birth_place nationality fields workplaces birth_date spouse article_title name alma_mater
denver , colorado american history yale university 16 february 1927 toni hahn davis david brion davis
 david brion davis dartmouth college harvard university
david brion davis

david brion davis -lrb- born february 16 , 1927 in denver , colorado -rrb- is an american intellectual and cultural historian , and a leading authority on slavery and abolition in the western world .
he is a sterling professor of history emeritus at yale university , and founder and director emeritus of yale 's gilder lehrman center for the study of slavery , resistance , and abolition .
the author and editor of 17 books , he 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 and the 2015 anisfield-wolf lifetime achievement award for his contributions to public understanding of racism and appreciation of cultural diversity .
in the white house ceremony in which he conferred the national humanities medal , president obama praised professor davis for shedding `` light on the contradiction of a union founded on liberty , yet existing half-slave and half-free . ''
he also declared that professor davis 's `` examinations of slavery and abolitionism drive us to keep making moral progress in our time . ''
a frequent contributor to `` the new york review of 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 .
after serving on the cornell university faculty for 14 years , davis taught at yale from 1970 to 2001 .
he has held one-year appointments as the harold vyvyan harmsworth visiting professor of american history at oxford university -lrb- 1969-1970 -rrb- , 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 .
