Download or read book Streets Of Laredo written by Larry McMurtry and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-06-01 with total page 565 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author Larry McMurtry comes the final book in the Lonesome Dove tetralogy—an exhilarating tale of legend and heroism, Streets of Laredo is classic Texas and Western literature at its finest. Captain Woodrow Call, August McCrae's old partner, is now a bounty hunter hired to track down a brutal young Mexican bandit. Riding with Call are an Eastern city slicker, a witless deputy, and one of the last members of the Hat Creek outfit, Pea Eye Parker, now married to Lorena—once Gus McCrae's sweetheart. This long chase leads them across the last wild stretches of the West into a hellhole known as Crow Town and, finally, into the vast, relentless plains of the Texas frontier.

Download or read book Viva George written by Elaine A. Peña and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2020-11-03 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2021 Jim Parish Award for Documentation and Publication of Local and Regional History, Webb County Heritage Foundation For 120 years, residents of the cross-border community of Laredo/Nuevo Laredo have celebrated George Washington's birthday together, and this account reveals the essential political work of a time-honored civic tradition. Since 1898, residents of Laredo, Texas, and Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, have reached across the US-Mexico border to celebrate George Washington's birthday. The celebration can last a whole month, with parade goers reveling in American and Mexican symbols; George Washington saluting; and “Pocahontas” riding on horseback. An international bridge ceremony, the heart and soul of the festivities, features children from both sides of the border marching toward each other to link the cities with an embrace. ¡Viva George! offers an ethnography and a history of this celebration, which emerges as both symbol and substance of cross-border community life. Anthropologist and Laredo native Elaine A. Peña shows how generations of border officials, civil society organizers, and everyday people have used the bridge ritual to protect shared economic and security interests as well as negotiate tensions amid natural disasters, drug-war violence, and immigration debates. Drawing on previously unknown sources and extensive fieldwork, Peña finds that border enactments like Washington's birthday are more than goodwill gestures. From the Rio Grande to the 38th Parallel, they do the meaningful political work that partisan polemics cannot.

Download or read book Lonesome Dove written by Larry McMurtry and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2000-11-10 with total page 872 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bestselling winner of the 1986 Pulitzer Prize, Lonesome Dove is an American classic. First published in 1985, Larry McMurtry's epic novel combined flawless writing with a storyline and setting that gripped the popular imagination, and ultimately resulted in a series of four novels and an Emmy-winning television miniseries. Now, with an introduction by the author, Lonesome Dove is reprinted in an S&S Classic Edition. Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry, the author of Terms of Endearment, is his long-awaited masterpiece, the major novel at last of the American West as it really was. A love story, an adventure, an American epic, Lonesome Dove embraces all the West -- legend and fact, heroes and outlaws, whores and ladies, Indians and settiers -- in a novel that recreates the central American experience, the most enduring of our national myths. Set in the late nineteenth century, Lonesome Dove is the story of a cattle drive from Texas to Montana -- and much more. It is a drive that represents for everybody involved not only a daring, even a foolhardy, adventure, but a part of the American Dream -- the attempt to carve out of the last remaining wilderness a new life. Augustus McCrae and W. F. Call are former Texas Rangers, partners and friends who have shared hardship and danger together without ever quite understanding (or wanting to understand) each other's deepest emotions. Gus is the romantic, a reluctant rancher who has a way with women and the sense to leave well enough alone. Call is a driven, demanding man, a natural authority figure with no patience for weaknesses, and not many of his own. He is obsessed with the dream of creating his own empire, and with the need to conceal a secret sorrow of his own. The two men could hardly be more different, but both are tough, redoubtable fighters who have learned to count on each other, if nothing else. Call's dream not only drags Gus along in its wake, but draws in a vast cast of characters: -- Lorena, the whore with the proverbial heart of gold, whom Gus (and almost everyone else) loves, and who survives one of the most terrifying experiences any woman could have... -- Elmira, the restless, reluctant wife of a small-time Arkansas sheriff, who runs away from the security of marriage to become part of the great Western adventure... -- Blue Duck, the sinister Indian renegade, one of the most frightening villains in American fiction, whose steely capacity for cruelty affects the lives of everyone in the book... -- Newt, the young cowboy for whom the long and dangerous journey from Texas to Montana is in fact a search for his own identity... -- Jake, the dashing, womanizing exRanger, a comrade-in-arms of Gus and Call, whose weakness leads him to an unexpected fate... -- July Johnson, husband of Elmira, whose love for her draws him out of his secure life into the wilderness, and turns him into a kind of hero... Lonesome Dove sweeps from the Rio Grande (where Gus and Call acquire the cattle for their long drive by raiding the Mexicans) to the Montana highlands (where they find themselves besieged by the last, defiant remnants of an older West). It is an epic of love, heroism, loyalty, honor, and betrayal -- faultlessly written, unfailingly dramatic. Lonesome Dove is the novel about the West that American literature -- and the American reader -- has long been waiting for.

