Summary
James Hulse has produced a series of books ranging from Nevada history to philosophical criticism. The Nevada Adventure, Hulse's popular history of his native state has remained in print for 32 years, through six editions at the University of Nevada Press where it was on the debut list in 1965. Hulse has been a newspaper journalist, teacher, scholar and political activist. Born in Pioche, Nevada, on June 4, 1930, he received a Harold's Club Scholarship and obtained his BA in Journalism from the University of Nevada in 1952 and his MA in History in 1958. While a student at the university, he wrote a column called Campus Events for the Nevada State Journal, was in a local production of Macbeth, was initiated into the Phi Kappa Phi honor society, and received the Sigma Delta Chi scholarship award for outstanding journalism graduate. When graduating in 1952, he received the A. W. (Bert) Cahlar scholarship for altruistic service, leadership, character, and for loyalty—the highest ideals and traditions of the university.
He continued to provide articles to the Nevada State Journal by correspondence while performing military service in occupied Western Germany and in France from 1952-54, then continuing as a reporter for the Nevada State Journal from 1954-58. He joined the faculty at the University of Nevada, Reno, in 1962. In 1964 he represented Washoe County on the Nevada Centennial Committee. During his academic career, he was a member of the American Historical Association, the Nevada Historical Society, the Western History Association, the Rocky Mountain Social Science Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, and the Western Slavic Association. In the 1980s he was a member of the Nevada State Advisory Board for Historic Preservation and Archeology. He was also a member of many university committees, including the Hilliard Endowment Fund Committee, the Nevada Newspaper Committee (1962-64), the Faculty Development Task Force (1977), and served as Chairman of the Graduate Council.
A political activist, he is a member of the American Civil Liberties Union and served on the Nevada Commission for Equal Rights of Citizens from 1963-65. He also participated in the Citizens Committee for a Nuclear Test Ban in 1963 and was present at the Governor's Day student protest against the Vietnam War on campus in 1970. As a leader of Common Cause in Nevada, Hulse has followed his conscience, speaking out about social injustice whenever he sees it. His interest in other moralists is reflected in the titles of some of his books: Revolutionists in London: a study of five unorthodox Socialists, (1970), and The Reputations of Socrates: The Afterlife of a Gadfly, (1995). He covered the development of industry, government and culture throughout Nevada in A Great Basin Mosaic, which was published in 2017.