David Brion Davis

David Brion Davis (1927–2019) was an American historian specializing in slavery and abolition, best known for his trilogy The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture (1966, Pulitzer Prize), The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution (1975, National Book Award and Bancroft Prize), and The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Emancipation (2014, National Book Critics Circle Award). A Sterling Professor at Yale and founder of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition, he reshaped understanding of slavery's role in Western history, earning the National Humanities Medal in 2014 among numerous honors.