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 "Ashes to Ashes: America's Hundred-Year Cigarette War, the Public Health, and the Unabashed Triumph of Philip Morris" by Richard Kluger (Alfred A. Knopf).
Also nominated as finalists in this category were: "The Inheritance: How Three Families and America Moved from Roosevelt to Reagan and Beyond" by Samuel G. Freedman (Simon & Schuster), and "Fame and Folly" by Cynthia Ozick (Alfred A. Knopf).