Born in England and educated at Cambridge, David Cressy has made his career in the United States, where he is George III Professor of British History and Humanities Distinguished Professor at Ohio State University. A social and cultural historian of early modern England, concerned with the intersections of elite and popular culture, central and local government, and official and unofficial religion, he has also written on literacy, kinship, calendar customs, book-burning, and the man in the moon.
A Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, a Guggenheim Fellow, and recipient of awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities, David Cressy is a frequent visitor to England, where he has held visiting fellowships at Churchill College, Cambridge, and at Magdalen, St. Catherine's and All Souls Colleges, Oxford.