James L. Haley is one of Texas's most distinguished historians. His first book, The Buffalo War, remains the definitive history of the last Indian war on the South Plains and has been in print for forty years. His biography, Sam Houston, won nine different awards, including the Tullis Prize of the Texas State Historical Association, the Spur Award of the Western Writers of America, and the Book Award of the Philosophical Society of Texas. His 650-page compendium of Texas history, Passionate Nation, won the T. R. Fehrenbach Book Award of the Texas Historical Commission. Most recently, after ghost writing the memoirs of famous Texas Ranger Joaquin Jackson, he completed a history of the Texas Supreme Court for the University of Texas Press; his latest books, The Shores of Tripoli (2016), A Darker Sea (2017), and the upcoming The Devil in Paradise, are in the Bliven Putnam Naval Adventure Series for G. P. Putnam's Sons. Haley grew up in Fort Worth, graduated summa cum laude from the University of Texas at Arlington, and attended the UT School of Law in Austin. He resides in Austin, Texas.