John Womack, Jr., was born in 1937 in Norman, Oklahoma. He attended Harvard University, where he was a Phi Beta Kappa and graduated summa cum laudein 1959. He was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford from 1959-1961, then returned to Harvard and received his Ph.D. in history in 1965. Mr. Womack is the Robert Woods Bliss Professor of Latin American History and Economics, Emeritus, at Harvard University.