David Nasaw

David Nasaw is an American author, biographer, and historian specializing in the cultural, social, and business history of early 20th-century America. Nasaw is on the faculty of the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where he is the Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. Professor of History. 

In addition to writing numerous scholarly and popular books, he has written for publications such as the Columbia Journalism Review, American Historical Review, American Heritage, Dissent, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Slate, The London Review of Books, and Condé Nast Traveler.

Nasaw has appeared in several documentaries, including The American Experience, 1996, and two episodes of the History Channel's April 2006 miniseries 10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America: "The Homestead Strike" and "The Assassination of President McKinley." He is cited extensively in the US and British media as an expert on the history of popular entertainment and the news media and as a critic of American philanthropy.

David George Nasaw was born on July 18, 1945, in Cortland, New York, the oldest son of lawyer Joshua Nasaw (1909–1970) and Beatrice Kaplan (1917–2010), an elementary school teacher. Nasaw is the older brother of Jonathan Lewis Nasaw (b. August 26, 1947), the prolific author of at least nine thrillers; and Elizabeth Perl Nasaw (May 29, 1956 – February 28, 2004), who as "Elizabeth Was" (later "Liz Was" and finally "Lyx Ish") was a poet and publisher of avant-garde magazines, and the co-founder of Xexoxial Editions and Dreamtime Village in West Lima, Wisconsin.

Nasaw grew up in Roslyn, New York, and, after a year studying in Denmark as an exchange student, graduated from Roslyn High School in 1963. Nasaw graduated from Bucknell University with a Bachelor of Arts in 1967 before enrolling at Columbia University. He was awarded a Ph.D. in 1972 for his dissertation "Jean-Paul Sartre: Apprenticeship in History (1925–45)".

While studying at Columbia University for more than two years from 1970, Nasaw was one of two full-time teachers in the Elizabeth Cleaners Street School, a short-lived experimental alternative free high school founded in New York City. The experience gave rise to the book "Starting Your Own High School," written by the students and edited by Nasaw.