National Book Critics Circle AwardGeneral Nonfiction

Given by National Book Critics Circle

Other Names: John Leonard Award, National Book Critics Circle Award finalist
170 Works 0 Books
The National Book Critics Circle, founded in 1974, is a non-profit organization consisting of more than 900 active book reviewers who are interested in honoring quality writing and communicating with show more one another about common concerns... The centerpiece of NBCC activities is the annual awards for the best book in six categories: autobiography, biography, criticism, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.

Website

Finalists show less
Stages:
All, Winner (266), Finalist (959), No Stage (3)
Categories:
Years:
All, 2014 (5), 2008 (4), 2006 (5), 2005 (5), 2004 (5), 2003 (5), 2002 (5), 2001 (5), 2000 (5), 1999 (5), 1998 (5), 1997 (5), 1996 (5), 1995 (5), 1994 (5), 1993 (5), 1992 (4), 1991 (5), 1990 (5), 1989 (5), 1988 (5), 1987 (5), 1986 (5), 1985 (5), 1984 (5), 1983 (5), 1982 (5), 1981 (6), 1980 (5), 1979 (5), 1978 (10), 1977 (5), 1976 (5), 1975 (1)

Winner 36

WorkYear
The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Emancipation by David Brion Davis2014
Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty2014
Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution by Simon Schama2006
Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster by Svetlana Alexievich2005
Reformation : Europe's house divided : 1490-1700 by Diarmaid MacCulloch2004
Sons of Mississippi: A Story of Race and Its Legacy by Paul Hendrickson2003
"A Problem from Hell": America and the Age of Genocide by Samantha Power2002
Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper by Nicholson Baker2001
Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing by Ted Conover2000
Time, Love, Memory: A Great Biologist and His Quest for the Origins of Behavior by Jonathan Weiner1999
We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families: Stories from Rwanda by Philip Gourevitch1998
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman1997
Bad Land: An American Romance by Jonathan Raban1996
A Civil Action by Jonathan Harr1995
The Rape of Europa : The Fate of Europe's Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War by Lynn H. Nicholas1994
The Land Where the Blues Began by Alan Lomax1993
Young Men and Fire by Norman Maclean1992
Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women by Susan Faludi1991
The Content of Our Character: A New Vision of Race In America by Shelby Steele1990
The Broken Cord by Michael Dorris1989
Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954–63 by Taylor Branch1988
The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes1987
Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez1986
Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families by J. Anthony Lukas1985
Weapons and Hope by Freeman Dyson1984
The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House by Seymour M. Hersh1983
The Path to Power by Robert A. Caro1982
The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould1981
The Mismeasure of Man [Revised & Expanded] by Stephen Jay Gould1981
Walter Lippmann and the American Century by Ronald Steel1980
Munich: The Price of Peace by Telford Taylor1979
The Facts of Life by Maureen Howard1978
Inventing America: Jefferson's Declaration of Independence by Garry Wills1978
Samuel Johnson by W. Jackson Bate1977
The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts by Maxine Hong Kingston1976
Edith Wharton: A Biography by R. W. B. Lewis1975

