For a distinguished and well documented book of nonfiction by an American author that is not eligible for consideration in any other category, Ten thousand dollars ($10,000).

Awarded to The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945 by Saul Friedländer (HarperCollins)

Richard Oppel, Pulitzer Board co-chair (left), presents the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction to Saul Friedlander.

Finalists

Also nominated as finalists in this category were: "The Cigarette Century" by Allan Brandt (Basic Books), and "The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century" by Alex Ross (Farrar, Straus and Giroux).