The Prize: The Epic Quest For Oil, Money & Power, by Daniel Yergin (Simon & Schuster)

A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy, by Nathan Thrall (Metropolitan Books)

A finely reported and intimate account of life under Israeli occupation of the West Bank, told through a portrait of a Palestinian father whose five-year-old son dies in a fiery school bus crash when Israeli and Palestinian rescue teams are delayed by security regulations.

His Name Is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice, by Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa (Viking)

An intimate, riveting portrait of an ordinary man whose fatal encounter with police officers in 2020 sparked an international movement for social change, but whose humanity and complicated personal story were unknown. (Moved by the Board from the Biography category.)

Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City, by Andrea Elliott (Random House)

An affecting, deeply reported account of a girl who comes of age during New York City’s homeless crisis–a portrait of resilience amid institutional failure that successfully merges literary narrative with policy analysis.

Wilmington’s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy, by David Zucchino (Atlantic Monthly Press)

A gripping account of the overthrow of the elected government of a Black-majority North Carolina city after Reconstruction that untangles a complicated set of power dynamics cutting across race, class and gender.

Maria Henson of Lexington (KY) Herald-Leader

For her editorials about battered women in Kentucky, which focused statewide attention on the problem and prompted significant reforms.

Staff of Associated Press

For photographs of the attempted coup in Russia and the subsequent collapse of the Communist regime.

Selected Poems, by James Tate (Wesleyan University Press)

Patrick J. Sloyan of Newsday, Long Island, NY

For his reporting on the Persian Gulf War, conducted after the war was over, which revealed new details of American battlefield tactics and "friendly fire" incidents.