2008

John Matteson. Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father

Louisa May Alcott's name is known universally. Yet, during her youth, the famous Alcott was her father, Bronson - an eminent teacher and lecturer and an admired friend of Emerson and Thoreau. He desired perfection, both, for the world and from his family. Willful and exuberant, Louisa was anything but the model daughter. While her three sisters more readily won Bronson's favor, Louisa puzzled and appalled him with her mercurial moods and restless yearnings for money and fame, The other prize she deeply coveted - her father's understanding -seemed the hardest of all to win. ~Book jacket

2007

Debby Applegate. The Most Famous Man in America

No one predicted success for Henry Ward Beecher at his birth in 1813. The blithe, boisterous son of the last great Puritan minister, he seemed destined to be overshadowed by his brilliant siblings - especially his sister. Harriet Beecher Stowe, who penned the century's bestselling book Uncle Tom's Cabin. But when pushed into the ministry, the charismatic Beecher found international fame by shedding his father Lyman's Old Testament-style fire-and-brimstone theology and instead preaching a New Testament-based gospel of unconditional love and healing, becoming one of the founding fathers of modern American Christianity.

2006

Kai Bird & Martin J. Sherwin. American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of Robert J. Oppenheimer

The first full-scale biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer, “father of the atomic bomb,” the brilliant, charismatic physicist who led the effort to capture the awesome fire of the sun for his country in time of war.

2005

Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan. de Kooning: An American Master

Willem de Kooning is one of the most important artists of the twentieth century, a true "painter's painter" whose protean work continues to inspire many artists. The first major biography of de Kooning captures both the life and work of this complex, romantic figure in American culture.

2004

William Taubman. Khrushchev: the Man and His Era

Drawing on newly opened archives in Russia and Ukraine, Taubman (political science, Amherst College) writes a thorough biography of one of the most complex and important political figures of the 20th century whose life and career spanned revolution, civil war, famine, collectivization, industrialization, terror, world war, the Cold War, Stalinism, and post-Stalinism.

2003

Robert A. Caro. Master of the Senate

This third installment of Caro's "The Years of Lyndon Johnson" presents an unprecedented revelation of how legislative power works, how the U.S. Senate works, and how Johnson mastered both on his way to the presidency. Caro relates how Johnson broke southern control of Capitol Hill to pass the first civil rights legislation since the Reconstruction.

2002

David McCullough. John Adams

Told by one of the country's greatest historians, here is the extraordinary history of the birth of the United States as seen through the lives of two men: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.

 

2001

David Levering Lewis. W.E.B. DuBois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century, 1919-1963

In this final, magisterial volume, fifteen years in the research and writing, the Pulitzer Prize -- winning biographer David Levering Lewis stunningly re-creates the second half of W.E.B. Du Bois's charged and brilliant career.

2000

Stacy Schiff. Vera (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov)

The story of the 52-year marriage between Vladimir Nabokov, one the 20th century's most original writers, and a woman with an intellect and devotion to literature equal to her husband's.

1999

A. Scott Berg. Lindbergh

From one of America's most acclaimed biographers comes the definitive account of the life of one of the nation's most legendary, controversial, and enigmatic figures: aviator Charles A. Lindbergh.

1998

Katharine Graham. Personal History

In this critically acclaimed memoir, the woman who piloted the "Washington Post" through the crises of the Pentagon Papers, Watergate, and a pressmen's strike and turned it into a great newspaper now tells her story with courage, candor, and dignity.

1997

Frank McCourt. Angela's Ashes

A beautifully written memoir full of Irish wit and pathos, making it stand out among the garden variety of youthful reminisces. Let's face it, a bad childhood is more interesting and McCourt had it in spades. He was born in Brooklyn, but his family went back to Ireland where he grew up on the dole exacerbated by alcoholism (his father's), near starvation, beatings by the schoolmasters, and a brief respite in clinic where he discovered Shakespeare.

1996:

Jack Miles. God: A Biography

In this close, careful, and inspired reading of God's "life" as told in the Old Testament--book by book, verse by verse--God is seen from his first appearance as Creator to his last as Ancient of Days, variously powerful yet powerless, savage yet gentle, endlessly subtle yet mysteriously naive.

1995

Joan D. Hedrick. Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life

The first biography of Harriet Beecher Stowe in over fifty years tells the absorbing story of this gifted, complex and contradictory woman. Hedrick takes readers into the world of 19th century morals, exploring the influence of then-popular ideas of "true womanhood" on Stowe's upbringing as a member of the outspoken Beecher clan, and her eventful life as a writer and shaper of public opinion.

