James S. Olson

M.A., Ph.D., The State University of New York at Stony Brook

James Olson came to Sam Houston State University in 1972 as an assistant professor and is today Distinguished Professor of History. He is the recipient of the university's Excellence in Teaching Award and Excellence in Research Award. In 2004, the Council for the Advancement of Education and the Carnegie Endowment for Education named him "Professor of the Year, Texas, for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching."

Jim is the author, co-author, editor, or co-editor of more than thirty books, including The Ethnic Dimension in American History (St. Martin’s Press); Saving Capitalism: The Reconstruction Finance Corporation and the New Deal, 1933-1940 (Princeton University Press); Catholic Immigrants in America (Nelson-Hall); Winning is the Only Thing: Sports in America Since 1945 (The Johns Hopkins University Press); Where the Domino Fell: America and Vietnam, 1945 to 1990 (St. Martin’s Press); and John Wayne American (The Free Press), which won the Ray and Pat Brown National Book Award from the Popular Culture Association. His book A Line in the Sand: The Alamo in Blood and Memory (The Free Press) won the Diolece Parmelee Award from the Texas Historical Foundation. Finally, his most recent book—Bathsheba’s Breast: Women, Cancer, and History (The Johns Hopkins University Press)—was nominated by The Johns Hopkins University Press for the Pulitzer Prize in History, won the 2002 History of Science Category Award from the Association of American Publishers, and was recognized by the Los Angeles Times as one of the best non-fiction books in America for 2002.