David M. Kennedy

David M. Kennedy, the Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History at Stanford University, is a native of Seattle and a 1963 Stanford graduate. He received his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1968. A renowned teacher, he has been honored with the Dean's Award for Distinguished Teaching and has three times been selected by graduating Stanford seniors as Class Day Speaker. He has taught American history at the University of Florence, Italy, and has lectured on American history in Germany, Finland, Denmark, Turkey, Canada, Australia, and Ireland.

Reflecting his interdisciplinary training in American Studies, which combined the fields of history, literature, and economics, Professor Kennedy's scholarship is notable for its integration of economic and cultural analysis with social and political history. His 1970 book, "Birth Control in America: The Career of Margaret Sanger," embraced the medical, legal, political, and religious dimensions of the subject and helped to pioneer the emerging field of women's history. "Over Here: The First World War and American Society" (1980) used the history of American involvement in World War I to analyze the American political system, economy, and culture in the early twentieth century. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in history for "Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War" (1999), which recounts the history of the United States in the two great crises of the Great Depression and World War II.