Finalist 134

WorkYear
The Zhivago Affair: The Kremlin, the CIA, and the Battle Over a Forbidden Book by Peter Finn2014
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert2014
Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine, and the Miracle That Set Them Free by Héctor Tobar2014
This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War (Vintage Civil War Library) by Drew Gilpin Faust2008
From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1776 by George C. Herring2008
White Protestant Nation: The Rise of the American Conservative Movement by Allan J. Lichtman2008
The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals by Jane Mayer2008
The Occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq by Patrick Cockburn2006
The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade by Ann Fessler2006
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan2006
The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East by Sandy Tolan2006
The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East by Robert Fisk2005
Eating Stone: Imagination and the Loss of the Wild by Ellen Meloy2005
Human Cargo: A Journey Among Refugees by Caroline Moorehead2005
Night Draws Near: Iraq's People in the Shadow of America's War by Anthony Shadid2005
Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age by Kevin Boyle2004
Blue Blood by Edward Conlon2004
The Working Poor: Invisible in America by David K. Shipler2004
Blood Done Sign My Name by Timothy B. Tyson2004
The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty by Caroline Alexander2003
Gulag: A History by Anne Applebaum2003
Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc2003
Rising Up and Rising Down: Some Thoughts on Violence, Freedom and Urgent Means {abridged} by William T. Vollmann2003
War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning by Chris Hedges2002
American Ground by William Langewiesche2002
Brown: The Last Discovery of America by Richard Rodriguez2002
Edison's Eve: A Magical History of the Quest for Mechanical Life by Gaby Wood2002
The Lost Children of Wilder: The Epic Struggle to Change Foster Care by Nina Bernstein2001
Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland by Jan T. Gross2001
Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand2001
The Brother: The Untold Story of the Rosenberg Case by Sam Roberts2001
Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766 by Fred Anderson2000
Way Out There In the Blue: Reagan, Star Wars and the End of the Cold War by Frances FitzGerald2000
Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health by Laurie Garrett2000
The Collaborator: The Trial and Execution of Robert Brasillach by Alice Kaplan2000
Five Thousand Days Like This One: An American Family History by Jane Brox1999
Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II by John W. Dower1999
I Could Tell You Stories: Sojourns in the Land of Memory by Patricia Hampl1999
The Dark Room at Longwood: A Voyage to St Helena by Jean-Paul Kauffmann1999
Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America by Ira Berlin1998
King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa by Adam Hochschild1998
The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity from Antiquity to the Present by Roy Porter1998
The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester1998
Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer1997
The Bible as it was by James L. Kugel1997
American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence by Pauline Maier1997
How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker1997
Great Books by David Denby1996
Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust by Daniel Goldhagen1996
Ashes to Ashes: America's Hundred-Year Cigarette War, the Public Health, and the Unabashed Triumph of Philip Morris by Richard Kluger1996
The Middle East: 2000 Years of History From the Rise of Christianity to the Present Day by Bernard Lewis1996
A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books by Nicholas A. Basbanes1995
In These Girls, Hope is a Muscle by Madeleine Blais1995
All God's Children: The Bosket Family and the American Tradition of Violence by Fox Butterfield1995
Mr. Wilson's Cabinet Of Wonder: Pronged Ants, Horned Humans, Mice on Toast, and Other Marvels of Jurassic Technology by Lawrence Weschler1995
The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story from Early America by John Putnam Demos1994
Strange Justice: The Selling of Clarence Thomas by Jane Mayer1994
How We Die: Reflections on Life's Final Chapter by Sherwin B. Nuland1994
My Own Country: A Doctor's Story by Abraham Verghese1994
Whoredom in Kimmage: Irish Women Coming of Age by Rosemary Mahoney1993
Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire by David Remnick1993
Genie: a Scientific Tragedy by Russ Rymer1993
