The J. Anthony Lukas Prize Project Awards

Announcing the 2023 Lukas Prizes Winners and Finalists: Read more here.

Established in 1998, the J. Anthony Lukas Prize Project Awards recognize excellence in nonfiction that exemplifies the literary grace and commitment to serious research and social concern that characterized the work of the awards' Pulitzer Prize-winning namesake, J. Anthony Lukas, who died in 1997. Four awards are given: two J. Anthony Lukas Work-In-Progress Awards, the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize and the Mark Lynton History Prize.

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How to Enter

The 2023 Lukas Prizes are no longer accepting submissions.

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J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Awards

ENTRY FORM

Two J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Awards, in the amount of $25,000 are given annually to aid in the completion of a significant work of nonfiction on a topic of American political or social concern.

Recognizing that a nonfiction book based on extensive original research often overtaxes the resources available to its author, the project envisions the award as a way of closing the gap between the time and money an author has and the time and money that finishing a book requires.

Applicants for the award must already have a contract with a U.S.-based publisher to write a nonfiction book. The judges will make their decision on the basis of trying to achieve maximum impact on a promising book project. Therefore, their selection criteria will represent a blend of the merit of the book and the financial need of the author. For this reason, the judges will need to know the amount of the author’s advance, as well as any other financial support for the book, such as a grant.

Materials required for entry:

Completed entry form
A copy of the original book proposal
50-75 pages from the work-in-progress
Photocopy of a contract with a publisher
An explanation of how the award will advance the progress of the book
No entry fee is required for this prize.

J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize

ENTRY FORM - CREDIT CARD PAYMENT | ENTRY FORM - CHECK PAYMENT

The J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize, in the amount of $10,000, is given annually to a book-length work of narrative nonfiction on a topic of American political or social concern that exemplifies the literary grace, commitment to serious research and original reporting that characterized the distinguished work of the award’s namesake.

Books must have been published in the United States between January 1, 2022 and December 31, 2022. Anyone, including the author, may submit a book. Entry fees are non-refundable.

Authors and publishers are encouraged to enter a book for either the Lukas Book Prize or the Lynton History Prize, not both. Books entered for both prizes will only be considered for one, at the discretion of the director.

Materials required for entry:

A PDF copy of each book entered.
A $75 entry fee per book. Payments via credit card are accepted at the time of the online application submission. Checks are also accepted but must be received by January 31, 2023, or the entry will be disqualified. Make checks payable to “The Lukas Prize Columbia University Awards.” Fees for multiple entries should be made with one payment.

Mark Lynton History Prize

ENTRY FORM - CREDIT CARD PAYMENT | ENTRY FORM CHECK PAYMENT

The Mark Lynton History Prize, in the amount of $10,000, is awarded to a book-length work of history on any topic that best combines intellectual distinction with felicity of expression.

Books must have been published in the United States between January 1, 2022 and December 31, 2022. Anyone, including the author, may submit a book. Entry fees are non-refundable.

Materials required for entry:

A PDF copy of each book entered.
A $75 entry fee per book. Payments via credit card are accepted at the time of the online submission. Checks are also accepted but must be received by January 31, 2023, or the entry will be disqualified. Make checks payable to “The Lukas Prize Columbia University Awards.” Fees for multiple entries should be made with one payment.

About

J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Awards

Two J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Awards, in the amount of $25,000, are given annually to aid in the completion of significant works of nonfiction on topics of American political or social concern. Recognizing that a nonfiction book based on extensive research often overtaxes the resources available to its author, the project envisions the Awards as a way of closing the gap between the time and money an author has and the time and money that finishing a book requires.

J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize

The J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize, in the amount of $10,000, is given annually to a book-length work of narrative nonfiction on a topic of American political or social concern that exemplifies the literary grace, commitment to serious research, and original reporting, that characterized the distinguished work of the award's namesake.

