In 2009, 2 prizes were awarded in the book category:
Jane Mayer
Steven Greenhouse

Jane Mayer

The Dark Side

Doubleday

Watch video of the awards presentation.

The Dark Side is a dramatic and definitive account of how the United States made self-destructive decisions in pursuit of terrorists around the world—decisions that not only violated the constitution and American values, but also dramatically hindered the pursuit of Al Qaeda.

Jane Mayer is a Washington-based staff writer for The New Yorker, who specializes in political and investigative reporting. Before that, she was a senior writer and page one editor for The Wall Street Journal, as well as the Journal’s first female White House correspondent. She is the co-author of two other best-selling and critically acclaimed narrative nonfiction books, Landslide: The Unmaking of the President, 1984-1988 and Strange Justice: The Selling of Clarence Thomas. The latter was a finalist for the National Book Award.

Steven Greenhouse

The Big Squeeze

Knopf

Watch video of the awards presentation.

Steve Greenhouse’s brilliant and vividly reported exposé shows how employers have been squeezing -- through legal and illegal means -- the life out of American workers. There have been many books about the plight of workers in the United States. None of them combine the vivid reporting with the passion and moral indignation of The Big Squeeze. Greenhouse’s interviews vividly remind us that no economic system can prosper in the long run if people who work hard and play by the rules cannot meet their basic needs.

Steven Greenhouse is the labor and workplace reporter for The New York Times. Based in New York City, he has covered workplace issues for the Times since late 1995 and is one of the few remaining full-time labor reporters in the country. In that position, he has written about wage trends, labor unions, immigrant workers, child labor, and the way major corporations treat—and mistreat—their workers. He has done investigative exposés about Walmart locking in its workers at night, abysmal housing conditions for the nation’s farm workers, and Toys “R” Us and other companies cheating workers by secretly erasing hours from their time cards. A native of Massapequa, N.Y., he attended Wesleyan University, where he was editor-in-chief of the college newspaper. After earning a master’s degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, he went to work for the Bergen Record in New Jersey. In 1982, he graduated first in his class from the New York University School of Law.