David Pietrusza has produced a number of critically-acclaimed works concerning 20th century American history.
His 1960: LBJ vs JFK vs Nixon: The Epic Campaign that Forged Three Presidencies was named by ForeWord Magazine as among the best political biographies.
Pietrusza's 1920: The Year of the Six Presidents received a Kirkus starred review and a was honored as a Kirkus "Best Books of 2007" title and was named an alternate selection of the History Book Club. Historian Richard Norton Smith has listed 1920: The Year of the Six Presidents as being among the best studies of presidential campaigns.
Pietrusza's biography of Arnold Rothstein entitled Rothstein: The Life, Times & Murder of the Criminal Genius Who Fixed the 1919 World Series was a finalist for the 2003 Edgar Award. Rothstein's audio version won an AUDIOFILE Earphones Award.
Pietrusza's Judge and Jury, his biography of baseball's first commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, received the 1998 CASEY Award and was also a Finalist for the 1998 Seymour Medal and nominated for the NASSH Book Award.
His Lights On!: The Wild Century-Long Saga of Night Baseball was a 1997 CASEY Award finalist.
Pietrusza collaborated with baseball legend Ted Williams on an autobiography called Ted Williams: My Life in Pictures. This book contained pictures of Williams throughout his life (many from his personal collection) and commentary on what each one depicted. Williams died shortly after the book was published.
From 1993 to 1997, Pietrusza served as president of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), and was later the editor-in-chief of the short-lived publishing company Total Sports. He has been a frequent guest on ESPN documentary series such as SportsCentury, You Can't Blame, and Who's Number 1? and has been interviewed on NPR, MSNBC's "Morning Joe," and C-SPAN2/BookTV's "After Words" series.
Pietrusza served on the board of trustees for the Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation.
Pietrusza holds both bachelor's and master's degrees in history from the University at Albany and has served on the City Council in Amsterdam, New York. |
Current Projects:
His next book with an account of the Truman-Dewey-Thurmond-Wallace 1948 presidential election.
He is also working on his first novel.
University Affiliations:
State University of New York at Albany, B. A. & M. A in History