Mark Lynton History Prize

The Mark Lynton History Prize, in the amount of $10,000, is awarded to a book-length work of history on any topic that best combines intellectual distinction with felicity of expression.

Lynton Scholarship Program

The Lynton scholarship program annually provides two research grants of $5,000 apiece to outstanding students in the Book Seminar class at Columbia Journalism School. These grants help support the reporting of narrative non-fiction books in the tradition of J. Anthony Lukas. Since the Lynton scholarships were first awarded in 2005, many of the student recipients have gone on to produce acclaimed books on subjects ranging from the destruction of the Great Lakes to the underworld of pop music piracy to an early school desegregation case brought by a family of Chinese immigrants.

About J. Anthony Lukas

The winner of two Pulitzer Prizes, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award, J. Anthony Lukas published five epic books, each of which examined a critical fault line in America’s social and political landscape by examining individual lives caught up in the havoc of change.

A former foreign and national correspondent for The New York Times, Lukas tackled the country’s generational conflict in his first book “Don’t Shoot: We Are Your Children”; examined the impact of school desegregation in “Common Ground,” and told a sweeping tale of class conflict at the turn of the century in “Big Trouble,” completed just before his death in 1997.

His other books were “The Barnyard Epithet and Other Obscenities: Notes on the Chicago Conspiracy Trial” and “Nightmare: The Underside of the Nixon Years.”

Prof. Samuel G. Freedman on J. Anthony Lukas in Salon (June 12, 1997)

Robert W. Snyder on Lukas’ “Common Ground” in CJR (Sept./Oct. 2006)

About Mark Lynton

One of the three Lukas Prize Project Awards, the Mark Lynton History Prize, is named for the late Mark Lynton, a business executive and author of “Accidental Journey: A Cambridge Internee’s Memoir of World War II.” Lynton was an avid proponent of the writing of history, and the Lynton family has sponsored the Lukas Prize Project since its inception.

“I was born Max Otto Ludwig Loewenstein, in Stuttgart, Germany,” begins Mark Lynton’s autobiography, “Accidental Journey: A Cambridge Internee’s Memoir of World War II,” published in 1995 by The Overlook Press. A student at Cambridge University when WWII began, Lynton provides a witty account of his odyssey from internment at a Canadian detention camp to his return to England and, ultimately, enlistment in the British military, where he served for seven years. Assigned to the Pioneer Corps, Lynton later transferred to the Royal Tank Regiment, attaining the rank of captain. He completed his career with British Intelligence, interrogating German officers.

Born on April 16, 1920, Lynton moved to Berlin two years later when his father was named head of a major German car manufacturer. Raised by a Swiss nanny, Lynton was bilingual in French and German and was educated in Germany, France and England.

Lynton had a long career working for Citroen and was a senior executive at the firm Hunter Douglas in the Netherlands at the time of his death in 1997. His wife, Marion Lynton, and children, Lili and Michael, established the Mark Lynton History Prize as part of the Lukas Prize Project to honor Lynton, who was an avid reader of history. The Lynton family has generously underwritten the Lukas Prize Project since its inception in 1998.

Past Winners

See past winners:

