William H. Chafe (/ˈtʃeɪf/; born January 28, 1942) is an American historian, and currently Alice Mary Baldwin Professor Emeritus of History at

Duke University Duke University is a Private university, private research university in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity, North Carolina, Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1 ...

Durham, North Carolina Durham ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of North Carolina and the county seat of Durham County, North Carolina, Durham County. Small portions of the city limits extend into Orange County, North Carolina, Orange County and Wake County, North Carol ...

Career

Professor Chafe received his

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

from

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

in 1971, and is the author of numerous notable

historical History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some theorists categ ...

texts Text may refer to: Written word * Text (literary theory), any object that can be read, including: **Religious text, a writing that a religious tradition considers to be sacred **Text, a verse or passage from scripture used in expository preachin ...

United States history The history of the present-day United States began in roughly 15,000 BC with the arrival of Peopling of the Americas, the first people in the Americas. In the late 15th century, European colonization of the Americas, European colonization beg ...

. Chafe's research interests focus on

gender Gender is the range of social, psychological, cultural, and behavioral aspects of being a man (or boy), woman (or girl), or third gender. Although gender often corresponds to sex, a transgender person may identify with a gender other tha ...

and

racial equality Racial equality is when people of all Race (human categorization), races and Ethnic group, ethnicities are treated in an egalitarian/equal manner. Racial equality occurs when institutions give individuals legal, moral, and Civil and political r ...

. His publications include: ''Bill and Hillary: The Politics of the Personal'' (2012); ''The Rise and Fall of the American Century: The United States from 1890 to 2008'' (2008); ''The Unfinished Journey: American Since World War II'' (

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

, 2006); ''Private Lives/Public Consequences: Personality and Politics in Modern America'' (

Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is an academic publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University. It is a member of the Association of University Presses. Its director since 2017 is George Andreou. The pres ...

, 2005);'' Never Stop Running'' (

Princeton University Press Princeton University Press is an independent publisher with close connections to Princeton University. Its mission is to disseminate scholarship within academia and society at large. The press was founded by Whitney Darrow, with the financial ...

, 1998); ''The Paradox of Change: American Women in the 20th Century'' (Oxford University Press, 1991); ''Civilities and Civil Rights: Greensboro, North Carolina, and the Black Struggle for Freedom'' (Oxford University Press, 1981). ''Civilities and Civil Rights: Greensboro, North Carolina, and the Black Struggle for Freedom'' won The First Annual Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights Book award given in 1981 to a novelist who "most faithfully and forcefully reflects Robert Kennedy's purposes - his concern for the poor and the powerless, his struggle for honest and even-handed justice, his conviction that a decent society must assure all young people a fair chance, and his faith that a free democracy can act to remedy disparities of power and opportunity."

References

External links

*
''Booknotes'' interview with Chafe on ''Never Stop Running: Allard Lowenstein and the Struggle to Save American Liberalism'', January 30, 1994.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chafe, William Living people 21st-century American historians 21st-century American male writers Historians of the United States Duke University faculty Columbia University alumni American male non-fiction writers 1942 births