| 2023 | Carly Goodman | Dreamland: America’s Immigration Lottery in an Age of Restriction (University of North Carolina Press, 2023) |
| 2022 | Adam B. Lerner | From the Ashes of History: Collective Trauma and the Making of International Politics (Oxford University Press) |
| 2021 | Rush Doshi | The Long Game: China's Grand Strategy to Displace American Order (Oxford University Press) |
| 2020 | Jason Lyall | Divided Armies: Inequality and Battlefield Performance in Modern War (Princeton University Press) |
| 2019 | Dmitry Chernobrov | Public Perception of International Crises: Identity, Ontological Security and Self-Affirmation (Rowman & Littlefield International) |
| 2018 | Michael Cotey Morgan | The Final Act: The Helsinki Accords and the Transformation of the Cold War (Princeton University Press) |
| 2017 | Aisha Ahmad | Jihad & Co.: Black Markets and Islamist Power (Oxford University Press) |
| 2016 | Laura Madokoro | Elusive Refuge: Chinese Migrants in the Cold War (Harvard University Press) |
| 2015 | Jesse Driscoll | Warlords and Coalition Politics in Post-Soviet States (Cambridge University Press) |
| 2014 | Keren Yarhi-Milo | Knowing the Adversary: Leaders, Intelligence, and Assessment of Intentions in International Relations (Princeton University Press) |
| 2013 | Jacob Shapiro | The Terrorist’s Dilemma: Managing Violent Covert Organizations (Princeton University Press) |
| 2012 | Boaz Atzili | Good Fences, Bad Neighbors: Border Fixity and International Conflict (University of Chicago Press) |
| 2011 | Joshua Rovner | Fixing the Facts: National Security and the Politics of Intelligence (Cornell University Press) |
| 2010 | Michael Horowitz | The Diffusion of Military Power: Causes and Consequences for International Politics (Princeton University Press) |
| 2009 | Christine Jojarth | Crime, War, and Global Trafficking: Designing International Cooperation (Cambridge University Press) |
| 2009 | Elizabeth Stanley | Paths to Peace: Domestic Coalition Shifts, War Termination and the Korean War (Stanford University Press) |
| 2008 | Lorenz Lüthi | The Sino-Soviet Split, 1956-1966: The Cold War in the Communist World (Princeton University Press, 2008), |
| 2007 | Erin Jenne | Ethnic Bargaining: The Paradox of Minority Empowerment (Cornell University Press) |
| 2006 | Jacques Hymans | The Psychology of Nuclear Proliferation: Identity, Emotions, and Foreign Policy (Cambridge University Press) |
| 2005 | Victoria Tin-Bor Hui | War and State Formation in Ancient China and Early Modern Europe (Cambridge University Press) |
| 2004 | Benjamin Valentino | Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the Twentieth Century (Cornell University Press) |
| 2003 | Timothy W. Crawford | Pivotal Deterrence: Third-Party Statecraft and the Pursuit of Peace (Cornell University Press) |
| 2002 | Matthew Connelly | A Diplomatic Revolution: Algeria’s Fight for Independence and the Origins of the Post-Cold War Era (Oxford University Press) |
| 2001 | Kenneth A. Schultz | Democracy and Coercive Diplomacy (Cambridge University Press) |
| 2000 | Robert D. English | Russia and the Idea of the West: Gorbachev, Intellectuals, and the End of the Cold War (Columbia University Press) |
| 1999 | Cecelia Lynch | Beyond Appeasement: Interpreting Interwar Peace Movements in World Politics (Cornell University Press) |
| 1998 | Lars Erik Cederman | Emergent Actors in World Politics: How States and Nations Develop and Dissolve (Princeton University Press) |
| 1998 | Elizabeth Kier | Imagining War: French and British Military Doctrine between the Wars (Princeton University Press) |
| 1997 | Jonathan Mercer | Reputation and International Politics (Cornell University Press) |
| 1996 | Audie Klotz | Norms in International Relations: The Struggle Against Apartheid (Cornell University Press) |
| 1995 | James Goldgeier | Leadership Style and Soviet Foreign Policy: Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Gorbachev (Johns Hopkins University Press) |
| 1994 | David Welch | Justice and the Genesis of War (Cambridge University Press) |
| 1993 | Michael Brown | Flying Blind: The Politics of the U.S. Strategic Bomber Program (Cornell University Press) |
| 1992 | Stephen Peter Rosen | Winning the Next War: Innovation and the Modern Military (Cornell University Press) |
| 1991 | Lt. Col. Kenneth Allard | Command, Control, and The Common Defense (Yale University Press) |
| 1989 | Aaron L. Friedberg | The Weary Titan: Britain and the Experience of Relative Decline, 1895-1905 (Princeton University Press) |
| 1988 | Stephen M. Walt | The Origins of Alliances (Cornell University Press) |
| 1987 | Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr. | The Army and Vietnam (John Hopkins University Press) |
| 1986 | Bruce G. Blair | Strategic Command and Control: Redefining the Nuclear Threat (Brookings Institution Press) |
| 1984 | Barry R. Posen | The Sources of Military Doctrine: France, Britain, and Germany Between the World Wars (Cornell University Press) |
| 1983 | John J. Mearsheimer | Conventional Deterrence (Cornell University Press) |
| 1982 | Harry G. Summers | On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War (Presidio Press) |