		Lukas Book Prize	Lynton History Prize	Lukas Work-In-Progress Award
2022	Winners	Andrea Elliott Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City	Jane Rogoyska Surviving Katyń: Stalin’s Polish Massacre and the Search for Truth	Roxanna Asgarian We Were Once a Family: The Hart Murder-Suicide and the System Failing Our Kids May Jeong The Life: Sex, Work, and Love in America
	Finalist	Patrick Radden Keefe Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty	Katie Booth The Invention of Miracles: Language, Power, and Alexander Graham Bell’s Quest to End Deafness
	Shortlist	Scott Ellsworth Jessica Nordell Joshua Prager	Noah Feldman Amanda Frost Tiya Miles	Robert Fiesler Benjamin Herold Suki Kim
	Jurors	Bruce Tracy (chair), Jessica Bruder, Julia Pastore, Thomas Chatterton Williams	Julia Keller (chair), Anthony DePalma, Kerri Greenidge	Rachel Louise Snyder (chair), Paul Golob, David Treuer
2021	Winners	Jessica Goudeau After the Last Border: Two Families and the Story of Refuge in America	William G. Thomas III A Question of Freedom: The Families Who Challenged Slavery from the Nation’s Founding to the Civil War	Emily Dufton Addiction, Inc.: How the Corporate Takeover of America’s Treatment Industry Created a Profitable Epidemic Casey Parks Diary of a Misfit
	Finalist	Barton Gellman	Martha S. Jones
	Shortlist	Becky Cooper Seyward Darby Isabel Wilkerson	Walter Johnson Les and Tamara Payne Geraldine Schwarz	David Dennis Channing Gerard Joseph Elizabeth Rush
	Jurors	Miriam Pawel (chair), Sarah Broom, Alex Kotlowitz	Leon Decosta Dash (chair), Tyler Anbinder, Julia Keller.	Peter Ginna (chair), Pamela Newkirk, Rachel Louise Snyder.
2020	Winners	Alex Kotlowitz An American Summer: Love and Death in Chicago	Kerri K. Greenidge Black Radical: The Life and Times of William Monroe Trotter	Bartow J. Elmore Seed Money: Monsanto’s Past and the Future of Food Shahan Mufti American Caliph: The True Story of the Hanafi Siege, America’s First Homegrown Islamic Terror Attack
	Finalists	Emily Bazelon	Daniel Immerwahr
	Shortlist	Jennifer Berry Hawes Jodie Adams Kirshner Margaret O’Mara	Carrie Gibson Pekka Hämäläinen Brendan Simms	Michelle Nijhuis Sarah Schulman Lawrence Tabak
	Jurors	Barbara Clark (chair), Wesley Lowery, Miriam Pawel	Ethan Michaeli (chair), Imani Perry, Mark Whitaker	MacKenzie Fraser-Bub Collier (chair), Peter Ginna, Lucas Wittmann
2019	Winners	Shane Bauer American Prison: A Reporter's Undercover Journey into the Business of Punishment	Andrew Delbanco The War Before the War: Fugitive Slaves and the Struggle for America's Soul from the Revolution to the Civil War Jeffrey C. Stewart The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke	Maurice Chammah Let the Lord Sort Them: Texas and the Death Penalty's Rise and Fall in America Steven Dudley Mara: The Making of the MS13
	Finalists	Lauren Hilgers	David W. Blight
	Shortlist	Howard Blum Chris McGreal Sarah Smarsh	Edith Sheffer Steven J. Zipperstein	Amelia Pang Lauren Sandler Sarah Schulman
	Jurors	Dale Russakoff (chair), Nate Blakeslee, Amy Goldstein	Elizabeth Taylor (chair), Annette Gordon-Reed, David Greenberg	John Duff (chair), MacKenzie Fraser-Bub, Lucas Wittmann
2018	Winners	Amy Goldstein Janesville: An American Story	Stephen Kotkin Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941	Chris Hamby Soul Full of Coal Dust: The True Story of An Epic Battle for Justice Rachel Louise Snyder No Visible Bruises: What We Don't Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us
	Finalists	Jessica Bruder	Caroline Fraser
	Shortlist	Nate Blakeslee Lauren Markham Helen Thorpe	Edward L. Ayers Jonathan Eig Frances FitzGerald	Arthur Holland Michel Katherine E. Standefer Susan Vinocour
