Friedrich Katz

doctoral_advisor = academic_advisors = notable_students = Javier Garciadiego known_for = influences = influenced = awards = Beveridge Award (1999)Bolton Prize (1999) religion = footnotes =

Friedrich Katz (13 June 1927 – 16 October 2010) was an Austrian historian and anthropologist who specialized in 19th- and 20th-century history of Mexico, particularly in the Mexican Revolution.

"He was arguably Mexico's most widely regarded historian... The whole of the Mexican press, left, right and center, noted and lamented his passing."

He studied at the French high school of Mexico City, at the ENAH in Mexico and in the US, complated his PhD in Vienna, then worked in at the Humboldt University of Berlin, before moving to the US in 1970. He eventually served as co-director of the Mexican Studies Program at the University of Chicago. After failing to settle in France and in the United States, due to the Communist affiliation of his father (and specifically his role as an arms buyer for Republican Spain), Katz's family moved to Mexico, where he arrived at the age of 13 and completed his basic studies. He began his bachelor's degree studies at the National School of Anthropology and History (ENAH), which he eventually completed at Wagner College in the United States. In 1971 he joined the University of Chicago where, eventually, he was appointed the Morton D. Hull Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Latin American History.

He is survived by his wife, his two children, Leo Katz and Jacqueline Ross, law professors at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana respectively, and his four grandchildren.

Honours co-received the 1999 Bolton Prize (nowadays Bolton-Johnson Prize) for the best English-language book on Latin American History by the Conference on Latin American History, and was honored with the Order of the Aztec Eagle by the Government of Mexico. He also won the 2000 Bryce Wood Book Award presented by the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) for outstanding English-language book in the humanities and social sciences for his 1 000-page book The Life and Times of Pancho Villa. The American Historical Association has created a book prize in honor of Friedrich Katz.

Works

online Ensayos mexicanos (1994). Alianza Editorial, Mexico City. Ancient American Civilizations (1969, 1997), London. The Life and Times of Pancho Villa (1998), Stanford University Press. Nuevos ensayos mexicanos (2006). "Pancho Villa and the Attack on Columbus, New Mexico" (1978) • "Situación social y económica de los aztecas durante los siglos XV y XVI" (Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1966)