1980 - Been in the Storm So Long by Leon F. Litwack
1981 - American Education: The National Experience, 1783-1876 by Lawrence A. Cremin
1982 - Mary Chesnut’s Civil War by C. Vann Woodward
1983 - The Transformation of Virginia, 1740-1790 by Rhys L. Isaac
1984 - None awarded
1985 - Prophets of Regulation by Thomas K. McGraw
1986 - …the Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age by Walter A. McDougall
1987 - Voyagers to the West: A Passage in the Peopling of America on the Eve of the Revolution by Bernard Bailyn
1988 - The Launching of Modern American Science, 1846-1876 by Robert V. Bruce
1989 - TIE
Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era by James M. McPherson
Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-1963 by Taylor Branch
According to The Pulitzer Prize.