The 2025 Pulitzer Prize for the best popular science book was awarded to American historian Benjamin Nathans for his work “for the success of our hopeless cause”, which tells the history of the Soviet dissident movement. The names of the winners are printed on the award’s website.
The 797-page book was published in 2024 by Princeton University Press. Drawing on diaries, memoirs, personal letters, interviews and KGB interrogation protocols, the author recounts how “dissidents decided to use Soviet law to contain the power of the Soviet state.” “In an unfree country, they began to behave like free people,” the abstract says.
Benjamin Nathans is an associate professor at the prestigious University of Pennsylvania. He will receive a $15,000 award for winning.
The American Pulitzer Prize is one of the most prestigious awards in journalism, literature and music. It is awarded for works in English that first entered the US market.