Download or read book In Search of America written by Peter Jennings and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The authors search the twenty-first century for evidence that the words and ideas of the founding fathers are still alive and well in America.

Download or read book Mexican American Civil Rights in Texas written by Robert Brischetto and published by MSU Press. This book was released on 2021-10-01 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Inspired by a 1968 U.S. Commission on Civil Rights six-day hearing in San Antonio that introduced the Mexican American people to the rest of the nation, this book is an examination of the social change of Mexican Americans of Texas over the past half century. The San Antonio hearing included 1,502 pages of testimony, given by more than seventy witnesses, which became the baseline twenty experts used to launch their research on Mexican American civil rights issues during the following fifty years. These experts explored the changes in demographics and policies with regard to immigration, voting rights, education, employment, economic security, housing, health, and criminal justice. While there are a number of anecdotal historical accounts of Mexican Americans in Texas, this book adds an evidence-based examination of racial and ethnic inequalities and changes over the past half century. The contributors trace the litigation on behalf of Latinos and other minorities in state and federal courts and the legislative changes that followed, offering public policy recommendations for the future. The fact that this study is grounded in Texas is significant, as it was the birthplace of a majority of Chicano civil rights efforts and is at the heart of Mexican American growth and talent, producing the first Mexican American in Congress, the first Mexican American federal judge, and the first Mexican American candidate for president. As the largest ethnic group in the state, Latinos will continue to play a major role in the future of Texas.

Download or read book In Search of Decency written by Michael Heyn and published by Troubador Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2013-09-01 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A vision and practical path of a new partnership of rich and poor to create a better world. An uncommon memoir, Michael Heyn’s cross-cultural journey through pervasive human adversity unexpectedly reveals a positive global vision of human decency and caring relevant as much to America as to Yemen. His journey passes through 50 years living and working across countries spanning from the United States to India, Pakistan, Ethiopia, South Pacific Islands, Nepal, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Thailand, Kosovo, Bangladesh, South Sudan, Vietnam, and Yemen. His story stretches from an unsettling childhood to a lifetime in support of the struggle for justice, opportunity and change of those left on the far sides of an ever expanding divide between rich and poor. From living as a Peace Corps Volunteer in a remote Peruvian mountain village to innumerable confrontations with prejudice, abuse, deprivation, conflict and war over a long career in service of the United Nations, Heyn shares what he learned from those caught up on either side of the chasm. A unique insight into and historical understanding of both alienation and aspiration that cut through all human cultures and relations, Heyn envisions a break from the past isolation of greed and selfishness on the one hand and a stark hopelessness on the other. This is a voyage of accumulating discovery that exposes what must change if people are to cross over the divide to come together for their common good, no matter how antithetical this may seem. It is a belief in the basic decency of people both rich and poor as the magic to realise such change. Heyn sets out a practical path to achieve this goal to be actively pursued and managed by those bridging the divide. In the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, it is an exhilarating path that will benefit all engaged and instill reform of our societies’ values and governing systems. It is the vision of an immense new power of rich and poor to realise an altered way of life and a better world. In Search of Decency is a gripping memoir that provides cross cultural and political analysis, and views on international development. “My hope is to inspire people, rich and poor, young and old, corporate leaders and agents of change, that the world can be a more just and decent place, and that their commitment to join together is the power to make this happen,” says author Michael Heyn.

Download or read book Trip of the Tongue written by Elizabeth Little and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2012-02-28 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Documents the author's travels throughout the country, where she witnesses firsthand the nation's many cultures and languages and what they say about who we are individually, socially and politically.

Download or read book Cadillac Jack A Novel written by Larry McMurtry and published by Liveright Publishing. This book was released on 2019-01-15 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From dusty flea markets in Texas to parties in Washington, DC, crawling with political hacks, Cadillac Jack is a classic American novel, timelier than ever. Larry McMurtry’s “big hearted” fiction has been lauded for “taking us places we hadn’t known existed” (Joyce Carol Oates, New York Review of Books). Cadillac Jack does exactly that, inviting readers into the passenger seat of a pearl-colored Caddy with peach velour–covered seats, joining a rodeo-bulldogger-turned-antique- scout at the wheel. “Superbly comic” (Newsday), this rollicking tale echoes the cultural climate of America today, with the cagey yet charming Jack grappling with the capitol’s pretentious elite. As he cruises through relationships with distinctively appealing women—including socialite boutique owner Cindy and discreet mother-of-two Jean—Jack realizes home for him will always be simply barreling down freeways in his Cadillac, wandering the country in search of another obscure treasure. Bolstered with its cast of unforgettable characters, Cadillac Jack entices with the prospect of undiscovered riches around that next bend in the road.

