David Woodbury on the seldom heard history of the Civil War, and how that war continues to reverberate in the U.S. today

 

David Woodbury is the founder and host of the Central Coast Conference (now in its 2nd year), a weekend-long lecture series dedicated to topics in American history. He earned a degree in History from the University of Evansville, in Indiana, before moving to California 40 years ago. He pursued a long career in publishing, beginning as co-founder of Savas Woodbury Publishers (now Savas Beatie), spent a decade with Stanford University Press, and later, Cengage Learning in San Francisco.

David is the editor of Talking about History: Historians Discuss the Civil War (2014), and was the cartographer for the Library of Congress Civil War Desk Reference. David has organized group tours of America’s Civil War battlefields for over 30 years.

Upon retiring from publishing, David launched Woodbury Historical Tours, expanding their tour offerings into other areas, including Indian Wars, and themes related to the American West. He began the Central Coast Conference in 2024, and plans to keep this lecture series going annually, at the Stanton Center in Monterey. This year’s conference theme is Seldom Heard History of the Civil War Era.

David lives in Palo Alto with his wife Anne, where they raised three sons.