Harry S. Truman Book Award

Past Recipients of the Truman Book Award

The Harry S. Truman Book Award is presented biennially by the Truman Library Institute. Established in 1963, the Harry S. Truman Book Award recognizes the best book published within a two-year period dealing primarily and substantially with some aspect of the history of the United States between April 12, 1945 and January 20, 1953, or with the life or career of Harry S. Truman.

2022      Between Containment and Rollback: The United States and the Cold War in Germany by Christian F. Osterman

2020      Grand Improvisation: America Confronts the British Superpower, 1945-1957 by Derek Leebaert

2018       A Force So Swift: Mao, Truman, and the Birth of Modern China, 1949 by Kevin Peraino

2016       Potsdam: The End of World War II and the Remaking of Europe by Michael Neiberg

2014       Henry Wallace’s 1948 Presidential Campaign and the Future of Postwar Liberalism by Thomas W. Devine

2012       The War for Korea, 1950-1951: They Came from the North by Allan R. Millett

2010       Selling the Korean War: Propaganda, Politics, and Public Opinion in the United States, 1950-1953 by Steven Casey

2008       From Roosevelt to Truman: Potsdam, Hiroshima, and the Cold War by Wilson D. Miscamble

2006       The Cold War: A New History by John Lewis Gaddis

2004       Act of Creation: The Founding of the United Nations by Stephen C. Schlesinger

2002       The Dixiecrat Revolt and the End of the Solid South, 1932-1968 by Kari Frederickson

2000       Downfall: The End of the Japanese Empire by Richard B. Frank

1998       (No award given)

1996       Man of the People: A Life of Harry S. Truman by Alonzo Hamby

1994       George F. Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, 1947-1950 by Wilson D. Miscamble

1992       Ridgway Duels for Korea by Roy E. Appleman and America’s Germany: John J. McCloy an the Federal Republic of Germany by Thomas Alan Schartz

1990       Danger and Survival: Choices about the Bomb in the First Fifty Year by McGeorge Bundy

1988       The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made by Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas

1986       The Years of MacArthur: Triumph and Disaster, 1945-1964, Vol. III by Dorris Clayton James

1984       The Past Has Another Pattern: Memoirs by George W. Ball

1982       The Origins of the Korean War by Bruce Cumings and Ambiguous Partnership: Britain and America, 1944-1947 by Robert M. Hathaway

1980       The Japanese Thread: A Life in the U.S. Foreign Service by John K. Emerson

1978       Dean Acheson: The State Department Years by David McClellan

1976       The Cold War Begins: Soviet-American Conflict Over Eastern Europe by Lynn Etheridge Davis

1974       Beyond the New Deal: Harry S. Truman and American Liberalism by Alonzo Hamby

1972       Truman and the 80th Congress by Susan M. Hartmann

1970       Present at the Creation: My Years at the State Department by Dean G. Acheson and Atomic Shield, 1947-1952: A History of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, Volume II by Richard G. Hewlett and Francis Duncan

1969       The Loneliest Campaign: The Truman Victory of 1948 by Irwin Ross

1967       The Communist Controversy in Washington: From the New Deal to McCarthy by Earl Latham