The Last Panda by George B. Schaller1993
Breaking the Maya Code by Michael D. Coe1992
Home Fires: An Intimate Portrait of One Middle-Class Family in Postwar America by Donald R. Katz1992
Death Without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil by Nancy Scheper-Hughes1992
Which Side Are You On?: Trying to Be for Labor When It's Flat on Its Back by Thomas Geoghegan1991
Praying for Sheetrock: A Work of Nonfiction by Melissa Fay Greene1991
Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools by Jonathan Kozol1991
Lonely Hearts of the Cosmos: The Scientific Quest for the Secret of the Universe by Dennis Overbye1991
City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles by Mike Davis1990
Samba by Alma Guillermoprieto1990
Disappearing Through the Skylight: Culture and Technology in the Twentieth Century by Jr. O. B. Hardison1990
The Politics of Rich and Poor: Wealth and the American Electorate in the Reagan Aftermath by Kevin P. Phillips1990
Fear of Falling: The Inner Life of the Middle Class by Barbara Ehrenreich1989
A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East by David Fromkin1989
Among Schoolchildren by Tracy Kidder1989
The Rainy Season: Haiti Since Duvalier by Amy Wilentz1989
Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 by Eric Foner1988
Europeans by Jane Kramer1988
Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era by James M. McPherson1988
A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam by Neil Sheehan1988
Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle: Myth and Metaphor in the Discovery of Geological Time by Stephen Jay Gould1987
The Genius of the People by Charles L. Mee1987
Democracy Is in the Streets: From Port Huron to the Siege of Chicago, With a New Preface by the Author by Jim Miller1987
And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic by Randy Shilts1987
Voyagers to the West: A Passage in the Peopling of America on the Eve of the Revolution by Bernard Bailyn1986
War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War by John W. Dower1986
Bird of Life, Bird of Death by Jonathan Evan Maslow1986
Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water by Marc Reisner1986
The Reign of the Phallus: Sexual Politics in Ancient Athens by Eva C. Keuls1985
House by Tracy Kidder1985
Distant Neighbors: A Portrait of the Mexicans by Alan Riding1985
The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World by Elaine Scarry1985
Son of the Morning Star by Evan S. Connell1984
The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History by Robert Darnton1984
Brothers and Keepers by John Edgar Wideman1984
The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust 1941-1945 by David S. Wyman1984
Present History by Theodore Draper1983
Revolution in Time: Clocks and the Making of the Modern World by David S. Landes1983
Children of War by Roger Rosenblatt1983
Distant Water: The Fate of the North Atlantic Fisherman by William W. Warner1983
Nuclear Delusion by George F. Kennan1982
Stolen Lightning: The Social Theory of Magic by Daniel Lawrence O'Keefe1982
The Fate of the Earth by Jonathan Schell1982
Bronx Primitive: Portraits in a Childhood by Kate Simon1982
National Defense by James Fallows1981
Forms of Talk (University of Pennsylvania Publications in Conduct & Communication) by Erving Goffman1981
No Place of Grace: Antimodernism and the Transformation of American Culture, 1880-1920 by Jackson Lears1981
The Sage of Monticello by Dumas Malone1981
Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality by John Boswell1980
Walt Whitman: A Life by Justin Kaplan1980
China Men by Maxine Hong Kingston1980
Alice James: A Biography by Jean Strouse1980
The White Album by Joan Didion1979
African Calliope: A Journey to the Sudan by Edward Hoagland1979
Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter1979
The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe1979
Max Perkins: Editor of Genius by A. Scott Berg1978
Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life by Sissela Bok1978
Seeing through Clothes by Anne Hollander1978
New York Jew by Alfred Kazin1978
The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen1978
Injustice: The Social Bases of Obedience and Revolt by Barrington Moore1978
A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara W. Tuchman1978
In Search of History: A Personal Adventure by Theodore H. White1978
Dispatches by Michael Herr1977
The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914 by David McCullough1977
Coming into the Country by John McPhee1977
The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence by Carl Sagan1977
Damnable Question: A Study of Anglo-Irish Relations by George Dangerfield1976
Roots by Alex Haley1976
World of Our Fathers by Irving Howe1976
Simple Justice by Richard Kluger1976

