Prior to his career as a journalist and historian, Gwynne was a French teacher at
Gilman School in Baltimore, Maryland. He was an international banker with both Ameritrust in Cleveland, Ohio and First Interstate Bank in Los Angeles and traveled extensively overseas.
He worked for Time magazine as a correspondent, bureau chief, and senior editor. He was later executive editor at Texas Monthly.[6][7] His journalism has appeared in the New York Times, Harper's, Los Angeles Times, Outside Magazine, Dallas Morning News, California Magazine, and the Wall Street Journal, among others. His New York Times Bestseller Empire of the Summer Moon (2010) was a finalist for the
Pulitzer Prize in the General Nonfiction category and a finalist for the
National Book Critics Circle Award. His book Rebel Yell, a biography of
Stonewall Jackson – also a New York Times Bestseller – was a finalist for the PEN Award for Literary Biography and for the National Book Critics Circle Award in history. He is also the author of The Perfect Pass: American Genius and the Reinvention of Football (2016), and, most recently, Hymns of the Republic: the Story of The Final Year of the American Civil War (2019). His newest book, His Majesty's Airship: The Life and Tragic Death of the World's Largest Flying Machine, was released on May 2, 2023.
The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride into the Secret Heart of BCCI, Random House, 1993
Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Tribe in American History, Scribner, 2010,
ISBN9781849018203.[8]
Jack Anderson Award For Best Investigative Reporting
National Headliners Club Award for Reporting
Oklahoma Book Award
Texas Book Award
John Hancock award for Excellence in Financial Reporting
National City and Regional Magazine Award for Writer of the Year
Selected for "Best American Crime Writing" 2006
Finalist for 2011 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction (Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History)