David Herbert Donald

The Charles Warren Professor of American History at Harvard University, David Herbert Donald (1920-2009) also taught at Johns Hopkins, Princeton, Oxford and Columbia. He was twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Biography, in 1961 for Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War, and again in 1988 for Look Homeward: A Life of Thomas Wolfe, a study of the great American novelist of the 1930s. Professor Donald is best known for his works dealing with the era of the Civil War, especially the monumental Lincoln (1996), the first biography of Lincoln to draw on the complete collection of Lincoln's personal, presidential and legal papers. The enthralling biography remained on the New York Times Bestseller List for 14 weeks. He continued his examination of Lincoln's life and character with We Are Lincoln Men, a study of the 16th President as seen through the eyes of his closest friends. Speaking at the International Achievement Summit on the eve of the 2000 United States presidential election, Professor Donald discussed the qualities he believed voters should look for in a presidential candidate.