2012: "The Justice Cascade, Kathryn Sikkink
2011: "The Big Short," Michael Lewis
2010: "Ordinary Injustice", by Amy Bach
2009: "The Dark Side", by Jane Mayer
2008: "Going Down Jericho Road", by Michael Honey
2007: "The Great Deluge", by Douglas Brinkley
2006: "Mirror to America", by John Hope Franklin
2005: "Perilous Times", by Jeffrey Stone; and "We Are All the Same", by Jim Wooten
2004: "Ultimate Punishment", by Scott Turow
2003: "At the Hands of Persons Unknown", by Philip Dray; and "A Problem from Hell", by Samantha Power
2002: "American Patriots", by Gail Buckley
2001: "Without Sanctuary", by James Allen; and "Blood of the Liberals", by George Packer
2000: "Mandela", by Anthony Sampson and "No Shame in My Game", by Katherine Newman
1999: "Walking with the Wind", by John Lewis and Michael D'orso
1998: "Race, Crime and the Law", by Randall Kennedy; and "The Soldiers' Tale", by Samuel Hynes
1997: "Worse Than Slavery", by David M. Oshinsky
1996: "Circumstantial Evidence", by Pete Earley; and "The Politics of Rage", by Dan T. Carter
1995: "Speak Now Against the Day", by John Egerton
1994: "Taming the Storm", by Jack Bass
1993: "Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit", by Vice President Al Gore
1992: "Praying for Sheetrock", by Melissa Fay Greene
1991: "The Long Haul", by Myles Horton and Herbert and Judith Kohl; and "The Burning Season", by Andrew Revkin
1990: "Among Schoolchildren", by Tracy Kidder; and "Big Sugar", by Alec Wilkinson
1989: "A Bright Shining Lie", by Neil Sheehan; and "Rachel and Her Children", by Jonathon Kozol
1988: "Beloved", by Toni Morrison; and "Song in a Weary Throat", by Pauli Murray