Descriptions

The National Book Critics Circle, founded in 1974, is a non-profit organization consisting of more than 900 active book reviewers who are interested in honoring quality writing and communicating with one another about common concerns... The centerpiece of NBCC activities is the annual awards for the best book in six categories: autobiography, biography, criticism, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.

Website

Finalists
(English, Member-written)
The National Book Critics Circle, founded in 1974, is a non-profit organization consisting of more than 900 active book reviewers who are interested in honoring quality writing and communicating with one another about common concerns... The centerpiece of NBCC activities is the annual awards for the best book in six categories: autobiography, biography, criticism, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.

Website

Winners
(English, Member-written)

Tags

20th century(1,256) adventure(877) Africa(1,118) American(730) American history(2,557) anthropology(667) biography(4,178) biology(753) books(638) books about books(750) Civil War(1,301) economics(693) environment(670) essays(802) European History(659) Everest(638) evolution(754) feminism(673) fiction(1,591) food(1,797) genocide(630) history(18,581) Holocaust(651) journalism(863) language(743) literature(637) math(1,396) medicine(779) memoir(2,109) Middle East(1,009) military history(647) mountaineering(696) nature(710) non-fiction(20,053) own(932) philosophy(2,029) politics(2,188) psychology(1,066) read(1,955) religion(653) science(4,241) slavery(786) sociology(1,142) to-read(12,351) travel(964) unread(1,287) usa(1,574) Vietnam(638) war(1,287) wwii(1,208)

Top Members

meyerson (139 works), alo1224 (86), michaelg16 (79), erohwedd (71), Yardape (67), bookmountain (65), ThufirHawat (63), ginger.hewitt (62), mffowler (61), KelMunger (59), j.a.lesen (57), Steve_Walker (56), BigTony (53), Buchvogel (53), Dan_Park (53), featherbear (51), SleepySheep (51), jasbro (50), aimg (49), Kaethe (49), GrettelTBR (48), tkacz (48), gb24 (47), Schmerguls (46), tredegartrafalgar (46), koheleth (45), Librum (45), rivkat (45), SeriousGrace (45), AsYouKnow_Bob (44), BubusJackson (44), HadriantheBlind (44), augustgarage (43), e-zReader (43), KrisR (43), reecejones (43), tracee (43), agmlll (42), LamSon (42), mjnemelka (42), TJ0513 (42), jonasreads (41), nva4bikes (41), octavianflavius (41), weird_O (41), dvnmng (40), johnjmeyer (40), nfactor13 (40), WestBranch (40), beebrain (39), pc1951 (39), SoschaF (39), tmahmann (39), uscer (39), alaskabookworm (38), Chatterbox (38), chuck_ralston (38), eromsted (38), ficekrichard47 (37), Jestak (37), Robert_Musil (37), tyburntree (37), BangkokYankee (36), bookeee (36), cns1000 (36), ellenandjim (36), gbelik (36), jhurwitz (36), kamintra (36), LunaSlashSea (36), mwolfs80015 (36), rebeccanyc (36), robmickey (36), aabdelrahmanm (35), bemidjian (35), rr-k (35), Sandydog1 (35), azimrin (34), oregonobsessionz (34), rdurie (34), rybie2 (34), the_red_shoes (34), doncornell (33), FrankJLucatelli (33), gwendolyndawson (33), IraSchor (33), JerryMonaco (33), karlgalle (33), katbook (33), laruebk (33), leah_markum (33), LegoDruid (33), nbmars (33), octafoil40 (33), shauneeh (33), thewordygecko (33), VisibleGhost (33), Adolf_Ledesma (32), bibliophiles (32), Bodoni (32), circleb (32), DavidWRoberts (32), DawnDrain (32), Dr.B00K (32), eswnr (32), etbm2003 (32), InternSGS (32), JBesq (32), Jcambridge (32), Kjuhase (32), lcdlover (32), lostinthecosmos (32), RLNunezKPL (32), SoutheastMBLibrary (32), stevesmits (32), tamra.avery (32), altonmann (31), briansb (31), bridgitshearth (31), Chrisethier (31), gintautas (31), mcountr (31), Olivert12000 (31), SigmundFraud (31), Donnybook (30), ecw0647 (30), goliathonline (30), hoolyaa (30), mcna217 (30), tidic (30), ToTheWest (30), alcottacre (29), Coltime (29), griffinel (29), Jimbookbuff1963 (29), KevinEldon (29), lquilter (29), phstitans (29), Physiker (29), suedonym (29), sylw (29), vernonlee (29), wfupianoman (29), zenosbooks (29), BGP (28), bujeya (28), carminowe (28), cataloga (28), Chapinlibrary (28), Charvet (28), darwin.8u (28), fnorbury (28), gaeta1 (28), Geedge (28), joedoone (28), jztemple (28), ktkeith (28), LeumasK (28), MARizzo72 (28), melkor1917 (28), MichaelAScott (28), nate48281 (28), pitjrw (28), reelbigschmidt (28), richrat (28), ShanLand (28)