Author: Stephen Harrigan Publisher: University of Texas Press ISBN: 0292759517 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 944
Book Description
The story of Texas is the story of struggle and triumph in a land of extremes. It is a story of drought and flood, invasion and war, boom and bust, and of the myriad peoples who, over centuries of conflict, gave rise to a place that has helped shape the identity of the United States and the destiny of the world. “I couldn’t believe Texas was real,” the painter Georgia O’Keeffe remembered of her first encounter with the Lone Star State. It was, for her, “the same big wonderful thing that oceans and the highest mountains are.” Big Wonderful Thing invites us to walk in the footsteps of ancient as well as modern people along the path of Texas’s evolution. Blending action and atmosphere with impeccable research, New York Times best-selling author Stephen Harrigan brings to life with novelistic immediacy the generations of driven men and women who shaped Texas, including Spanish explorers, American filibusters, Comanche warriors, wildcatters, Tejano activists, and spellbinding artists—all of them taking their part in the creation of a place that became not just a nation, not just a state, but an indelible idea. Written in fast-paced prose, rich with personal observation and a passionate sense of place, Big Wonderful Thing calls to mind the literary spirit of Robert Hughes writing about Australia or Shelby Foote about the Civil War. Like those volumes it is a big book about a big subject, a book that dares to tell the whole glorious, gruesome, epically sprawling story of Texas.
Author: Bryan Burrough Publisher: Penguin ISBN: 198488011X Category : History Languages : en Pages : 433
Book Description
A New York Times bestseller! “Lively and absorbing. . ." — The New York Times Book Review "Engrossing." —Wall Street Journal “Entertaining and well-researched . . . ” —Houston Chronicle Three noted Texan writers combine forces to tell the real story of the Alamo, dispelling the myths, exploring why they had their day for so long, and explaining why the ugly fight about its meaning is now coming to a head. Every nation needs its creation myth, and since Texas was a nation before it was a state, it's no surprise that its myths bite deep. There's no piece of history more important to Texans than the Battle of the Alamo, when Davy Crockett and a band of rebels went down in a blaze of glory fighting for independence from Mexico, losing the battle but setting Texas up to win the war. However, that version of events, as Forget the Alamo definitively shows, owes more to fantasy than reality. Just as the site of the Alamo was left in ruins for decades, its story was forgotten and twisted over time, with the contributions of Tejanos--Texans of Mexican origin, who fought alongside the Anglo rebels--scrubbed from the record, and the origin of the conflict over Mexico's push to abolish slavery papered over. Forget the Alamo provocatively explains the true story of the battle against the backdrop of Texas's struggle for independence, then shows how the sausage of myth got made in the Jim Crow South of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. As uncomfortable as it may be to hear for some, celebrating the Alamo has long had an echo of celebrating whiteness. In the past forty-some years, waves of revisionists have come at this topic, and at times have made real progress toward a more nuanced and inclusive story that doesn't alienate anyone. But we are not living in one of those times; the fight over the Alamo's meaning has become more pitched than ever in the past few years, even violent, as Texas's future begins to look more and more different from its past. It's the perfect time for a wise and generous-spirited book that shines the bright light of the truth into a place that's gotten awfully dark.
Author: T. R. Fehrenbach Publisher: Open Road Media ISBN: 1497609704 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 949
Book Description
The definitive account of the incomparable Lone Star state by the author of Fire & Blood: A History of Mexico. T. R. Fehrenbach is a native Texan, military historian and the author of several important books about the region, but none as significant as this work, arguably the best single volume about Texas ever published. His account of America's most turbulent state offers a view that only an insider could capture. From the native tribes who lived there to the Spanish and French soldiers who wrested the territory for themselves, then to the dramatic ascension of the republic of Texas and the saga of the Civil War years. Fehrenbach describes the changes that disturbed the state as it forged its unique character. Most compelling is the one quality that would remain forever unchanged through centuries of upheaval: the courage of the men and women who struggled to realize their dreams in The Lone Star State.
Author: Elbridge Gerry Littlejohn Publisher: ISBN: Category : Alamo (San Antonio, Tex.) Languages : en Pages : 300
Book Description
Relates the stories of thirteen heroes or events in nineteenth-century Texas history, including Cabeza de Vaca, Sam Houston and the Alamo.
