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UH Professor Hart Receives Moores Professorship
by Susan Kellogg, Department Chair
Posted: April 21, 2006
Professor John Mason Hart has received the John and Rebecca Moores Professorship. A senior scholar in Latin American history and among the most respected members of the History Department at the University of Houston, Dr. Hart is recognized for his internationally-respected research along with his excellent teaching. He has taught at UH for over thirty years, has taught countless undergraduates, created a graduate program in Mexican and Latin American history, and taught and mentored many MA and Ph.D. students who have been deeply influenced by the quality of his teaching and mentoring.
Dr. Hart's colleagues in the history department continue to be amazed by his vast knowledge of Mexican history, his love of Latin America, and his deep engagement with researching and teaching. People often say that teaching and research have a mutually reinforcing relationship; Dr. Hart both lives and demonstrates that. Anyone who knows him marvels at his dedication to scholarship and the immense knowledge he has of Mexican history, historiography, and archives. This deep knowledge has resulted in the production of three major books. His 2002 book Empire and Revolution: The Americans in Mexico since the Civil War (University of California Press) won the 2002 Hubert Herring Prize and the 2003 Harvey Johnson Prize from SCOLAS (Southwestern Council of Latin American Studies) and PCCLAS (Pacific Coast Council of Latin American Studies) respectively, and it won Honorable Mention for the 2004 Bolton-Johnson Prize from CLAH, the Council of Latin American History.
Dr. Hart's 1987 book, Revolutionary Mexico: The Coming and Process of the Mexican Revolution (University of California Press) is one of the two most important books on the subject and won the 1988 Harvey Johnson Prize from SCOLAS. It was reviewed in many major newspapers, including a lengthy review by Carlos Fuentes in the New York Times, who called the book "a probing and passionate inquiry." His first book, Anarchism and the Mexican Working Class, was published in 1978 by University of Texas Press. It and Revolutionary Mexico were both published in Spanish and widely read in Mexico and Latin America. He is also the author of Los anarquistas mexicanos, 1860-1900, published in Mexico by the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia in 1974 and the editor of Border Crossings: Mexican and Mexican-American Workers, published in 1998 by Scholarly Resources Press. His article, "The Evolution of the Mexican Working Class" won the 2000 Harvey Johnson Prize for best article on Latin America from SCOLAS. He is currently working on another book ms. tentatively titled The Silver of the Sierra Madre: 'Boss Shepherd' and the People of the Canyons" and well as beginning yet another project on the history of the drug trade along the U.S.-Mexican border.
In addition to book and article prizes, Dr. Hart has held distinguished professorships at both the Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia and the Centro de Estudios Historicos, part of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, both in Mexico City. He was a Shelby Cullom Davis Research Fellow at Princeton University during the 1990-1 academic year and held an NEH Research University Senior Fellowship that year as well. He has also been a research fellow at the U.S.-Mexico Studies Center at UC San Diego (1986-7).
In terms of teaching, the many undergraduate students Dr. Hart has taught have benefited from the vast knowledge he has accumulated and from his ability to put modern Mexican history in a global perspective. They often come away from his classes almost overwhelmed by, but deeply appreciative of, the quantity of information and the sophisticated framework within which he places that information.
His impact on numerous graduate students has been even greater. Dr. Hart started UH's graduate program in Mexican and Latin American history. He has participated in the training of numerous MA students and has produced nine Ph.D.s, all of whom enjoy some form of academic employment. He is currently mentoring at least ten more graduate students.
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