Download or read book Searching for America in the Streets of Laredo written by Fernando Pinon and published by Sentia Publishing. This book was released on 2017-11-15 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For several years, if not decades, American society has been living in a state of dissonance. As Americans, we worship the motto of E Pluribus Unum, but are distrustful of each other and characterize each other as "givers" and "takers." We cherish our democracy, but do not trust "government," and allow for the manipulation of the electoral mechanism.We praise the American worker, but hesitate to establish a living wage and deny them the power to organize. We relish "America the Beautiful" but criticize government when it attempts to curb pollution and permit the destruction of our "spacious skies," and "mountain majesties," and the fields of "amber waves of grain." We revere the concept of equality but are caught in a systemic web of intolerance and discrimination that we seem powerless to eradicate. We glorify the immigrant as being the building block of our society, but rail against the newcomers from south of the border. Most of us have that feeling that "something is wrong" with America, but we have not taken the time to determine what it is that has soiled our civic and political culture.In "Searching for America in the Streets of Laredo," the author confronts this political and cultural dissonance as it pertains to the Anglo American narrative of equality, individual liberty and fundamental rights and the Mexican American experience. It is a search that touches on the very soul of American democracy.This "Search for America in the Streets of Laredo" then, is the author's quest for America's authenticity, an attempt to harmonize the glorified American ideology with the country's history, culture and actions. Only if America is true to its narrative can the United States go from being a world power which depends on force, to a world authority which leads through respect.It is a search that all Americans must undertake if the United States of America is to continue its role as the dominant country in the world.About the Author: Fernando Piñón is a retired professor of political science at San Antonio College and an adjunct professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio.Before teaching, he was a journalist, having been the first Mexican American editor of a Texas daily newspaper -- The Laredo Morning Times from 1971 to 1974. He also was a political columnist for the San Antonio Express News in the 1980s and early 1990s. For many years, he was owner and publisher of El Visitante Dominical, a national Catholic newspaper.As a journalist, he won several first place editorial and feature writing awards from the Texas Associated Press Association. Mr. Piñón holds a bachelor's degree in journalism and a master's degree in political science from the University of North Texas, and finished one year of law school at Notre Dame University. As a journalism student, he was a member of the Sigma Delta Chi, the honorary journalism fraternity; was editor of The Campus Chat, the university student newspaper; and won a first place column-writing award in university competition.In 1972, he was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention held in Miami Beach, Florida, as a George McGovern delegate.Throughout his career, Mr. Piñón has published numerous books and academic articles about Mexican American politics published in academic journals and college textbooks. Among the academic articles are: "Leadership and Mexican American Politics: a Study of Laredo and San Antonio," unpublished master's thesis; "La Raza Unida in Texas: an Attitudinal Study," published in the Southwest Journal of Social Science in 1973; "Latino Politics in Texas," published in "Texas Politics Today," by Maxwell and Crain.

Download or read book Adventures in Search of a Living in Spanish America written by Vaquero (pseud.) and published by . This book was released on 1911 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Beneath Another Sky written by Norman Davies and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2017-12-07 with total page 712 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'He writes history like nobody else. He thinks like nobody else ... He sees the world as a whole, with its limitless fund of stories' Bryan Appleyard, Sunday Times Where have the people in any particular place actually come from? What are the historical complexities in any particular place? This evocative historical journey around the world shows us. 'Human history is a tale not just of constant change but equally of perpetual locomotion', writes Norman Davies. Throughout the ages, men and women have endlessly sought the greener side of the hill. Their migrations, collisions, conquests and interactions have given rise to the spectacular profusion of cultures, races, languages and polities that now proliferates on every continent. This incessant restlessness inspired Davies's own. After decades of writing about European history, and like Tennyson's ageing Ulysses longing for one last adventure, he embarked upon an extended journey that took him right round the world to a score of hitherto unfamiliar countries. His aims were to test his powers of observation and to revel in the exotic, but equally to encounter history in a new way. Beneath Another Sky is partly a historian's travelogue, partly a highly engaging exploration of events and personalities that have fashioned today's world - and entirely sui generis. Davies's circumnavigation takes him to Baku, the Emirates, India, Malaysia, Mauritius, Tasmania, Tahiti, Texas, Madeira and many places in between. At every stop, he not only describes the current scene but also excavates the layers of accumulated experience that underpin the present. He tramps round ancient temples and weird museums, summarises the complexity of Indian castes, Austronesian languages and Pacific explorations, delves into the fate of indigenous peoples and of a missing Malaysian airliner, reflects on cultural conflict in Cornwall, uncovers the Nazi origins of Frankfurt airport and lectures on imperialism in a desert oasis. 'Everything has its history', he writes, 'including the history of finding one's way or of getting lost.' The personality of the author comes across strongly - wry, romantic, occasionally grumpy, but with an endless curiosity and appetite for knowledge. As always, Norman Davies watches the historical horizon as well as what is close at hand, and brilliantly complicates our view of the past.

