For a distinguished book of non-fiction by an American author that is not eligible for consideration in any other category, three thousand dollars ($3,000).

Awarded to The Haunted Land: Facing Europe's Ghosts After Communism by Tina Rosenberg (Random House)

Tina Rosenberg receives the 1996 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction from Columbia University President George Rupp.

Finalists

Also nominated as finalists in this category were: "Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and The Meanings of Life" by Daniel C. Dennett (Simon & Schuster), and "Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder" by Lawrence Weschler (Pantheon).