Richard White (born 1947) is an American historian who is the Margaret Byrne Professor of American History Emeritus at Stanford University. Earlier in his career, he taught at the University of Washington, University of Utah, and Michigan State University.
White received his bachelor's degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Washington.[1] He was chosen for the MacArthur Fellows Program in 1995, and was elected a Member of the American Philosophical Society in 2016.[2] White was founding director of Stanford's Spatial History Project,[3] which implements digital technologies and analyses to illuminate patterns and anomalies for research purposes.
He is a two-time winner of the Francis Parkman Prize, past President of the Organization of American Historians, and the author of books about the American West, Native American history, the United States in the Gilded Age, railroads, capitalism, and environmental history.