David Nasaw is an American author, biographer and historian who specializes in the cultural, social and business history of early 20th Century America. Nasaw is on the faculty of the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where he is the Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. Professor of History. 

His most recent biography, The Patriarch (2012), based on unrestricted and exclusive access to the papers of his subject Joseph Patrick Kennedy, was named one of the five best nonfiction books of 2012 by the New York Times.