For a distinguished book upon the history of the United States, Seven thousand five hundred dollars ($7,500).

Awarded to The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America by Louis Menand (Farrar)

Columbia University President George Rupp (left) presents Louis Menand with the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for History.

Finalists

Also nominated as finalists in this category were: "Deep Souths: Delta, Piedmont, and the Sea Island Society in the Age of Segregation" by J. William Harris (The Johns Hopkins University Press), and "Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America" by Daniel K. Richter (Harvard University Press).