Historian - Author
David S. Patterson
American Historian and Author of the Acclaimed book
Testimonies
Praise for The Pinchots: A Family Saga
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THE PINCHOTS presents many characters in all their entanglements with clarity and surrounds everyone with uncommon command of many subjects at once. Surely, it will be the basic rendering of this family forever.
JAMES M. BANNER, JR.
Author of The Ever-Changing Past: Why All History is Revisionist History
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With THE PINCHOTS, David Patterson has given us an absorbing and authoritative account of a remarkable American family. It's a fascinating story well told, with nuance, power, and grace.
FREDRIK LOGEVALL
Harvard University
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He brings to life the Pinchot women in his stories.
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An enthralling saga of a family that, like the Roosevelts, played a formidable role in American history.
Maurine Beasley
Author of Eleanor Roosevelt: Transformative First Lady
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Patterson's remarkable book details the family's triumphs and tragedies and its vivid, often quirky personalities.
Dennis Gilbert
Author of The American Class Structure
Biography
David S. Patterson
In his accomplished career, David Patterson has served both as an academic and government historian.
After teaching diplomatic, peace, and women’s history at major universities, he served for several years at the U.S. State Department as Chief Editor of Foreign Relations of the United States, a long-standing, multi-volume documentary series.
He is the author of two well received books, Toward a Warless World: The Travail of the American Peace Movement, 1887-1914 and The Search for Negotiated Peace: Women’s Activism and Citizen Diplomacy in World War I.
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David’s just published book on the Pinchot family is an outgrowth of his growing concerns about the global environmental challenges, which Gifford Pinchot first spearheaded more than a century ago, and his ongoing research into Amos Pinchot’s commitment to civil liberties and antiwar movements.
He holds a B.A. from Yale University and a M.A. and Ph.D. in history from the University of California, Berkeley. His professional memberships include the Peace History Society (and past president), Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (and past council member), and Society for History in the Federal Government.
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Besides history, his other passions include music – he previously sang in college singing groups and the glee club and still sings in a choir -- sports, especially golf, and, like the Pinchots, the central importance of family.
David and his wife live in Maryland, and within commuting distance of their son and wife and two grandsons.
Awards
Among his honors, David was awarded a Mershon Social Science Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Humanities travel grant. During a teaching year in China, he was named the Sir Run Run Shaw Professor of American History at the Johns Hopkins University (SAIS) - Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American Studies. More recently he served as a visiting fellow at the Rothermere American Institute at the University of Oxford.