David Tanenhaus headshot

David Tanenhaus, Ph.D.

Professor

Department(s)
History
Mail Code
5020
Phone
702-895-3549

Biography

David S. Tanenhaus is a Professor in the UNLV History Department and the James E. Rogers Professor of History and Law at the William S. Boyd School of Law. From 2004 to 2012, Tanenhaus served as editor of . He is now General Editor, with Franklin E. Zimring, of NYU Press’s . For the series, he is writing a book entitled The Prosecution Never Rests: The Power Politics of Juvenile Justice Reform in the 1990s.

Tanenhaus is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Grinnell College and received his M.A. and Ph.D. in U.S. History from the University of Chicago. Since coming to UNLV in 1997, he has taught courses on American legal and constitutional history, the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, children and society, and introductory surveys of U.S. History.

He has written extensively about legal and constitutional history. His books include (Oxford University Press, 2004) and (University Press of Kansas, 2011). He co-edited, with Margaret K. Rosenheim, Franklin E. Zimring, and Bernardine Dohrn, (University of Chicago, 2002) and, with Franklin E. Zimring, (NYU Press, 2014). He also served as the editor-in-chief of (MacMillan Reference USA, 2008). 

A passionate believer in connecting universities to communities, he serves as a Trustee of Nevada Humanities, participates in teacher institutes sponsored by the Center for Civic Education and the American Institute for History Education, and helps coordinate both the Philip Pro Lectureship in Legal History at the Boyd School of Law and the UNLV Constitution Day Public Lectureship. 

Expert Areas

  • American Legal History
  • U.S. Constitutional History
  • Children and Society