1994

David Levering Lewis. W.E.B. DuBois: Biography of a Race 1868-1919

Presents the life story of the towering and controversial civil rights leader, focusing on a crucial 50 year period in his--and the nation's--life

1993

David McCullough. Truman

An epic masterpiece of the century's most pivotal president captures the emotion, grit and innovation that was Harry S. Truman.

1992

Lewis B. Puller. Fortunate Son: The Autobiography of Lewis B. Puller, Jr.

Lewis B. Puller, Jr., the son of the most decorated Marine in the Corps' history, volunteered for duty in Vietnam after college. He came home a few months later missing both legs, his left hand, and two fingers of his right hand. He would never walk again, though he would complete law school, serve on President Ford's clemency board, and run for Congress. He would also live with the nightmares of Vietnam, and his growing dependence on alcohol.

1991

Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith. Jackson Pollock: An American Saga

Based on family letters and documents, lengthy interviews with his widow, Lee Krasner, as well as his psychologists and psychoanalysts, this book explodes the myths surrounding his death in 1956.

1990

Sebastian Grazia. Machiavelli in Hell

1989

Richard Ellmann. Oscar Wilde

The biography sensitive to the tragic pattern of the story of a great subject: Oscar Wilde - psychologically and sexually complicated, enormously quotable, central to a alluring cultural world and someone whose life assumed an unbearably dramatic shape

1988

David Herbert Donald. Look Homeward: A Life of Thomas Wolfe

In this biography, Donald dismantles the myths surrounding the life of Thomas Wolfe.

1987

David J. Garrow. Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian, Leadership Conference

Garrow provides a thorough and controversial inside look at both the sacred and profane aspects of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King's life. Based on more than 700 recorded conversations, this is a powerful portrait of King and the movement for which de dedicated himself.

1986

Elizabeth Frank. Louise Bogan: A Portrait

A prolific writer in her youth, Bogan was overcome by demons she could not master, and as this book reveals, struggled with a temper, paranoia and jealousy greater than anyone might have guessed.

1985

Kenneth Silverman. The Life and Times of Cotton Mather

The biography of the most celebrated of all New England Puritans, at once a sophisticated work which succeeds admirably in presenting a complete portrait of a complex man and a groundbreaking study that accurately portrays Mather and his contemporaries as the first true Americans rather than European expatriates.

1984

Louis R. Harlan. Booker T. Washington: The Wizard of Tuskegee, 1901-1915

This, the second volume, completes one of the most significant biographies of this generation. Booker T. Washington was the most powerful black American of his time, and here he is captured at his zenith.

1983

Russell Baker. Growing Up

Describing what it was like to come of age in the 1930s and '40s, Baker recalls the tension and love of a family surviving disaster with strength, courage, and good cheer.

1982

William S. McFeely. Grant: A Biography

From his boyhood in Ohio to the battlefields of the Civil War and his presidency during the Reconstruction, this Pulitzer Prize-winning biography traces the entire arc of Grant's life.

1981

Robert K. Massie. Peter the Great: His Life and World

Against the monumental canvas of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe and Russia, unfolds the magnificent story of Peter the Great. He brought Russia from the darkness of its own Middle Ages into the Enlightenment and transformed it into the power that has its legacy in the Russia of our own century

1980

Edmund Morris. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt

The story of seven men--a naturalist, a writer, a lover, a hunter, a ranchman, a soldier, and a politician--who merged at the age of 42 to become the youngest President in history.

1979

Leonard Baker. Days of Sarrow and Pain: Leo Baeck and the Berlin Jews

1978

Walter Jackson Bate. Samuel Johnson

1977

John E. Mack. A Prince of Our Disorder: The Life of T.E. Lawrence

1976

R.W.B. Lewis. Edith Wharton: A Biography

1975

Robert Caro. The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York

1974

Louis Sheaffer. O'Neill, Son and Artist

1973

W.A. Swanberg. Luce and His Empire

1972

Joseph P. Lash. Eleanor and Franklin

1971

Lawrence Thompson. Robert Frost: The Years of Triumph, 1915-1938

1970

T. Harry Williams. Huey Long

This work describes the life of one of the most extraordinary figures in American political history.

1969

Benjamin Lawrence Reid. The Man From New York: John Quinn and His Friends

1968

George F. Kennan. Memoirs

1967

Justin Kaplan. Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain

1966

Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House

As special assistant to the president, Arthur Schlesinger witnessed firsthand the politics and personalities that influenced the now legendary Kennedy administration. Schlesinger"s close relationship with JFK, as a politician and as a friend, has resulted in this authoritative yet intimate account.

1965

Ernest Samuels. Henry Adams

Shows how the actual events of Adams' life differ from those of the protagonist in his autobiography.

