Finalist: The Barbarous Years: The Peopling of British North America: The Conflict of Civilizations, 1600-1675 , by Bernard Bailyn (Alfred A. Knopf )
A luminous account of how the British colonies took root amid raw brutality, often with terrible consequences for the settlers as well as the native population.
Winners
Prize Winner in History in 2013:
Fredrik Logevall
A balanced, deeply researched history of how, as French colonial rule faltered, a succession of American leaders moved step by step down a road toward full-blown war.
History
Finalists
Nominated as finalists in History in 2013:
John Fabian Witt
A striking work examining how orders issued by President Lincoln to govern conduct on battlefields and in prisons during the Civil War have shaped modern laws of armed conflict.
The Jury
The Jury
David M. Kennedy(Chair )*
Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History Emeritus, and director, The Bill Lane Center for the American West
Raymond O. Arsenault
John Hope Franklin Professor of Southern History
Jonathan Prude
Associate Professor of History
Winners in History
Manning Marable
An exploration of the legendary life and provocative views of one of the most significant African-Americans in U.S. history, a work that separates fact from fiction and blends the heroic and tragic.
Eric Foner
A well orchestrated examination of Lincoln's changing views of slavery, bringing unforeseeable twists and a fresh sense of improbability to a familiar story.
Liaquat Ahamed
A compelling account of how four powerful bankers played crucial roles in triggering the Great Depression and ultimately transforming the United States into the world's financial leader.
Annette Gordon-Reed
A painstaking exploration of a sprawling multi-generation slave family that casts provocative new light on the relationship between Sally Hemings and her master, Thomas Jefferson.
2013 Prize Winners
Adam Johnson
An exquisitely crafted novel that carries the reader on an adventuresome journey into the depths of totalitarian North Korea and into the most intimate spaces of the human heart.
Ayad Akhtar
A moving play that depicts a successful corporate lawyer painfully forced to consider why he has for so long camouflaged his Pakistani Muslim heritage.
Sharon Olds
A book of unflinching poems on the author's divorce that examine love, sorrow and the limits of self-knowledge.
Caroline Shaw
A highly polished and inventive a cappella work uniquely embracing speech, whispers, sighs, murmurs, wordless melodies and novel vocal effects (New Amsterdam Records).