	Jurors	William Shinker (chair), David Blum, Dale Russakoff	David Maraniss, Ethan Michaeli, Sylvia Nasar, Elizabeth Taylor	Barbara Clark (chair), John Duff, Chris Jackson
2017	Winners	Gary Younge Another Day in the Death of America: A Chronicle of Ten Short Lives	Tyler Anbinder City of Dreams: The 400-Year Epic History of Immigrant New York	Christopher Leonard Kochland
	Finalists	Zachary Roth	Adam Hochschild	Helen Thorpe
	Shortlist	Arlie Russell Hochschild Nancy Isenberg Jane Mayer	Ethan Michaeli Joan Quigley David Reid	Marie Mutsuki Mockett Eyal Press Richard Steven Street
	Jurors	Charlie Conrad (chair), Nina Burleigh, Richard Joyce	Sylvia Nasar (chair), Leon Dash, Stacy Schiff	John Duff (chair), Martha Levin, Sarah Touborg
2016	Winners	Susan Southard Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War	Nikolaus Wachsmann KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps	Steve Luxenberg Separate: A Story of Race, Ambition and the Battle That Brought Legal Segregation to America
	Finalists	Dale Russakoff	Timothy Snyder	Blaire Briody
	Shortlist	Adam Briggle Kathryn J. Edin & H. Luke Shaefer Stephen Witt	Sean McMeekin Jan Jarboe Russell T.J. Stiles	Sasha Issenberg Steve Oney Meredith Wadman
	Jurors	Mark Kurlansky (chair), Charlie Conrad, Jonathan Mahler, Judy Pasternak	William Shinker (chair), Lynne Olson, Sylvia Nasar	John Duff, John Ryden, William Strachan
2015	Winners	Jenny Nordberg The Underground Girls of Kabul: In Search of a Hidden Resistance in Afghanistan	Harold Holzer Lincoln and the Power of the Press: The War for Public Opinion	Dan Egan Liquid Desert: Life and Death of the Great Lakes
	Finalists	Joshua Davis	Andrew Roberts	Heather Ann Thompson
	Jurors	Cris Beam, Mark Kurlansky, Tim Weiner	Henry William Brands, David M. Kennedy, William Shinker	Gerald Howard, Betty Prashker, David Sanger
2014	Winners	Sheri Fink Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital	Jill Lepore Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin	Adrienne Berard When Yellow Was Black: The untold story of the first fight for desegregation in Southern schools
	Finalists	Jonathan M. Katz	Christopher Clark	Yochi J. Dreazen
	Jurors	Frances Negròn-Muntaner, Carlin Romano, Tim Weiner	Helen L. Horowitz, Richard Snow, Geoffrey C. Ward	Gerald Howard, Betty Prashker, David Sanger
2013	Winners	Andrew Solomon Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity	Robert Caro The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson	Beth Macy Factory Man
	Finalists	Cynthia Carr	David Nasaw	Jim Robbins
	Jurors	William Strachan, Tim Weiner, Ben Yagoda	Ellen Fitzpatrick, CS Manegold, Sylvia Nasar	Shaye Areheart, Gene Foreman, Bob Giles
2012	Winners	Daniel J. Sharfstein The Invisible Line: Three American Families and the Secret Journey from Black to White	Sophia Rosenfeld Common Sense: A Political History	Jonathan M. Katz The Big Truck That Went By: How the World Came to Save Haiti and Left Behind a Disaster
	Finalists	Manning Marable	Michael Willrich & Craig Harline	Susan Southard
	Jurors	Jeffrey Cowie, Jeffrey A. Frank, Steven Mihm, Isabel Wilkerson	Peter Galison, Samuel Moyn, Sylvia Nasar	Shaye Areheart, Dotty Brown, Susan McHenry, Mirta Ojito
2011	Winners	Eliza Griswold The Tenth Parallel: Dispatches from the Fault Line Between Christianity and Islam	Isabel Wilkerson The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration	Alex Tizon Big Little Man: The Asian Male at the Dawn of the Asian Century
	Finalists	Jefferson Cowie, Paul Greenberg, Siddartha Mukherjee	Patrick Wilcken	Joe Mozingo, Florence Williams
