Historians from Texas

Lawrence_Goodwyn

Lawrence Corbett Goodwyn (July 16, 1928 – September 29, 2013) was an American journalist and political theorist known for his study of American populism. He served as a professor at Duke University from 1971 to 2003.Goodwyn was best known for writing Democratic Promise: The Populist Moment in America, a book which chronicles the origins and rise of the People's Party. The book was nominated for the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 1977, and it achieved finalist status. An abridged version of Democratic Promise, titled The Populist Moment: A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in America, was published in 1978. The Populist Moment became a staple in university history seminars, labor organizing institutes and community activism efforts for years to come.
His publications generally focused on the Southern United States, but in 1991 he published Breaking the Barrier: the Rise of Solidarity in Poland, a book that focused on a working class movement from another region: Poland's Solidarnosc movement.

Frank_Vandiver

Frank Everson Vandiver (December 9, 1925 in Austin, Texas – January 7, 2005 in College Station, Texas) was an American Civil War historian, the 19th president of Texas A&M University and the former president of the University of North Texas, as well as acting president of Rice University. Vandiver wrote, co-wrote, or edited 24 books, and published an additional 100 scholarly articles or reviews. One of his books was a runner-up for a National Book Award.

James_Lawton_Collins_Jr.

James Lawton Collins Jr. (5 November 1917 – 6 May 2002) was a brigadier general in the U.S. Army who served in World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War, a military historian, and a viticulturist. He was the son of Major General James Lawton Collins, nephew of General J. Lawton Collins, who served as Chief of Staff of the Army during the Korean War, and older brother of Apollo 11 astronaut Major General Michael Collins. He led a North Dakota National Guard artillery battalion in Normandy in 1944, and served as the U.S. Army Chief of Military History from 1970 to 1982.

Jerry_D._Thompson

Jerry Don Thompson (born November 21, 1942) is Regents Piper Professor of History at Texas A&M International University in Laredo, Texas. He is a prolific author of books on a variety of related topics, specializing in the American Civil War, the history of the Southwestern United States, and Texas history. According to WorldCat, two of his books are available from more than six hundred major libraries worldwide – Confederate General of the West: Henry Hopkins Sibley, and Civil War in the Southwest: Recollections of the Sibley Brigade.

Ernest_May_(historian)

Ernest Richard May (November 19, 1928 – June 1, 2009) was an American historian of international relations, whose 14 published books include analyses of American involvement in World War I and the causes of the Fall of France during World War II. His 1997 book The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House During the Cuban Missile Crisis became the primary sources of the 2000 film Thirteen Days starring Kevin Costner that viewed the Missile Crisis from the perspective of American political leaders. He served on the 9/11 commission and highlighted the failures of the government intelligence agencies. May taught full-time on the faculty of Harvard University for 55 years, until his death. May was also a recipient of the 1988 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision Makers, co-authored with Richard Neustadt.

Robert_Farris_Thompson

Robert Farris Thompson (December 30, 1932 – November 29, 2021) was an American art historian and writer who specialized in Africa and the Afro-Atlantic world. He was a member of the faculty at Yale University from 1965 to his retirement more than fifty years later and served as the Colonel John Trumbull Professor of the History of Art. Thompson coined the term "black Atlantic" in his 1983 book Flash of the Spirit: African and Afro-American Art and Philosophy – the expanded subject of Paul Gilroy's book The Black Atlantic.He lived in the Yoruba region of southwest Nigeria while he conducted his research of Yoruba arts history. He was affiliated with the University of Ibadan and frequented Yoruba village communities. Thompson studied the African arts of the diaspora in the United States, Mexico, Argentina, Cuba, Haiti, Puerto Rico, and several Caribbean islands.

Ben_H._Procter

Ben Hamill Procter (February 21, 1927 – April 17, 2012) was a historian who served from 1957 to 2000 on the faculty of Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas.
A native of Temple, Texas, Procter moved with his family to Austin, where he graduated from Stephen F. Austin High School. He obtained Bachelor of Arts and master's degrees from the University of Texas at Austin. He then received a second master's degree and his Ph.D. from Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He served in the United States Navy during the last months of World War II. From 1979 to 1980, Procter was the president of the Texas State Historical Association. Before he became a history professor, he played football briefly with the Los Angeles Rams until his athletic focus was halted by an injury.Procter held the Cecil and Ida Green Emeritus chair in the TCU History Department. He received the Summerfield R. Roberts Award for best book contribution to Texas history. He was a Minnie Stevens Piper Foundation fellow, honored for teaching and research. He was a biographer of newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst and U.S. Senator John Henninger Reagan.Donald R. Walker (1941-2016), professor emeritus of history at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, called Procter "among the most respected and admired members of the history profession in Texas. He will be missed by students, colleagues. and other historians. ... May he rest in peace."