| Titles | Order |
| The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler | Fiction, 1986 |
| Lake Wobegon Days by Garrison Keillor | Fiction, 1986 |
| Cities on a Hill: A Brilliant Exploration of Visonary Communities Remaking the American Dream by Frances FitzGerald | American Studies, 1987 |
| The Cycles of American History by Arthur Meier Schlesinger | American Studies, 1987 |
| The Life of Langston Hughes: Volume I: 1902-1941, I, Too, Sing America (Life of Langston Hughes, 1902-1941) by Arnold Rampersad | Biography/Autobiography, 1987 |
| Roger's Version by John Updike | Fiction, 1987 |
| The Story of English by Robert McCrum | Special Citation, 1987 |
| The Collected Prose by Robert Lowell | American Arts & Letters, 1988 |
| Miami by Joan Didion | American Studies, 1988 |
| Many Masks: A Life of Frank Lloyd Wright by Brendan Gill | Biography/Autobiography, 1988 |
| The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe | Fiction, 1988 |
| At Home: Essays 1982-1988 by Gore Vidal | American Arts & Letters, 1989 |
| A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam by Neil Sheehan | American Studies, 1989 |
| Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63 by Taylor Branch | Biography/Autobiography, 1989 |
| Where I'm Calling From: Selected Stories by Raymond Carver | Fiction, 1989 |
| The Writing Life by Annie Dillard | American Arts & Letters, 1990 |
| Among Schoolchildren by Tracy Kidder | American Studies, 1990 |
| This Boy's Life by Tobias Wolff | Biography/Autobiography, 1990 |
| Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All by Allan Gurganus | Fiction, 1990 |
| House Of Barrymore, The by Margot Peters | American Arts & Letters, 1991 |
| A New York Life: Of Friends and Others by Brendan Gill | American Studies, 1991 |
| The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance by Ron Chernow | Biography/Autobiography, 1991 |
| Killing Mister Watson by Peter Matthiessen | Fiction, 1991 |
| The Journals Of John Cheever by John Cheever | American Arts & Letters, 1992 |
| The Crisis Years: Kennedy and Khrushchev, 1960-1963 by Michael R. Beschloss | American Studies, 1992 |
| Woodrow Wilson by August Heckscher | Biography/Autobiography, 1992 |
| A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley | Fiction, 1992 |
| American Views: Essays on American Art by John Wilmerding | Special Prize, 1992 |
| Up in the Old Hotel by Joseph Mitchell | American Arts & Letters, 1993 |
| Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words that Remade America by Garry Wills | American Studies, 1993 |
| Archibald MacLeish; an American Life by Scott Donaldson | Biography/Autobiography, 1993 |
| Outerbridge Reach by Robert Stone | Fiction, 1993 |
| W.E.B. DuBois: Biography of a Race, 1868-1919 [1868] by David L. Lewis | Biography/Autobiography, 1994 |
| The Oracle at Stoneleigh Court : Stories by Peter Taylor | Fiction, 1994 |
| Tesserae and Other Poems by John Hollander | Poetry, 1994 |
| Speak Now Against the Day: The Generation Before the Civil Rights Movement in the South (Chapel Hill) by John Egerton | American Studies, 1995 |
| No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II by Doris Kearns Goodwin | Biography/Autobiography, 1995 |
| The Collected Stories by Grace Paley | Fiction, 1995 |
| Like Most Revelations by Richard Howard | Poetry, 1995 |
| Moving Violations by John Hockenberry | American Studies, 1996 |
| Walt Whitman's America: A Cultural Biography by David S. Reynolds | Biography/Autobiography, 1996 |
| All The Days And Nights: The Collected Stories of William Maxwell by William Maxwell | Fiction, 1996 |
| Atlantis: Poems by by Mark Doty | Poetry, 1996 |
| Liar's Club by Mary Carr | Special Award, 1996 |
| Undaunted Courage : Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West by Stephen Ambrose | American Studies, 1997 |
| Taking on the World: Joseph and Stewart Alsop, Guardians of the American Century by Robert W. Merry | Biography/Autobiography, 1997 |
| In the Beauty of the Lilies by John Updike | Fiction, 1997 |
| The Figured Wheel: New and Collected Poems, 1966-1996 by Robert Pinsky | Poetry, 1997 |
| American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America by Robert Hughes | American Studies, 1998 |
| Burning the Days: Recollection by James Salter | Autobiography, 1998 |
| American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson by Joseph J. Ellis | Biography, 1998 |
| Underworld by Don DeLillo | Fiction, 1998 |
| Black Zodiac: Poems by Charles Wright | Poetry, 1998 |
| God and the American Writer by Alfred Kazin | Special Prize, 1998 |
