| David Hackett Fischer | |
| Birth Date: | 2 December 1935 |
| Birth Place: | Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. |
| Occupation: | Professor |
| Genre: | History |
| Notableworks: | Washington's Crossing Champlain's Dream Paul Revere's Ride Albion's Seed Liberty and Freedom The Great Wave |
| Education: | Princeton University (AB) Johns Hopkins University (PhD) |
David Hackett Fischer (born December 2, 1935) is University Professor of History Emeritus at Brandeis University. Fischer's major works have covered topics ranging from large macroeconomic and cultural trends (Albion's Seed, The Great Wave) to narrative histories of significant events (Paul Revere's Ride, Washington's Crossing) to explorations of historiography (Historians' Fallacies, in which he coined the term "historian's fallacy").
Fischer grew up in Baltimore, Maryland. He received an A.B. from Princeton University in 1958 and a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in 1962.[1]
Fischer has been on the faculty of Brandeis University for 50 years, where he is known for being interested in his students and history.[2]
He is best known for two major works: Albion's Seed (1989), and Washington's Crossing (Pivotal Moments in American History) (2004). In Albion's Seed, he argues that core aspects of American culture stem from four British folkways and regional cultures and that their interaction and conflict have been decisive factors in U.S. political and historical development. In Washington's Crossing, Fischer provides a narrative of George Washington's leadership of the Continental Army during the winter of 1776–1777 during the American Revolutionary War.
He was admitted as an honorary member of The Society of the Cincinnati in 2006. He is a member of the board of College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine.
Washington's Crossing (Pivotal Moments in American History) (2004) won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for History[3] and was a 2004 finalist for the National Book Award in the Nonfiction category.[4]
He received the 2006 Irving Kristol Award from the American Enterprise Institute.[5]
In 2008, he published Champlain's Dream, an exploration of Samuel de Champlain, the French explorer and founder of Quebec City. The book was a runner-up in the 2009 Cundill Prize.[6]
In 2015, Fischer was named the recipient of the Pritzker Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing.[1] [7]
In addition to these literary awards, he has been recognized for his commitment to teaching with the 1990 Carnegie Prize as Massachusetts Professor of the Year and the Louis Dembitz Brandeis Prize for Excellence in Teaching.[1]