Author: James L. Haley Publisher: University of North Texas Press ISBN: 1574418688 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 673
Book Description
Utilizing many sources new to publication, James L. Haley delivers a most readable and enjoyable narrative history of Texas, told through stories—the words and recollections of Texans who actually lived the state’s spectacular history. From Jim Bowie’s and Davy Crockett’s myth-enshrouded stand at the Alamo, to the Mexican-American War, and to Sam Houston’s heroic failed effort to keep Texas in the Union during the Civil War, the transitions in Texas history have often been as painful and tense as the “normal” periods in between. Here, in all of its epic grandeur, is the story of Texas as its own passionate nation. “Texas native Haley does an outstanding job of narrating the outsized and dramatic history of the Lone Star State. John Steinbeck observed, ‘Like most passionate nations, Texas has its own private history based on, but not limited by, facts.’ Cognizant of this, Haley takes pains to separate folklore from fact. He's a good storyteller, but then it's hard to go wrong with the colorful characters he has to work with: pioneer nationalists Sam Houston and Davy Crockett, Quaker abolitionist Benjamin Lundy, a wagonload of liquored-up turn-of-the-century oilmen and such latter-day heroes as Lyndon Johnson, John Connally and Janis Joplin.”—Publishers Weekly Starred Review
Author: Mary Dodson Wade Publisher: Heinemann-Raintree Library ISBN: 9781432911515 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 56
Book Description
Who were the European explorers and settlers of Texas and why did they come to Texas? How did Mexico's independence from Spain affect the development of Texas? What events led to the creation of the Republic of Texas and Texas's annexation to the United States? Find these answers along with all kinds of fascinating, historical facts that tell the story of the state of Texas. In this book, you'll find information about the first American settlers in Texas and what drove them to declare their independence from Mexico. You will learn about Texas's role in the Mexican War and the Civil War. And, you'll learn how cowboys and oil wells came to shape the economy and image of the Lone Star state.
Author: The Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum Publisher: Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum ISBN: 9781477310892 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
Exhibitions featuring more than five hundred original artifacts spanning thirteen thousand years and a robust calendar of special exhibitions, films, and programs are the hallmark of the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum, Texas’s official history museum. The Bullock collaborates with more than seven hundred museums, libraries, archives, and individuals to display original historical artifacts and produce exhibitions that illuminate and celebrate Texas history and culture. Seeing Texas History: The Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum features seventy artifacts that have been on view at the Bullock Museum. Reflecting history, both individually and collectively, the artifacts represent all eras, regions of the state, and genres. The artifacts in the collection range from Texas’s quintessential founding documents to items from everyday life, works of art, and objects that show the state as a leader in science and technology. This book does what museums do best, presenting history as artifact, inviting readers to closely examine historical objects and consider how the past shapes the future.
Author: Pam Pollack Publisher: Penguin ISBN: 0448467100 Category : Juvenile Nonfiction Languages : en Pages : 129
Book Description
"Remember the Alamo!" is still a rallying cry more than 175 years after the siege in Texas, where a small band of men held off about two thousand soldiers of the Mexican Army for twelve days. The Alamo was a crucial turning point in the Texas Revolution, and led to the creation of the Republic of Texas. With 80 black-and-white illustrations throughout and a sixteen-page black-and-white photo insert, young readers will relive this famous moment in Texas history.
Author: Max Krochmal Publisher: UNC Press Books ISBN: 1469626764 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 555
Book Description
This book is about the other Texas, not the state known for its cowboy conservatism, but a mid-twentieth-century hotbed of community organizing, liberal politics, and civil rights activism. Beginning in the 1930s, Max Krochmal tells the story of the decades-long struggle for democracy in Texas, when African American, Mexican American, and white labor and community activists gradually came together to empower the state's marginalized minorities. At the ballot box and in the streets, these diverse activists demanded not only integration but economic justice, labor rights, and real political power for all. Their efforts gave rise to the Democratic Coalition of the 1960s, a militant, multiracial alliance that would take on and eventually overthrow both Jim Crow and Juan Crow. Using rare archival sources and original oral history interviews, Krochmal reveals the often-overlooked democratic foundations and liberal tradition of one of our nation's most conservative states. Blue Texas remembers the many forgotten activists who, by crossing racial lines and building coalitions, democratized their cities and state to a degree that would have been unimaginable just a decade earlier--and it shows why their story still matters today.
Author: Stephen Harrigan
Author: Bryan Burrough
Author: T. R. Fehrenbach
Author: Jill Stover
Author: Elbridge Gerry Littlejohn
Author: James L. Haley
Author: Mary Dodson Wade
Author: The Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum
Author: Pam Pollack
Author: Max Krochmal