For a distinguished book of non-fiction by an American author that is not eligible for consideration in any other category, Five thousand dollars ($5,000).

Awarded to Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II by John W. Dower (W.W. Norton & Company/The New Press)

Columbia University President George Rupp (right) presents John W. Dower with The 2000 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction.

Finalists

Also nominated as finalists in this category were: "The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory" by Brian Greene (W.W. Norton & Company), and "Living on the Wind: Across the Hemisphere with Migratory Birds" by Scott Weidensaul (North Point Press/Farrar, Straus and Giroux).