	Jurors	Katherine Bouton, E.J. Dionne, David Finkel	Jane Kamensky, Suzanne Marchand, Matthew Stewart	Cecilia Balli, Donald Katz, Carlin Romano
2010	Winners	David Finkel The Good Soldiers	James Davidson The Greeks and Greek Love: A Bold New Exploration of the Ancient World	Jonathan Schuppe Ghetto Ball: A Coach, His Team, and the Struggle of an American City
	Finalists	Patrick Radden Keefe, Beryl Satter	Jenny Uglow	David Philipps
	Jurors	Edward Alden, Ellen Goodman, Daniel Okrent	Timothy Brook, Andrew Meier, Laura Shapiro	Leslie Garis, Robin Marantz Henig, Craig Unger
2009	Winners	Jane Mayer The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals	Timothy Brook Vermeer’s Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World	Judy Pasternak Yellow Dirt: The Betrayal of the Navajos
	Finalists	Edward Alden, Masha Gessen	Annette Gordon-Reed, Joe Jackson, William I. Hitchcock
	Jurors	David Michaelis, Patricia O’Toole, Walter Shapiro	Richard Bernstein, Maya Jasanoff, Patrick Keefe	Michelle Goldberg, Janet Silver, Robert Whitaker
2008	Winners	Jeffrey Toobin The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court	Peter Silver Our Savage Neighbors: How Indian War Transformed Early America	Michelle Goldberg The Means of Reproduction
	Finalists	Alan Weisman	Ramachandra Guha, Saul Friedlander	Lyanda Lynn Haupt, Cecilia Balli
	Jurors	Connie Bruck, Patricia Nelson Limerick, Jonathan Weiner	Fred Anderson, Caroline Elkins, Jane Kramer	Kennedy Fraser, Samuel G. Freedman, Suzannah Lessard
2007	Winners	Lawrence Wright The Looming Tower: Al Quaeda and the Road to 9/11	James T. Campbell Middle Passages: African American Journeys to Africa, 1787-2005	Robert Whitaker Twelve Condemned to Die: Scipio Africanus Jones and The Struggle for Justice That Remade a Nation
	Finalists	Taylor Branch, Michael Isikoff & David Corn, Melissa Faye Greene	Marci Shore, Peniel E. Joseph	Michael Punke
	Jurors	Kai Bird, Nate Blakeslee, Patricia Bosworth	Akira Iriye, Michael Johnson, Bonnie G. Smith	Francis X. Clines, Elinor Langer, Joan Quigley
2006	Winners	Nate Blakeslee Tulia: Race, Cocaine, and Corruption in a Small Texas Town	Megan Marshall The Peabody Sisters: Three Women who Ignited American Romanticism	Laura Claridge Emily Post and the Rise of Practical Feminism
	Finalists	Kurt Eichenwald, Kai Bird & Martin Sherwin	Tony Judt	Bruce Barcott, Dudley Clendinen
	Jurors	Joe Conason, John Darnton, Elizabeth Kolbert	Robert Harms, Louis Masur, Natalie Zemon Davis	Susan Braudy, Kevin Coyne, Richard Pollak
2005	Winners	Evan Wright Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America, and the New Face of American War	Richard Steven Street Beasts of the Field: A Narrative History of California Farmworkers, 1769-1913	Joan Quigley Home Fires
	Finalists	Jason DeParle	Melvin Patrick Ely	Amy Bach, Steven Greenhouse
	Jurors	Tom Edsall, David Maraniss, Elizabeth Rubin	John Demos, Carla Hesse, Paul Robinson	Mark Danner, Thomas Geoghegan, Samantha Power
2004	Winners	David Maraniss They Marched into Sunlight: War and Peace, Vietnam and America, October 1967	Rebecca Solnit River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West	John Bowe Slavery Inc.
	Finalists	Steve Oney, Franklin Toker	Anne Applebaum, Steven Hahn	Eyal Press, Beryl Satter
	Jurors	James Fallows, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, Sylvia Nasar	Edward Berenson, Adam Hochschild, Christine Stansell	Madeleine Blais, James Tobin, Alec Wilkinson
2003	Winners	Samantha Power Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide	Robert Harms The Diligent: A Voyage Through the Worlds of the Slave Trade	Suzannah Lessard Mapping the New World: An Inquiry into the Meaning of Sprawl
