Annal:2000 National Book Critics Circle Award for General Nonfiction
From AwardAnnals
Results of the National Book Critics Circle Award in the year 2000. For a ranked list of books, try an honor roll:
- 2000 NBCC–Nonfiction winner
- 2001 Pulitzer–Nonfiction finalist
- Score: 16.5
Ted Conover, the intrepid author of Coyotes, about the world of illegal Mexican immigrants, spent a year as a prison guard at Sing Sing. Newjack, his account of that experience, is a milestone in American journalism: a book that casts new and unexpected light on this nation’s prison crisis and sets a new standard for courageous, in-depth reporting.
At the infamous Sing Sing, once a model prison but now New York State’s most troubled maximum-security facility, Conover goes to work as a gallery officer, working shifts in which he alone must supervise…
Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766
- 2000 NBCC–Nonfiction finalist
- Score: 6.5
In this engrossing narrative of the great military conflagration of the mid-eighteenth century, Fred Anderson transports us into the maelstrom of international rivalries. With the Seven Years’ War, Great Britain decisively eliminated French power north of the Caribbean — and in the process destroyed an American diplomatic system in which Native Americans had long played a central, balancing role — permanently changing the political and cultural landscape of North America.
Anderson skillfully reveals the clash of inherited perceptions the war created when it…
Way Out There in the Blue: Reagan, Star Wars and the End of the Cold War
- 2000 LATimes–Current Interest winner
- 2001 Pulitzer–History finalist
- 2000 NBCC–Nonfiction finalist
- Score: 22.5
Way Out There in the Blue is a major work of history by the Pulitzer Prizewinning author of Fire in the Lake. Using the Star Wars missile defense program as a magnifying glass on his presidency, Frances FitzGerald gives us a wholly original portrait of Ronald Reagan, the most puzzling president of the last half of the twentieth century.
Reagan’s presidency and the man himself have always been difficult to fathom. His influence was enormous, and the few powerful ideas he espoused remain with us still—yet he seemed nothing more than a charming,…
Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health
- 2000 NBCC–Nonfiction finalist
- Score: 6.5
In this meticulously researched and ultimately explosive new book by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the New York Times bestseller The Coming Plague, Laurie Garrett takes readers across the globe to reveal how a series of potential and present public health catastrophes together form a terrifying portrait of real global disaster in the making.
The Collaborator: The Trial & Execution of Robert Brasillach
- 2000 LATimes–History winner
- 2000 NBA–Nonfiction finalist
- 2000 NBCC–Nonfiction finalist
- Score: 22.5
On February 6, 1945, Robert Brasillach was executed for treason by a French firing squad. He was a writer of some distinction—a prolific novelist and a keen literary critic. He was also a dedicated anti-Semite, an acerbic opponent of French democracy, and editor in chief of the fascist weekly Je Suis Partout, in whose pages he regularly printed wartime denunciations of Jews and resistance activists.
Was Brasillach in fact guilty of treason? Was he condemned for his denunciations of the resistance, or singled out as a suspected homosexual? Was it right…
