Michael C. Meyer (1935-2007)

Michael C. Meyer, emeritus Professor of History at the University of Arizona, died on March 31, 2007. Mike leaves a legacy of scholarship, teaching, administration, and friendship to our profession. His roots ran deep in the borderlands region, as he was born, raised, and educated in New Mexico, and he taught for many years at the University of Arizona. He loved both sides of the border.

As a graduate student at the University of New Mexico, Mike formed part of the significant group of historians whose study of the military in Latin America under the tutelage of Edwin Lieuwen had a major impact on Latin American historiography. Rather than undertake a dissertation on the Mexican military, as Lieuwen intended, Mike instead chose to follow the path of the Mexican Revolution, writing on Pascual Orozco, a revolutionary who defeated the military in 1911. After receiving the Ph.D., Mike took up a teaching position at the University of Nebraska, where he replaced Stanley Ross, and built on the university's early relations with El Colegio de México to establish a graduate program committed to Mexican history. He began to play a significant role in bringing Mexican historians together with their U.S. and European counterparts in conferences held every four years (Reuniones de Historiadores Mexicanos, Estadounidenses y Canadienses), and he took special pride in his work as a member of the generation of historians who professionalized the study of the Mexican Revolution.

At Nebraska, he served as the mentor of Ph.D. students William H. Beezley, Mark T. R. Gilderhus, Anthony Bryan, Peter Henderson, and John Kulecka, as well as dozens of M.A. students, including Susan Deeds and Miguel Bretos. He sent Thomas Davies and Allen Gerlach to his alma mater, the University of New Mexico, for the Ph.D. Even as he maintained demanding expectations for his graduate students, he also communicated to us his great affection for Mexico and a deep commitment to progressive humanitarian values. He was an outstanding undergraduate teacher, and was recognized for his lively courses on Mexican and Latin American history. His dissatisfaction with the lack of an appropriate textbook for his Mexico survey course prompted him to revise his lectures into the hugely successful Course of Mexican History, published in five editions with coauthor William Sherman, and subsequently with Susan Deeds. Eight editions of the textbook, spanning more than twenty-five years, carry his imprint and influence on the study of Mexican history, as does The Oxford History of Mexico (2000), co-edited with William Beezley.

Mike's tremendous commitment to scholarship quickly resulted in the publication of his dissertation as Mexican Rebel: Pascual Orozco and the Mexican Revolution, 1910-1915 (1967). Within the next five years, three more books came out with the University of Nebraska Press: A Bibliography of United States-Latin American Relations since 1810: A Selected List of Eleven Thousand Published References, co-edited with David and Roger Trask (1968); Latin American Scholarship since World War II: Trends in History, Political Science, Literature, Geography, and Economics, co-edited with Roberto Esquenazi-Mayo (1971); and his second monograph, Huerta: A Political Portrait (1972). The latter biography underscored his reputation as a painstaking researcher confident to advance a revisionist interpretation. During this period, he also published numerous journal articles and book reviews.

This record of both publication and teaching excellence resulted in an offer for Mike to join the History faculty at the University of Arizona. There, he helped to build a strong Latin American program. He served as the first Director of Arizona's Latin American Area Center from 1975-89. During his tenure approximately 85 students were awarded the B.A. in Latin American Studies, and 65 students received the M.A. In the History Department, he served as the adviser for an outstanding cadre of Ph.D. students that included Rob Buffington, John Sherman, Phyllis Smith, and Marie Francois.

Along with teaching, directing the Latin American Center, and founding the Southwest Center at the University of Arizona, Mike served a five-year term as the Editor of the Hispanic American Historical...