| Slaves in the Family by Edward Ball | American Studies, 1999 |
| N. C. Wyeth: A Biography by David Michaelis | Biography/Autobiography, 1999 |
| I Married a Communist by Philip Roth | Fiction, 1999 |
| The Collected Poems of Robert Penn Warren by Robert Penn Warren | Poetry, 1999 |
| Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945 by David M. Kennedy | American Studies, 2000 |
| Morgan, American Financier by Jean Strouse | Biography/Autobiography, 2000 |
| Close Range by E. Annie Proulx | Fiction, 2000 |
| Vita Nova by Louise Glück | Poetry, 2000 |
| In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick | American Studies, 2001 |
| The Chief: the Life of William Randolph Hearst by David Nasaw | Biography/Autobiography, 2001 |
| The Angel on the Roof: The Stories of Russell Banks by Russell Banks | Fiction, 2001 |
| American Poetry : The Twentieth Century, Volume 1 : Henry Adams to Dorothy Parker by Robert Hass | Poetry, 2001 |
| American Poetry : The Twentieth Century, Volume 2 : E.E. Cummings to May Swenson by Robert Hass | Poetry, 2001 |
| Carry Me Home : Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution by Diane McWhorter | American Studies, 2002 |
| John Adams by David McCullough | Biography/Autobiography, 2002 |
| Empire Falls by Richard Russo | Fiction, 2002 |
| The Darkness and the Light: Poems by Anthony Hecht | Poetry, 2002 |
| Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides | Fiction, 2003 |
| In the Devil's Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692 by Mary Beth Norton | American Studies, 2003 |
| Jesse James, Last Rebel of the Civil War by T. J. Stiles | Biography/Autobiography, 2003 |
| Springing: New and Selected Poems by Marie Ponsot | Poetry, 2003 |
| The Time of Our Singing: A Novel by Richard Powers | Fiction, 2004 |
| They Marched Into Sunlight by David Maraniss | American Studies, 2004 |
| Hawthorne: A Life by Brenda Wineapple | Biography/Autobiography, 2004 |
| Collected Poems by Robert Lowell | Poetry, 2004 |
| Gilead by Marilynne Robinson | Fiction, 2005 |
| Washington's Crossing by David Hackett Fischer | American Studies, 2005 |
| de Kooning: An American Master by Mark Stevens | Biography/Autobiography, 2005 |
| Collected Poems by Donald Justice | Poetry, 2005 |
| Liberation: A Novel by Joanna Scott | Fiction, 2006 |
| A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America by Stacy Schiff | American Studies, 2006 |
| American Prometheus: the Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird | Biography/Autobiography, 2006 |
| Migration by W.S. Merwin | Poetry, 2006 |
| The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan | American Studies, 2007 |
| The Afterlife by Donald Antrim | Autobiography, 2007 |
| The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher by Debby Applegate | Biography, 2007 |
| Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq by Thomas E. Ricks | Current Affairs, 2007 |
| The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel by Amy Hempel | Fiction, 2007 |
| Averno: Poems by Louise Glück | Poetry, 2007 |
| Blackbird and Wolf: Poems by Henri Cole | Poetry, 2008 |
| Edith Wharton by Hermione Lee | Biography, 2008 |
| Prime Green: Remembering the Sixties by Robert Stone | Autobiography, 2008 |
| The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid | Fiction, 2008 |
| Storming the Gates of Paradise by Rebecca Solnit | American Studies, 2008 |
| Dangerous Laughter: Thirteen Stories by Steven Millhauser | Fiction, 2009 |
| The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals by Jane Mayer | Current Affairs, 2009 |
| Old War: Poems by Alan Shapiro | Poetry, 2009 |
| A Passion for Nature: The Life of John Muir by Donald Worster | Biography and Autobiography, 2009 |
| A Summer of Hummingbirds: Love, Art, and Scandal in the Intersecting Worlds of Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Martin Johnson Heade by Christopher Benfey | American Studies, 2009 |
| Dancing in the Dark: A Cultural History of the Great Depression by Morris Dickstein | American Studies, 2010 |
| Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann | Fiction, 2010 |
| Louis D. Brandeis: A Life by Melvin Urofsky | Biography and Autobiography, 2010 |
| Mercury Dressing: Poems by J.D. McClatchy | Poetry, 2010 |
| The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan: A History of the End of the Cold War by James Mann | American Studies, 2010 |
| Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original by Robin Kelley | Special Distinction Award, 2010 |