	Finalists		Bruce D. Butterfield	Orlando Figes, Steven Stoll
	Jurors	Diane McWhorter, David Nasaw, Richard Reeves	David A. Bell, Michael Kazin, Roy Rosenzweig	Katherine Boo, Nicholas Dawidoff, David M. Kennedy
2002	Winners	Diane McWhorter Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama, The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution	Mark Roseman A Past in Hiding: Memory and Survival in Nazi Germany	Jacques Leslie On Dams
	Finalists		David Kertzer, James Secord	Harry Bruinius, Richard Steven Street
	Jurors	Susan Faludi, William Finnegan, George Packer	Nancy Cott, Thomas Laqueur, David Rothman	Ted Conover, Jonathan Harr, Sara Mosle
2001	Winners	David Nasaw The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst	Fred Anderson Crucible of War: The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766	Max Holland A Need to Know: Inside the Warren Commission
	Finalists	Kurt Eichenwald, Ted Gup	William Duiker	Elinor Langer
	Jurors	Alex Kotlowitz, Jane Mayer, Isabel Wilkerson	Eric Foner, David Kertzer, Karen Ordahl Kupperman	Nancy Hicks Maynard, Thomas Powers, Rebecca Sinkler
2000	Winners	Witold Rybczynski A Clearing in the Distance: Frederick Law Olmsted and America in the Nineteenth Century	John W. Dower Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II	James Tobin Work of the Wind: A Remarkable Family, an Overlooked Genius, and the Race for Flight
	Finalists			Larry Tye, Laura Bridgman
	Jurors	A. Scott Berg, Frances FitzGerald, Henry Mayer	Pauline Maier, Theodore Rabb, Geoffrey Ward	Justin Kaplan, David Laventhol, Susan Sheehan
1999	Winners	Henry Mayer All on Fire: William Lloyd Garrison and the Abolition of Slavery	Adam Hochschild King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa	Kevin Coyne The Best Years of Their Lives: One Town’s Veterans and How They Changed the World
	Jurors	David Burnham, Melissa Fay Greene, Jonathan Yardley	David Levering Lewis, Patricia Nelson Limerick, Richard Snow	Samuel G. Freedman, Cynthia Gorney, Tracy Kidde

Board

CHAIR
Jonathan Alter, Author and senior editor, is chair of the J. Anthony Lukas Prize Project Committee.

Shaye Areheart, Director of the Columbia Publishing Course, Columbia Journalism School

Antoinette Bush, Executive Vice President and Global Head of Government Affairs for News Corp

Samuel G. Freedman, Professor, Columbia Journalism School

Annette Gordon-Reed, Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University

Linda Healey, Editor and Mr. Lukas’s widow

Nicholas Lemann, Joseph Pulitzer II and Edith Pulitzer Moore Professor of Journalism; dean emeritus, Columbia Journalism School

Ann Marie Lipinski, Curator, the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University

Lili Lynton, Daughter of the late Mark Lynton and owner of Dinex Corp

Michael Lynton, Son of the late Mark Lynton and chairman of Snap Inc.

Pamela Paul, Columnist, The New York Times

Abi Wright, Executive Director of Prizes, Columbia Journalism School

Contact

212-854-6468
[email protected]

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Announcing the 2023 Lukas Prizes Winners and Finalists: Read more here.

How to Enter

Click on the carrot below for more info.

J. Anthony Lukas Work­-in-­Progress Awards

J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize

Mark Lynton History Prize

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Past Winners

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J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Awards