Annal:1996 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction
From AwardAnnals
Results of the Pulitzer Prize in the year 1996. For a ranked list of books, try an honor roll:
The Haunted Land: Facing Europe's Ghosts After Communism
- 1996 Pulitzer–Nonfiction winner
- 1995 NBA–Nonfiction winner
- Score: 20.46
In four newly democratic countries in Eastern Europe, communism’s former victims and jailers are struggling to make sense of their history -- and sometimes rewrite it. In this groundbreaking, stylishly reported book, a journalist travels across the battlefields of memory and asks: Who is guilty? How should they be punished? And who is qualified to judge them in states where almost every citizen was an accomplice?
In East Germany, Tina Rosenberg follows the trial of the border guards charged with the last shooting at the Berlin Wall. In the Czech Republic, she…
Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life
- 1996 Pulitzer–Nonfiction finalist
- 1995 NBA–Nonfiction finalist
- Score: 12.46
In a book that is both groundbreaking and accessible, Daniel C. Dennett, whom Chet Raymo of The Boston Globe calls “one of the most provocative thinkers on the planet,” focuses his unerringly logical mind on the theory of natural selection, showing how Darwin’s great idea transforms and illuminates our traditional view of humanity’s place in the universe. Dennett vividly describes the theory itself and then extends Darwin’s vision with impeccable arguments to their often surprising conclusions, challenging the views of some of the most famous scientists of our day.
Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder: Pronged Ants, Horned Humans, Mice on Toast, and Other Marvels of Jurassic Technology
- 1996 Pulitzer–Nonfiction finalist
- 1995 NBCC–Nonfiction finalist
- Score: 12.46
A nondescript storefront operation in Los Angeles, California, the Museum of Jurassic Technology actually exists—that may be the only thing about it that is for certain. The creation of David Wilson, a man of prodigiously unusual imagination, the museum is crammed full of some of the most astonishingly unbelievable marvels known to man. Visitors to the museum continually find themselves caught between wondering at the marvels of craft and nature that are on display and wondering whether any of this could possibly be true. Indeed, Wilson’s true subject seems to be…