1964

Walter Jackson Bate. John Keats

The life of Keats provides a unique opportunity for the study of literary greatness and of what permits or encourages its development.

1963

Leon Edel. Henry James

1962

No Award given.

1961

David Donald. Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War

1960

Samuel Eliot Morison. John Paul Jones: a Sailor's Biography

It vividly portrays the illustrious career of John Paul Jones, from his early training at sea in the British West Indian merchant trade, to his exploits in the newly independent American navy, to his appointment as an admiral in the Russian navy and command of a squadron in the Black Sea.

1959

Arthur Walworth. Woodrow Wilson, American Prophet

1958

Douglas S. Freeman. George Washington Volumes I-VI

John Alexander Carroll and Mary Wells Ashworth. George Washington Volume VII

1957

John F. Kennedy. Profiles in Courage

John Kennedy's spirited words and devotion to courage live on in this commemorative edition of his Pulitzer Prize-winning portraits.

1956

Talbot Faulkner Hamlin. Benjamin Henry Latrobe

1955

William S. White. The Taft Story

1954

Charles A. Lindbergh. The Spirit of St. Louis

This is Lindbergh's own account of his historic transatlantic flight in 1927.

1953

David J. Mays. Edmund Pendleton, 1721-1803

1952

Merlo J. Pusey. Charles Evans Hughes

1951

Margaret Louise Coit. John C. Calhoun: American Portrait

1950

Samuel Flagg Bemis. John Quincy Adams and the Foundations of American Foreign Policy

1949

Robert E. Sherwood. Roosevelt and Hopkins

This book has the inside story of the final triumph and how FDR organized and used the men and tools at his disposal to bring about defeat of the Axis and to end fascism to the world.

1948

Margaret Clapp. Forgotten First Citizen: John Bigelow

1947

William Allen White. The Autobiography of William Allen White

1946

Linnie Marsh Wolfe. Son of the Wilderness

1945

Russell Blaine Nye. George Bancroft: Brahmin Rebel

1944

Carlton Mabee. The American Leonardo: the Life of Samuel F.B. Morse

1943

Samuel Eliot Morison. Admiral of the Ocean Sea: a Life of Christopher Columbus

Retraces Columbus' expedition to create a vivid recreation of his life and career.

1942

Forrest Wilson. Crusader in Crinoline

1941

Ola Elizabeth Winslow. Jonathan Edwards

1940

Ray Stannard Baker. Woodrow Wilson, Life and Letters, Volumes VII and VIII

1939

Carl Van Doren. Benjamin Franklin

Extensive collection of Benjamin Franklin's autobiographical writings and some fifty letters written by Franklin.

1938

Marquis James. Andrew Jackson, 2 volumes

1938

 

Odell Shepard. Pedlar's Progress

1937

Allan Nevins. Hamilton Fish

1936

Ralph Barton Perry. The Thought and Character of William James

1935

Douglas S. Freeman. R.E. Lee

1934

Tyler Dennett. John Hay

1933

Allan Nevins. Grover Cleveland

1932

Henry F. Pringle. Theodore Roosevelt

1931

Henry James. Charles W. Eliot

1930

Marquis James. The Raven: a Biography of Sam Houston

"This is the stuff of which legend is made, this story of the making of Texas, and Houston is one with those semilegendary characters--with Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett, with Marion the Swamp Fox and Ethan Allen. . . . In a sense he is too good to be true, this man who wrought such mighty deeds within the lifetime of our fathers and grandfathers; in a sense if he had not existed we should have had to create him."--from the introduction by Henry Steele Commager

1929

Burton J. Hendrick. The Training of an American: The Earlier Life and Letters of Walter H. Page

1928

Charles Edward Russell. The American Orchestra and Theodore Thomas

1927

Emory Holloway. Whitman

1926

Harvey Cushing. The Life of Sir William Osler, 2 volumes

1925

M.A. DeWolfe Howe. Barrett Wendell and His Letter

1924

Michael Idvorsky Pupin. From Immigrant to Inventor

1923

Burton J. Hendrick. The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page

1922

Hamlin Garland. A Daughter of the Middle Border

1921

Edward Bok. The Americanization of Edward Bok

1920

Albert J. Beveridge. The Life of John Marshall, 4 volumes

1919

Henry Adams. The Education of Henry Adams

His political ideas shaped by two presidential ancestors - great-grandfather John Adams and grandfather John Quincy Adams - Henry Adams was one of the most powerful and original minds to confront the American scene from the Civil War to the First World War.

1918

William Cabell Bruce. Benjamin Franklin, Self-Revealed

1917

Laura E. Richards, Maude Howe Elliott, and Florence Howe Hall. Julia Ward Howe