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Primary source documents, often accessible only in musty archives, are the raw material from which historian craft their stories. The American Spirit is a virtual archive where students can touch the evidence deposited by the living, breathing, often conflicted and frequently contentious men and women who lived and shaped America's past.
About the author
David M. Kennedy received his Ph.D. from Yale University. He is the Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History Emeritus and co-director of The Bill Lane Center for the Study of the North American West at Stanford University. His first book, BIRTH CONTROL IN AMERICA: THE CAREER OF MARGARET SANGER, was honored with both the Bancroft Prize and the John Gilmary Shea Prize. He has won numerous teaching awards at Stanford, where he teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses in American political, diplomatic, intellectual and social history and in American literature. Dr. Kennedy published a volume in the OXFORD HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, FREEDOM FROM FEAR: THE AMERICAN PEOPLE IN DEPRESSION AND WAR, 1929 - 1945, for which he was honored with the 2000 Pulitzer Prize. He is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the American Philosophical Society, and he served from 2002 - 2011 on the board of the Pulitzer Prizes.
