National Book Award for Nonfiction 1981

Nominations

Winner	Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality	John Boswell
Winner	China Men	Maxine Hong Kingston
Winner	Walt Whitman: A Life	Justin Kaplan
	Orwell: The Transformation	Peter Štanský
	The Dream of the Golden Mountains: Remembering the 1930s	Malcolm Cowley
	From a Limestone Ledge	John Graves
	Naming Names	Victor S. Navasky
	American Dreams: Lost and Found	Studs Terkel
	Fire in the Minds of Men: Origins of the Revolutionary Faith	James H. Billington
	The Age of Reform, 1250–1550: An Intellectual and Religious History of Late Medieval and Reformation Europe	Steven Ozment
	Fin-de-Siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture	Carl E. Schorske
	The Shaping of America: A People's History of the Young Republic	Page Smith
	Peter the Great: His Life and World	Robert K. Massie
	Nathaniel Hawthorne in His Times	James R. Mellow