Governor General's Award for English-language non-fiction

1930s [edit]

1940: J. F. C. Wright, Slava Bohu
1941: Emily Carr, Klee Wyck
1942: Bruce Hutchison, The Unknown Country and Edgar McInnes, The Unguarded Frontier
1943: John D. Robins, The Incomplete Anglers and E.K. Brown, On Canadian Poetry
1944: Dorothy Duncan, Partner in Three Worlds and Edgar McInnes, The War: Fourth Year
1945: Evelyn M. Richardson, We Keep a Light and Ross Munro, Gauntlet to Overlord
1946: Frederick Philip Grove, In Search of Myself and A.R.M. Lower, Colony to Nation
1947: William Sclater, Haida and R. MacGregor Dawson, The Government of Canada
1948: Thomas H. Raddall, Halifax, Warden of the North and C.P. Stacey, The Canadian Army, 1939-1945
1949: Hugh MacLennan, Cross-country and R. MacGregor Dawson, Democratic Government in Canada

1950: Marjorie Wilkins Campbell, The Saskatchewan and W.L. Morton, The Progressive Party in Canada
1951: Josephine Phelan, The Ardent Exile and Frank MacKinnon, The Government of Prince Edward Island
1952: Donald G. Creighton, John A. Macdonald, The Young Politician and Bruce Hutchison, The Incredible Canadian
1953: J.M.S. Careless, Canada, A Story of Challenge and N.J. Berrill, Sex and the Nature of Things
1954: Hugh MacLennan, Thirty and Three and A.R.M. Lower, This Most Famous Stream
1955: N.J. Berrill, Man's Emerging Mind and Donald G. Creighton, John A. Macdonald, The Old Chieftain
1956: Pierre Berton, The Mysterious North and Joseph Lister Rutledge, Century of Conflict
1957: Thomas H. Raddall, The Path of Destiny and Bruce Hutchison, Canada: Tomorrow's Giant
1958: Pierre Berton, Klondike and Joyce Hemlow, The History of Fanny Burney
1959: (none), award temporarily discontinued

1980: Jeffrey Simpson, Discipline of Power: The Conservative Interlude and the Liberal Restoration
1981: George Calef, Caribou and the barren-lands
1982: Christopher Moore, Louisbourg Portraits: Life in an Eighteenth- Century Garrison Town
1983: Jeffery Williams, Byng of Vimy
1984: Sandra Gwyn, The Private Capital: Ambition and Love in the Age of Macdonald and Laurier
1985: Ramsay Cook, The Regenerators: Social Criticism in Late Victorian English Canada
1986: Northrop Frye, Northrop Frye on Shakespeare
1987: Michael Ignatieff, The Russian Album
1988: Anne Collins, In the Sleep Room
1989: Robert Calder, Willie-The Life of W. Somerset Maugham

1990: Stephen Clarkson and Christina McCall, Trudeau and Our Times
1991: Robert Hunter and Robert Calihoo, Occupied Canada: A Young White Man Discovers His Unsuspected Past
1992: Maggie Siggins, Revenge of the Land: A Century of Greed, Tragedy and Murder on a Saskatchewan Farm
1993: Karen Connelly, Touch the Dragon
1994: John A. Livingston, Rogue Primate: An Exploration of Human Domestication
1995: Rosemary Sullivan, Shadow Maker: The Life of Gwendolyn MacEwen
1996: John Ralston Saul, The Unconscious Civilization
1997: Rachel Manley, Drumblair: Memories of a Jamaican Childhood
1998: David Adams Richards, Lines on the Water: A Fisherman's Life on the Miramichi
1999: Marq de Villiers, Water

2000: Nega Mezlekia, Notes from the Hyena's Belly
2001: Thomas Homer-Dixon, The Ingenuity Gap
2002: Andrew Nikiforuk, Saboteurs: Wiebo Ludwig's War Against Big Oil
2003: Margaret MacMillan, Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World
2004: Lt.-Gen. Roméo Dallaire, Shake Hands With the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda
2005: John Vaillant, The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness and Greed
2006: Ross King, The Judgment of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade That Gave the World Impressionism
2007: Karolyn Smardz Frost, I've Got a Home in Glory Land: A Lost Tale of the Underground Railroad
2008: Christie Blatchford, Fifteen Days: Stories of Bravery, Friendship, Life and Death from Inside the New Canadian Army
2009: M. G. Vassanji, A Place Within: Rediscovering India