David Brion Davis, Prizewinning Historian of Slavery, Dies at 92

Related link: History Doyen: David Brion Davis

David Brion Davis, a distinguished professor and the award-winning author of a magisterial and revelatory trilogy on the history of slavery in the Western world, died on Sunday in Guilford, Conn. He was 92.

His son Adam confirmed the death, at a care facility. Professor Davis, who lived nearby in Madison, Conn., had been Sterling professor of American history emeritus at Yale University, where he taught for more than 30 years.

Professor Davis wrote or edited 16 books, but paramount were the three that examined the moral challenges and contradictions of slavery and their centrality in American and Atlantic history.

The first, “The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture” (1966), won a Pulitzer Prize and was a National Book Award finalist. The second, “The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770-1823” (1975), won the National Book Award as well as the Bancroft Prize, one of the most prestigious in the study of American history.