David S. Patterson

The Pinchots: A Family Saga (Dec. 2022) is my most recent book during a long professional career as an academic and government historian. In a broad sweep covering three generations, my account looks closely at a prominent American family's active involvement in several humanitarian and political reform movements, especially the Pinchot members' commitment to the protection of the environment and civil liberties. The book also explores their connections to the Roosevelts (Theodore, Franklin, and Eleanor) and later the Kennedys. The Pinchot saga follows my two well received books, Toward a Warless World and The Search for Negotiated Peace, which analyzed peace and women's movements. I am a graduate of Yale University and received my Ph.D. in history at the University of California, Berkeley. I have taught U.S. diplomatic and peace history at major universities, and later served as chief editor of the government documentary series, Foreign Relations of the United States, at the U.S. Department of State, Besides history, my family, music, and golf have been important in my life journey.