Now a resident of Austin, Texas, James L. Haley was born in Tulsa and grew up near Fort Worth, graduating summa cum laude from the University of Texas at Arlington with a degree in Political Science. After graduate study at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law, he resigned to concentrate on a literary career.
Haley first broke into national print at the age of 19, with a biography of the circus elephant, Jumbo, for American Heritage magazine. His books of history began in 1976 with The Buffalo War: A History of the Red River Indian Uprising of 1874-1875. A Doubleday book, it was subsequently reprinted in paperback by the University of Oklahoma Press, and later in a hard and soft cover commemorative reprint by State House Press. An Italian translation by Edizione Piemme is now available. Continuously in print for over 25 years, it remains the definitive history of the final war of the Comanche, Kiowa and Southern Cheyenne Indians against Anglo domination. In 1999 Haley keynoted a lectureship on the 125th anniversary of the Red River War at the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum in Canyon, Texas, a center for study of that conflict.
Apaches: A History and Culture Portrait followed in 1981, also published by Doubleday. It shows how knowledge of Native American culture rewrites traditional history. A paperback edition is available from the University of Oklahoma Press, and an Italian translation by Ugo Mursia Editore of Milan recently entered a second printing. Both The Buffalo War and Apaches are used as supplemental reading texts in teaching the history of the Southwest.
Departing from a scholarly format, the oversized and heavily illustrated Texas: An Album of History appeared in 1985 to great popularity and a 45-city Texas book tour, selling through three hardcover printings. St. Martin's Press reprinted the volume in trade paper format, and also commissioned its sequel, Texas: From Spindletop Through World War II, which came out in June, 1993.
Haley's first novel was a western, The Kings of San Carlos, published by Doubleday in 1986. It was a fictionalized account of the colorful career of Apache Indian Agent John P. Clum in the 1870s. It was followed by a mass market original paperback adventure for Bantam Books, The Lions of Tsavo, the motion picture rights to which were purchased by Walt Disney Pictures' Touchstone Division. Also a historical novel, it was about two man-eating lions whose onslaught shut down construction of the Uganda Railroad in Kenya in 1898. The Italian edition from Marco Polillo recently entered a second printing.
A third novel, Final Refuge, about the importance of zoos in the preservation of endangered species, appeared in October 1994 from St. Martin's Press. The story opens with the poaching of two endangered black rhinoceroses from an American zoo, and depicts the struggle of a fictional wildlife park outside Houston, Texas, to save their animals from the same fate. Haley's most recent novel, Ghost Pod, was written under the commercial sponsorship of Sea World and Anheuser-Busch. Publication is still pending.
As part of the official celebration of the sesquicentennial (1845-1995) of Texas statehood, Haley was engaged by the Visitors Center of the Texas State Capitol as the guest curator of an exhibition of artifacts and memorabilia from the 1845 annexation of Texas to the United States. He co-curated a second exhibition about Texas Governors and the Executive Mansion in 1996.
After 15 years of labor, Sam Houston, the largest a most complete biography ever written of the legendary American icon was published in March, 2002 by the University of Oklahoma Press and it was the subject of a second extensive Texas book tour. Sam Houston has won nine awards, including the Texas State Historical Association's 2003 Coral Horton Tullis Memorial Prize as the best book on Texas of that year, the San Antonio Conservation Society's 2003 Book Citation, the Western Writers of America 2003 Spur Award as best biography of a western subject, the 2003 T. R. Fehrenbach Award of the Texas Historical Commission, and the Texas Historical Foundation's Deolece Parmelee Award for outstanding original research.
"Passionate Nation: The Epic History of Texas," will be published in April, 2006, by The Free Press, an imprint of Simon and Schuster. It is a 650-page compendium of Texas history, from Caberza de Vaca to George W. Bush."
James L. Haley is heavily engaged as a speaker on historical, literary and teaching topics, which are detailed on the Speaker page.
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