James S. Olson

James Stuart Olson is an academic and Pulitzer Prize-nominated author. In 1994, he was appointed Distinguished Professor of History at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas.

Olson is the author (or co-author) of over thirty books, primarily non-fiction, and usually in the field of History. His most recent book was Bathsheba’s Breast: Women, Cancer, and History, which won the 2002 History of Science Category Award from the Association of American Publishers. Olson wrote the book while suffering a malignant growth which resulted in the amputation of his hand. The book was recognized by the Los Angeles Times as one of the best non-fiction books in America for 2002. In November 2008, Olson was honored by his alma mater, Brigham Young University, with its Distinguished Alumni Service Award.

Education

 * B.A., Brigham Young University
 * M.A., Ph.D., The State University of New York at Stony Brook

Works

 * Native Americans in the Twentieth Century (Brigham Young University Press)
 * Slave Life in America: A Historiography and Selected Bibliography (University Press of America)
 * 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
 * etc.
 * etc.

Students

 * Harold Lee Wise – Author of Inside the Danger Zone:The U.S. Military in the Persian Gulf, 1987–1988 (Naval Institute Press, 2007)