Carl Sagan's 1980 book Cosmos won which award in 1981?

Carl Sagan’s 1980 book Cosmos won the Hugo Award for Best Non-Fiction Book in 1981.

Cosmos was created alongside Sagan’s thirteen-part PBS television series, Cosmos: A Personal Voyage. The book’s thirteen illustrated chapters correspond to the series’ thirteen episodes and range across astronomy, biology, history, space exploration, and the development of scientific thought.

Its success was unusual for a science book. Cosmos became a major international bestseller, spending 50 weeks on the Publishers Weekly list and 70 weeks on The New York Times Best Seller list. Its accessible style helped bring subjects such as stellar evolution, DNA, human origins, and nuclear-war risk to a general audience.

The award is often confused with the Nebula Award, which is presented by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association, or the Locus Award, voted on by readers of Locus magazine. The Hugo category recognized Cosmos specifically as nonfiction, not as a science-fiction novel. Sagan’s later science book Pale Blue Dot followed in 1994.