Download or read book The search for identity modern American history written by John Edward Wiltz and published by . This book was released on 1978 with total page 890 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book True Grit written by Charles Portis and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2010-11-05 with total page 127 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 New York Times bestseller “An epic and a legend” —Washington Post “Quite simply, an American masterpiece.” —Boston Globe “The dialogue in True Grit is exquisite.” —David Mamet “Charles Portis had a wonderful talent—original, quirky, exciting.” —Larry McMurtry Charles Portis has long been acclaimed as one of America’s most enduring and incomparable literary voices, and his novels have left an indelible mark on the American canon. True Grit, his most famous novel, was first published in 1968, and has garnered critical acclaim as well as enthusiastic praise from countless passionate fans for more than fifty years. This story of danger and adventure in the old west became the basis for two award-winning films, the first starring John Wayne, in his only Oscar-winning role, as Marshall Rooster Cogburn, and the widely praised remake by the Coen brothers, starring Jeff Bridges. True Grit tells the story of Mattie Ross, who is just fourteen when the coward Tom Chaney shoots her father in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robs him of his life, his horse, and $150 cash. Filled with an unwavering urge to avenge her father’s blood, Mattie finds and, after some tenacious finagling, enlists one-eyed Rooster Cogburn, the meanest available US Marshal, as her partner in pursuit, and they head off into Indian Territory after the killer. True Grit is essential reading. Not just a classic Western, but an undeniable classic of American literature as eccentric, cool, funny, and unflinching as Mattie Ross herself. For fans of either the John Wayne classic or the more recent Coen brothers’ movie, it’s a chance to relive the story of Mattie and Rooster and experience their story as it was originally told. For fans of taut, funny storytelling, it will be a joy to experience in its original form. This edition includes an afterword by bestselling author Donna Tartt (The Secret History and The Goldfinch) and a reading group guide.

Download or read book The Lonesome Dove Series written by Larry McMurtry and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-06-01 with total page 2873 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The timeless, bestselling four-part epic that began with the Pulitzer Prize-winning Lonesome Dove takes readers into the lives of Augustus McCrae and Woodrow Call, two tough-as-nails Texas Rangers in the heyday of the Old West. Dead Man’s Walk As young Texas Rangers, Augustus McCrae and Woodrow Call—"Gus" and "Call" for short—have much to learn about survival in a land fraught with perils: not only the blazing heat and raging tornadoes, roiling rivers and merciless Indians, but also the deadly whims of soldiers. On their first expeditions—led by incompetent officers and accompanied by the robust, dauntless whore known as the Great Western—they will face death at the hands of the cunning Comanche war chief Buffalo Hump and the silent Apache Gomez. They will be astonished by the Mexican army. And Gus will meet the love of his life. Comanche Moon Texas Rangers August McCrae and Woodrow Call, now in their middle years, are still figuring out how to deal with the ever-increasing tensions of adult life—Gus with his great love, Clara Forsythe, and Call with Maggie Tilton, the young whore who loves him—when they sign up to pursue the Comanche horse thief Kicking Wolf into Mexico. On this mission, their captain, Inish Scull, is captured by the brutally cruel Mexican bandit Ahumado, and Gus and Call must come to the rescue, with the aid of new friends including Joshua Deets, Jake Spoon, and Pea Eye Parker, as well as the renowned Kickapoo tracker, Famous Shoes. Lonesome Dove Gus and Call, now retired from the Texas Rangers and settled in the border town of Lonesome Dove running the Hat Creek Cattle Company, are visited by their old friend Jake Spoon, who convinces Gus and Call to gather a herd of cattle and drive them north to Montana in order to start a cattle ranch in untouched territory. Gus is further motivated by a desire to see the love of his life, Clara Allen (previously Clara Forsythe), who now lives with her children and comatose horse-trader husband in Ogallala, Nebraska. On the way to Montana they travel through wild country full of thieves, murderers, and a lifetime's worth of unforgettable adventure. Streets of Laredo Woodrow Call is back in Texas, a Ranger once again and a general gun-for-hire, but increasingly a relic as the westward sprawl of the railroads rapidly settles the once lawless frontier. Hired by a railroad tycoon to hunt down a dangerous bandit named Joey Garza, Call sets out once again with a hapless Yankee named Ned Brookshire who works for the railroad company that hired Call. Call's old friend Pea Eye Parker—who initially refused to join the expedition because of his family—sets off with the Kickapoo tracker Famous Shoes to try to catch up with Call, until he runs into troubles of his own. The long pursuit of Garza leads them all across the last wild stretches of the West into a hellhole known as Crow Town and, finally, into the vast, relentless plains of the Texas frontier.

