| Year
|
Book
|
Author
|
Subject
|
| 2021
|
The Sirens of Mars: Searching for Life on Another World
|
Sarah Stewart Johnson
|
Astrobiology
|
| 2020
|
Archaeology From Space: How the Future Shapes Our Past
|
Sarah Parcak
|
Archaeology
|
| 2019
|
Light of the Stars: Alien Worlds and the Fate of the Earth
|
Adam Frank
|
Astrobiology
|
| 2018
|
Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst
|
Robert Sapolsky
|
Biology
|
| 2017
|
The Gene: An intimate history
|
Siddhartha Mukherjee
|
Biology
|
| 2016
|
The Triumph of Seeds: How Grains, Nuts, Kernels, Pulses, & Pips Conquered the Plant Kingdom and Shaped Human History
|
Thor Hansen
|
Biology
|
| 2015
|
Animal Weapons: The Evolution of Battle
|
Douglas J. Emlen
|
Biology
|
| 2014
|
Einstein and the Quantum: The Quest of the Valiant Swabian
|
A. Douglas Stone
|
Quantum Physics
|
| 2013
|
The Signal and the Noise: Why Most Predictions Fail—but Some Don't
|
Nate Silver
|
Statistics
|
| 2012
|
The Fate of Greenland: Lessons from Abrupt Climate Change
|
Philip Conkling, Richard Alley, Wallace Broecker, and George Denton
|
Global warming
|
| 2011
|
Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Climate Change and Energy in the 21st Century
|
Burton Richter
|
Global warming
|
| 2010
|
Complexity: A Guided Tour
|
Melanie Mitchell
|
Complexity
|
| 2009
|
The Art and Politics of Science
|
Harold Varmus
|
History of science
|
| 2008
|
Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body
|
Neil Shubin
|
Biology
|
| 2007
|
The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution
|
Sean B. Carroll
|
Biology
|
| 2006
|
Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum: How Humans Took Control of Climate
|
William F. Ruddiman
|
Climatology
|
| 2005
|
The Hunt for the Dawn Monkey: Unearthing the Origins of Monkeys, Apes and Humans
|
K. Christopher Beard
|
Biology
|
| 2004
|
Isaac Newton
|
James Gleick
|
Physics
|
| 2003
|
Life on a Young Planet: The First Three Billion Years of Evolution on Earth
|
Andrew H. Knoll
|
Biology
|
| 2002
|
A Brain for All Seasons: Human Evolution & Abrupt Climate Change
|
William H. Calvin
|
Climatology
|
| 2001
|
The Two-Mile Time Machine: Ice Cores, Abrupt Climate Change, and Our Future
|
Richard B. Alley
|
Climatology
|
| 2000
|
Cradle of Life: The Discovery of the Earth's Earliest Fossils
|
J. William Schopf
|
Paleontology
|
| 1999
|
The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory
|
Brian Greene
|
Cosmology
|
| 1998
|
Taking Wing: Archaeopteryx & The Evolution of Bird Flight
|
Pat Shipman
|
Paleontology
|
| 1997
|
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
|
Jared Diamond
|
Sociology
|
| 1996
|
Where Does the Weirdness Go? Why Quantum Mechanics is Strange, But Not as Strange as You Think
|
David Lindley
|
Physics
|
| 1995
|
Journey to the Ants: A Story of Scientific Exploration
|
Edward O. Wilson, Bert Hölldobler
|
Biology
|
| 1994
|
Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy
|
Kip Thorne
|
Physics
|
| 1993
|
Living Within Limits: Ecology, Economics, and Population Taboos
|
Garrett Hardin
|
Ecology
|
| 1992
|
One Long Argument: Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary Thought
|
Ernst W. Mayr
|
Biology
|
| 1991
|
Envisioning Information
|
Edward R. Tufte
|
Statistics
|
| 1990
|
Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History
|
Stephen Jay Gould
|
Biology
|
| 1989
|
The How and the Why: An Essay on the Origins and Development of Physical Theory
|
David Allen Park
|
Physics
|
| 1988
|
Infinite in All Directions
|
Freeman Dyson
|
Cosmology
|
| 1987
|
Chemicals and Society: A Guide to the New Chemical Age
|
Hugh D. Crone
|
Chemistry
|
| 1986
|
The Mystery of Comets
|
Fred L. Whipple
|
Astronomy
|
| 1985
|
The Scientific Reinterpretation of Form
|
Norma E. Emerton
|
Science
|
| 1984
|
Frozen Star: Of Pulsars, Black Holes and the Fate of Stars
|
George Greenstein
|
Astronomy
|
| 1983
|
Hen’s Teeth and Horse’s Toes: Further Reflections in Natural History
|
Stephen Jay Gould
|
Biology
|
| 1982
|
Emerging Cosmology: Convergence
|
Bernard Lovell
|
Cosmology
|
| 1981
|
Cosmic Dawn: The Origins of Matter and Life
|
Eric J. Chaisson
|
Cosmology
|
| 1980
|
The Image of Eternity: Roots of Time in the Physical World
|
David Allen Park
|
Physics
|
| 1979
|
Ice Ages: Solving the Mystery
|
John Imbrie and Katherine Palmer Imbrie
|
Climatology
|
| 1978
|
Mechanics of the Mind
|
Colin Blakemore
|
Medicine
|
| 1977
|
The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space
|
Gerard K. O'Neill
|
Space colonization
|
| 1976
|
Beautiful Swimmers: Watermen, Crabs and the Chesapeake Bay
|
William W. Warner
|
Biology
|
| 1975
|
The Healing Hand: Man and Wound in the Ancient World
|
Guido Majno
|
Medicine
|
| 1974
|
Darwin on Man: A Psychological Study of Scientific Creativity
|
Howard E. Gruber, Paul H. Barrett
|
Biology
|
| 1973
|
The Computer from Pascal to von Neumann
|
Herman H. Goldstine
|
Computation
|
| 1972
|
The Closing Circle: Nature, Man and Technology
|
Barry Commoner
|
Sociology
|
| 1971
|
Vitamin C and the Common Cold
|
Linus Pauling
|
Medicine
|
| 1970
|
The Life and Death of a Salt Marsh
|
John Teal
|
Ecology
|
| 1969
|
Antibodies and Immunity
|
Gustav J. G. Nossal
|
Medicine
|
| 1968
|
Great waters: A Voyage of Natural History to Study Whales, Plankton, and the Waters of the Southern Ocean
|
Alister Hardy
|
Biology
|
| 1967
|
Modern Genetics
|
Haig P. Papazian
|
Biology
|
| 1966
|
Man Adapting
|
René Dubos
|
Medicine
|
| 1965
|
Bird Migration
|
Donald R. Griffin
|
Biology
|
| 1964
|
The Origin of Adaptations
|
Verne Grant
|
Biology
|
| 1963
|
The Unseen World
|
René Dubos
|
Biology
|
| 1962
|
The World of Ice
|
James L. Dyson
|
Climatology
|
| 1961
|
Communication Among Social Bees
|
Martin Lindauer
|
Biology
|
| 1960
|
The Forest and the Sea
|
Marston Bates
|
Ecology
|
| 1959
|
Darwin’s Century: Evolution and the Men Who Discovered It
|
Loren Eiseley
|
Biology
|