Professor Nasaw's most recent publication is The Patriarch: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy, selected by the New York Times as one of the Ten Best Books of the Year and a 2013 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Biography. He is also the author of Andrew Carnegie, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, the recipient of the New-York Historical Society's American History Book Prize, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst which was awarded the Bancroft Prize for History, the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize for Non-Fiction, the Ambassador Book Prize for Biography, and the Sperber Prize for Biography.

Professor Nasaw received his Ph.D. degree in history from Columbia University.