David L. Preston

David L. Preston is an award-winning historian of early America with a special interest in war and peace among the French, British, and Indian peoples of the eighteenth century. He is currently the General Mark W. Clark Distinguished Professor of History at The Citadel, where he teaches cadets and officer candidates about U.S. military history and early American history.

Growing up in western Pennsylvania instilled in him a passion for the French & Indian War era, and inevitably, for the Pittsburgh Steelers. He went on to earn his doctorate in American history at The College of William & Mary, where he studied with the influential ethnohistorian Professor James Axtell. His first book, THE TEXTURE OF CONTACT (2009), was hailed as an innovative study of how French, British, and Indian communities coexisted near the Iroquois Confederacy between 1667 and 1783. THE TEXTURE OF CONTACT received the 2010 Albert B. Corey Prize, for best book on American-Canadian relations, a prize awarded biennially by the American Historical Association and Canadian Historical Association. It also received the 2010 Annual Archives Award for Excellence in Research from the New York State Archives.

BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT: THE BATTLE OF THE MONONGAHELA AND THE ROAD TO REVOLUTION grew out of Preston's interest in the French and Native perspectives on the battle. Preston's research in archival collections in the U.S., Britain, Canada, and France uncovered new evidence on Braddock's Defeat, including a revealing French account of the battle and an Iroquois warrior's account of George Washington and the Jumonville Affair. The author also gained "ground truth" from his extensive fieldwork, such as walking Braddock's Road and canoeing along the Allegheny River and French Creek.