David M. Kennedy (historian)


David Michael Kennedy is an American historian specializing in American history. He is the Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History Emeritus at Stanford University and the former Director of the Bill Lane Center for the American West. Kennedy's scholarship is notable for its integration of economic analysis and cultural analysis with social history and political history.
Kennedy is responsible for the recent editions of the popular history textbook The American Pageant. He is also the current editor of the Oxford History of the United States series. This position was held previously by C. Vann Woodward. Earlier in his career, Kennedy won the Bancroft Prize for his first book Birth Control in America: The Career of Margaret Sanger, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for his book World War I, Over Here: The First World War and American Society. He was the Harold Vyvyan Harmsworth Professor of American History in 1995–1996. He won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for History for Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945.

Biography

Born on July 22, 1941, in Seattle, Washington, Kennedy received his Bachelor of Arts degree in history from Stanford University and his Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in American studies from Yale University. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Kennedy is married and the father of two sons and a daughter.

Books