For more information about the Phi
Beta Kappa Society, sponsor of these awards, click
here.
2018
Behave : the
biology of humans at our best and worst by Robert Sapolsky
2017
The gene : an
intimate history by Siddhartha Mukherjee
2016
The triumph of
seeds : how grains, nuts, kernels, pulses, and pips, conquered the plant
kingdom and shaped human history by Thor Hanson
2015 Animal weapons : the
evolution of battle by Douglas J. Emlen
2014 Einstein and the quantum :
the quest of the valiant Swabian by A. Douglas Stone
2013
The signal and
the noise : why so many predictions fail-- but some don't by Nate Silver
2012
The fate of
Greenland : lessons from abrupt climate change by Philip Conkling,
Richard Alley, Wallace Broecker and George Denton
2011
Beyond smoke and mirrors :
climate change and energy in the 21st century by Burton Ritcher
2010
Complexity
: a guided tour by Melanie Mitchell
2008
Your inner
fish : a journey into the 3.5-billion-year history of the human body by
Neil Shubin
2007
The making of the fittest : DNA and the
ultimate forensic record of evolution by Sean B. Carroll
2006
Plows, plagues,
and petroleum : how humans took control of climate by William F. Ruddiman
2005
The hunt for the dawn monkey : unearthing the
origins of monkeys, apes and humans
by Chris Beard
2004
Isaac Newton by James Gleick
2003
Life on a young planet : the first three billion years of evolution on earth
by Andrew H. Knoll
2002
A
brain for all seasons : human evolution & abrupt climate change by
William H. Calvin
2001
The two-mile time machine : ice cores, abrupt climate change, and our future
by Richard B. Alley
2000
Cradle of life : the discovery of the earth's earliest fossils by
J. William Schopf
1999
The elegant universe : superstrings, hidden dimensions, and the quest for
the ultimate theory by Brian Greene
1998
Taking
wing : Archaeopteryx and the evolution of bird flight by Pat
Shipman
1997
Guns, germs, and steel : the fates of human societies by Jared
Diamond
1996
Where does the weirdness go? : why quantum mechanics is strange, but not as
strange as you think by David Lindley
1995
Journey to the ants : a story of scientific exploration by Bert Hölldobler
and Edward O. Wilson
1994
Black holes and time warps : Einstein's outrageous legacy by Kip
S. Thorne
1993
Living within limits : ecology, economics, and population taboos by
Garrett Hardin
1992
One long argument : Charles Darwin and the genesis of modern evolutionary
thought by Ernst Mayr
1991
Envisioning
information by Edward R. Tufte
1990
Wonderful life : the Burgess Shale and the nature of history by
Stephen Jay Gould
1989
The how and the why : an essay on the origins and development of physical
theory by David Park
1988
Infinite in
all
directions : Gifford lectures given at Aberdeen, Scotland, April-November
1985 by Freeman Dyson
1987
Chemicals & society : a guide to the new chemical age by Hugh D.
Crone
1986
The mystery of comets by Fred L. Whipple
1985 The
scientific
reinterpretation of form by Norma E. Emerton
1984 Frozen
star : of
pulsars, black holes and the fate of stars by George Greenstein
1983
Hen's teeth and horse's toes by Stephen Jay Gould
1982
Emerging cosmology by Sir Bernard Lovell
1981
Cosmic dawn : the origins of matter and life by Eric Chaisson
1980
The image of eternity : roots of time in the physical world by
David A. Park
1979
Ice ages : solving the mystery by John Imbrie and Katherine Palmer Imbrie
1978
Mechanics of the mind by Colin Blakemore
1977
The high frontier : human colonies in space by Gerard K. O’Neill
(3d ed. (2000)
here)
1976
Beautiful swimmers : watermen, crabs and the
Chesapeake Bay by
William W. Warner
1975
The healing hand : man and wound in the ancient world by Guido Majno
1974
Darwin on man : a psychological study of Scientific creativity by
Howard E. Gruber and Paul H. Barrett
1973
The computer from Pascal to von Neumann by Herman H. Goldstine
1972
The
closing circle
: nature, man and technology by
Barry Commoner
1971
Vitamin C and the common cold by Linus Pauling
1970
Life and death of the salt marsh by John and Mildred Teal
1969
Antibodies and
immunity by G. J. V. Nossal (2d ed. (1978)
here)
1968
Great
waters : a voyage of natural history to study whales, plankton, and the
waters of the Southern Ocean by Sir Alister Hardy
1967
Modern genetics by Haig P. Papazian
1966
Man adapting by René Dubos
1965
Bird migration by Donald R. Griffin
1964
The origin of adaptations by Verne Grant
1963
The unseen world by René Dubos
1962
The world of ice by James L. Dyson
1961
Communication among social bees by Martin Lindauer
1960
The
forest
and the sea : a look at the economy of nature
and the ecology of man by
Marston Bates
1959
Darwin's century : evolution and the men who discovered it by Loren Eisley