Download or read book Wolf Boys written by Dan Slater and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-09-13 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The tale of two American teenagers recruited as killers for a Mexican cartel, and the Mexican American detective who realizes the War on Drugs is unstoppable. “A hell of a story…undeniably gripping.” (The New York Times) In this astonishing story, journalist Dan Slater recounts the unforgettable odyssey of Gabriel Cardona. At first glance, Gabriel is the poster-boy American teenager: athletic, bright, handsome, and charismatic. But the ghettos of Laredo, Texas—his border town—are full of smugglers and gangsters and patrolled by one of the largest law-enforcement complexes in the world. It isn’t long before Gabriel abandons his promising future for the allure of juvenile crime, which leads him across the river to Mexico’s most dangerous drug cartel: Los Zetas. Friends from his childhood join him and eventually they catch the eye of the cartel’s leadership. As the cartel wars spill over the border, Gabriel and his crew are sent to the States to work. But in Texas, the teen hit men encounter a Mexican-born homicide detective determined to keep cartel violence out of his adopted country. Detective Robert Garcia’s pursuit of the boys puts him face-to-face with the urgent consequences and new security threats of a drug war he sees as unwinnable. In Wolf Boys, Slater takes readers on a harrowing, often brutal journey into the heart of the Mexican drug trade. Ultimately though, Wolf Boys is the intimate story of the lobos: teens turned into pawns for the cartels. A nonfiction thriller, it reads with the emotional clarity of a great novel, yet offers its revelations through extraordinary reporting.

Download or read book Comanche Moon written by Larry McMurtry and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-06-01 with total page 769 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The epic four-volume cycle that began with Larry McMurty's Pulitzer Prize–winning masterpiece, Lonesome Dove, is completed with this brilliant and haunting novel—a capstone in a mighty tradition of storytelling. Texas Rangers August McCrae and Woodrow F. Call, now in their middle years, are just beginning to deal with the enigmas of the adult heart—Gus with his great love, Clara Forsythe; and Call with Maggie Tilton, the young whore who loves him. Two proud but very different men, they enlist with a Ranger troop in pursuit of Buffalo Hump, the great Comanche war chief; Kicking Wolf, the celebrated Comanche horse thief; and a deadly Mexican bandit king with a penchant for torture. Comanche Moon joins the twenty-year time line between Dead Man's Walk and Lonesome Dove, following beloved heroes Gus and Call and their comrades-in-arms—Deets, Jake Spoon, and Pea Eye Parker—in their bitter struggle to protect an advancing Western frontier against the defiant Comanches, courageously determined to defend their territory and their way of life. At once vividly imagined and unflinchingly realistic, Comanche Moon is a sweeping, heroic adventure full of tragedy, cruelty, courage, honor and betrayal, and the culmination of Larry McMurty's peerless vision of the American West.

Download or read book Lowji Discovers America written by Candace Fleming and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008-06-23 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dear Jamshed, America is not so different from what we thought. I told you I wouldn't see a single cowboy riding across the plain, and I haven't. I have not even seen a plain. Still, there are some silver linings. They are: Trapper and King, the cat and dog who live in the apartment building. They are cuddly and waggy. I am not allowed to play with them, though, becayse they are supposed to catch mice and keep burglars away. Ironman. He owns a pig and talks to me a lot. But he is a grown-up. Kids. I can hear them playing outside. Too bad they do not want to play with me. I wish you were here. Do you wish I was in India? Write back soon. Your friend, Lowji