Shelby Dade Foote Jr. (November 17, 1916 – June 27, 2005) was an American writer, historian, and journalist. Primarily viewing himself as a novelist, he is best known for his authorship of The Civil War: A Narrative, a three-volume history of the American Civil War. Foote's geographic and cultural roots lay in the Mississippi Delta, with his life and writing reflecting the radical shift from the agrarian planter system of the Old South to the Civil Rights era of the New South.

Foote became widely known to the general public through his appearance in Ken Burns's PBS documentary The Civil War in 1990, where he introduced a generation of Americans to a war that he believed was "central to all our lives". He did all his writing by hand with a nib pen, later transcribing the result into a typewritten copy.

While Foote's work was mostly well-received during his lifetime, it has been the subject of criticism by professional historians and academics in recent years.