He is the Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History Emeritus at Stanford University[2] and the former director of the Bill Lane Center for the American West.
Kennedy is responsible for the recent editions of the popular history textbook, The American Pageant.
Earlier in his career, Kennedy won the Bancroft Prize for his first book Birth Control in America: The Career of Margaret Sanger (1970), and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for his book World War I, Over Here: The First World War and American Society (1980).
He won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for History for Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945 (1999).
Kennedy married Judith (Judy) Ann Osborne in 1970, and they remained together until her death on June 5, 2023.