward J. Larson
- 1999:Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 by Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace
2000s
- 2000: Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945 by David M. Kennedy
- The Cousins’ Wars: Religion, Politics and the Triumph of Anglo-America by Kevin Phillips
- Into the American Woods: Negotiators on the Pennsylvania Frontier by James H. Merrell
- 2001: Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation by Joseph J. Ellis
- The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States by Alexander Keyssar
- Way Out There in the Blue by Frances FitzGerald
- 2002: The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America by Louis Menand
- Deep Souths: Delta, Piedmont, and the Sea Island Society in the Age of Segregation by J. William Harris
- Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America by Daniel K. Richter
- 2003: An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa 1942–1943 by Rick Atkinson
- At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America by Philip Dray
- Rereading Sex: Battles Over Sexual Knowledge and Suppression in Nineteenth Century America by Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz
- 2004: A Nation Under Our Feet by Steven Hahn
- Great Fortune: The Epic of Rockefeller Center by Daniel Okrent
- They Marched Into Sunlight: War and Peace, Vietnam and America, October 1967 by David Maraniss
- 2005: Washington’s Crossing by David Hackett Fischer
- Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age by Kevin Boyle
- Conjectures of Order: Intellectual Life and the American South, 1810-1860, volumes 1 & 2 by Michael O’Brien
- 2006: Polio: An American Story by David Oshinsky
- New York Burning by Jill Lepore
- The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln by Sean Wilentz
- 2007: The Race Beat by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff
- Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War by Nathaniel Philbrick
- Middle Passages: African American Journeys to Africa, 1787-2005 by James T. Campbell
- 2008: What Hath God Wrought: the Transformation of America, 1815–1848 by Daniel Walker Howe
- The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War by David Halberstam
- Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power by Robert Dallek
- 2009: The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family by Annette Gordon-Reed
- The Liberal Hour: Washington and the Politics of Change in the 1960s by G. Calvin Mackenzie and Robert Weisbrot
- This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust
2010s
- 2010: Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World by Liaquat Ahamed(The Penguin Press)
- Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City by Greg Grandin (Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt & Company)
- Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815 by Gordon S. Wood (Oxford University Press)
- 2011: The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery by Eric Foner
- Confederate Reckoning: Power and Politics in the Civil War South by Stephanie McCurry
- Eden on the Charles: The Making of Boston by Michael J. Rawson
Christian Kresall 