He was the founder and director of the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University from 1994 until his death in October 2007 from lung cancer, aged 57.

Roy Alan Rosenzweig was born on August 6, 1950, in New York City and was raised in Bayside, Queens.

He also co-authored (with David Thelen) The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History in American Life, which won prizes from the University of Mary Washington Center for Historic Preservation and the American Association for State and Local History.

He was co-author, with Steve Brier and Joshua Brown, of the American Social History Project's CD-ROM, Who Built America?

His most recent book (co-authored with Daniel Cohen) is Digital History: A Guide to Gathering, Preserving, and Presenting the Past on the Web, He has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and has lectured in Australia as a Fulbright Professor.