William Mark Freund (6 July 1944 – 17 August 2020) was an American academic historian who was particularly known as an authority on the economic and labour history of Africa.

However, he struggled to secure tenure until the publication of The Making of Contemporary Africa (1984) which has been described as a "landmark in African historiography".

Amid the end of Apartheid in South Africa, Freund served as an expert in political economy in committees established by the African National Congress to discuss future economic policy.

Although sympathetic to African nationalism, Freund viewed the ANC with critical distance and was skeptical about its development policy.

[4] He authored an autobiography entitled Bill Freund: An Historian's Passage to Africa which appeared posthumously in 2021.