David Kertzer

David Kertzer
Kertzer, photographed in 2015
Born	David Israel Kertzer (1948-02-20) February 20, 1948 (age 69) New York City, U.S.
Residence	Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.
Citizenship	United States
Alma mater	Brown University, Brandeis University
Occupation	Professor, historian, author
Employer	Brown University
Notable work	The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara (1997); The Popes Against the Jews (2001); The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe (2014)
Awards	Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography (2015)
Website	www.davidkertzer.com

David Israel Kertzer (born February 20, 1948) is an American anthropologist, historian, and academic leader specializing in the political, demographic, and religious history of Italy. He is Paul Dupee, Jr. University Professor of Social Science, Professor of Anthropology, and Professor of Italian Studies at Brown University. His book The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe (2014) won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography.

Kertzer graduated from Brown University in 1969. He received his PhD in 1974 from Brandeis University, and taught at Bowdoin College until 1992. That year he joined the faculty of Brown University as Professor of Anthropology and History.

Sponsored by the U.S.-Italy Fulbright Commission, in 1978 he was Senior Lecturer at the University of Catania and in 2000, Chair at the University of Bologna. In 2001, he relinquished his post at Brown as Professor of History and was appointed Professor of Italian Studies. In 2005, he was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. From July 1, 2006, to June 30, 2011, Kertzer served as Provost at Brown.

Kertzer is the author of numerous books and articles on politics and culture, European social history, anthropological demography, 19th-century Italian social history, contemporary Italian society and politics, and the history of Vatican relations with the Jews and the Italian state. His book, The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara, was a finalist for the National Book Award in Nonfiction in 1997. His The Popes Against the Jews, published in 2001, was subsequently described as "one of the most critically acclaimed and contentious books of its genre and generation." The book analyzes the relation between the development of the Catholic Church and the growth of European anti-Semitism in the 19th and 20th centuries, arguing that the Vatican and several popes contributed actively to fertilizing the ideological ground that produced the Holocaust. The work produced intense discussion among scholars of European history and historians of the Catholic Church.