American intellectual and cultural historian (1927–2019)
David Brion Davis
Born
(1927-02-16)February 16, 1927
Denver, Colorado, U.S.
Died
April 14, 2019(2019-04-14) (aged 92)
Guilford, Connecticut, U.S.
Spouse
Toni Hahn Davis
(m. 1971)
Parents
Clyde Brion Davis
Martha Elizabeth Wirt
Awards
Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction (1967) National Humanities Medal (2014)
Academic background
Education
Dartmouth College (AB) Harvard University (PhD)
Academic work
Discipline
American History
Institutions
Cornell University Yale University
Doctoral students
Sean Wilentz
Notable works
The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture (1966) Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World (2006)
David Brion Davis (February 16, 1927 – April 14, 2019)[1] was an American intellectual and cultural historian, and a leading authority on slavery and abolition in the Western world.[2] He was a Sterling Professor of History at Yale University, and founder and director of Yale's Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition.
Davis authored or edited 17 books. His books emphasize religious and ideological links among material conditions, political interests, and new political values. Ideology, in his view, is not a deliberate distortion of reality or a façade for material interests; rather, it is the conceptual lens through which groups of people perceive the world around them. He was also a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books.[3]
Davis received the 1967 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, and the National Humanities Medal, presented by President Barack Obama in 2014 for "reshaping our understanding of history". He also received the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award for General Nonfiction, the 2015 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for lifetime achievement in contributions to public understanding of racism and appreciation of cultural diversity, and the 2015 Biennial Coif Book Award, a top honor from the Association of American Law Schools for the leading law-related book published in 2013 and 2014.
After serving on the Cornell University faculty for 14 years, Davis taught at Yale from 1970 to 2001. He held one-year appointments as the Harold Vyvyan Harmsworth Visiting Professor of American History at Oxford University (1969–1970), at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, and as the first French-American Foundation Chair in American Civilization at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris.
^"David Brion Davis, Founding Director of the GLC (1927-2019)". The Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition. 15 April 2019. Retrieved 25 October 2023.
^Smith, Harrison (April 17, 2019). "Historian Reshaped Scholarship of Slavery and Abolition". Washington Post. Retrieved April 18, 2019.
^George M. Fredrickson, "The Uses of Antislavery", The New York Review of Books, 16 October 1975
DavidBrionDavis (February 16, 1927 – April 14, 2019) was an American intellectual and cultural historian, and a leading authority on slavery and abolition...
American Novel, Time magazine, June 6, 1938 Clyde BrionDavis at IMDb Turner Classic Movies DavidBrionDavis Papers, Yale University Fiction Mags Index Kellman...
Emeritus, Gilder Lehrman Center Homepage of DavidBrionDavis Fox, Richard Wightman. "DavidBrionDavis: A Biographical Appreciation," in Karen Halttunen...
dissertation, "Studies in the Victorian Family," under the direction of DavidBrionDavis. It was published as A Prison of Expectations: The Family in Victorian...
finalist. Davis, DavidBrion (1966). The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture. Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-0101-1. Davis, DavidBrion (1988)....
ecologist and animal behaviorist DavidBrionDavis (1927–2019), American historian of slavery and abolitionism David E. Davis (1930–2011), American automotive...
Stark, p. 330, Princeton University Press, 2003, ISBN 0691114366) DavidBrionDavis, p. 101 fn. 21 "Sede Vacante1492". Valori, quoted in Pirie, The Triple...
failed and Missouri became a slave state. According to historian DavidBrionDavis, this may have been the first time in the world that a political leader...
the birth of racism in America. Brooklyn, NY: A&B Books, c. 1994. DavidBrionDavis, "Slavery: White, Black, Muslim, Christian." New York Review of Books...
of Islam's The Secret relationship between Blacks and Jews 1992 – DavidBrionDavis, "Jews in the Slave Trade", in Culturefront (Fall 1 992), pp. 42–45...
(2007) claims that such a version was non-existent before, historian DavidBrionDavis also argues that contrary to the claims of many reputable historians...
musicians Adam Horovitz, Richie Birkenhead and Richard Goode, historian DavidBrionDavis, J.D. Salinger, and financiers Bruce Wasserstein and Felix Rohatyn...
in parts of Europe, opposition developed against the slave trade. DavidBrionDavis says that abolitionists assumed "that an end to slave imports would...
Camilo José Vergara 2013 M. H. Abrams American Antiquarian Society DavidBrionDavis William Theodore de Bary Darlene Clark Hine Johnpaul Jones Stanley...
and History". MSL Academic Endeavors. Retrieved November 25, 2023. DavidBrionDavis, "Some themes of counter-subversion: an analysis of anti-Masonic,...
World Digital Library, accessed 26 May 2013 Lucia Stanton, Preface by DavidBrionDavis, Free Some Day: The African-American Families of Monticello, Monticello...
responded and briefly formed the British Ethiopian Regiment. Historian DavidBrionDavis explains the difficulties with a policy of wholesale arming of the...
345. doi:10.2307/3122644. JSTOR 3122644. McCullough, pp. 144–147 DavidBrionDavis and Steven Mintz, The Boisterous Sea of Liberty, 2000 p. 234 Finkelman...
Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World by DavidBrionDavis 2006: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-533944-4 Yiannopoulos...
oppression and racial segregation of African Americans. Historian DavidBrionDavis notes the racial mixing that occurred during slavery was frequently...
the Roman Empire, the institution of slavery was rarely criticised. DavidBrionDavis writes that the "variations in early Christian opinion on servitude...
at this point that slavery was "equal to tyranny". The historian DavidBrionDavis stated that in the years after 1785 and Jefferson's return from Paris...
of State History". U.S. Department of State. Retrieved 2007-12-17. DavidBrionDavis, Steven Mintz (2000). The Boisterous Sea of Liberty A Documentary...
Modern authorities differ. David Barton identifies Salem standing to Thomas Grosvenor's right. Professor DavidBrionDavis, citing evidence from Professor...
indentured servants. Sterling Professor of History at Yale University DavidBrionDavis wrote that: From Barbados to Virginia, colonists long preferred English...
Global Information