Download or read book How Texas Got Its Shape written by Larry W Jones and published by . This book was released on 2022-02-05 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The shape of Texas was formed from 1519 - 1845 under six governments and flags. Its development included Spain, France, Mexico, the Republic Of Texas, the Confederate States Of America and the United States Of America. The "Compromise Of 1850" settled disputes of boundaries with Oklahoma and New Mexico. For readers interested in history, this book, "How Texas Got Its Shape", makes the past come alive with wars, intrigue, politics and more. Fully illustrated, it will capture your attention visually along with the written word.
Download or read book The Texanist written by David Courtney and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2017-04-25 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of Courtney's columns from the Texas Monthly, curing the curious, exorcizing bedevilment, and orienting the disoriented, advising "on such things as: Is it wrong to wear your football team's jersey to church? When out at a dancehall, do you need to stick with the one that brung ya? Is it real Tex-Mex if it's served with a side of black beans? Can one have too many Texas-themed tattoos?"--Amazon.com.
Download or read book The Shape of Texas written by Richard V. Francaviglia and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Texas-shaped ashtrays, belt buckles, earrings, kitchen utensils--"Texas kitsch"--fill gift shops alongside highways and in airports. The Lone Star State's unmistakable shape is appropriated by advertisers to hawk everything from beans to automobiles inside Texas' borders and beyond. As a billboard-sized neon sign glowing atop a popular honkey-tonk, the Texas map illuminates the Fort Worth night sky, attracting tourists in search of a good time--and a share of the Texas experience. Over the years America's most recognizable state outline has become one of its most potent symbols, a metaphor for Texas popular culture. In the last decade, the private, commercial, and official use of the Texas map as cultural symbol has boomed. Richard V. Francaviglia identifies this current trend as "Tex-map mania," and contends that the Texas map as icon integrates geography with history--and gives shape to a mythic landscape and to abstracted notions of what Texas is and who Texans are. Written in a lively style that engages both the scholar and the general reader in a discussion of the power of symbol and the meaning and significance of a shared aesthetic, The Shape of Texas is at the crossroads of cartography and popular culture. Francaviglia uses more than one hundred illustrations in offering a provocative visual and written account of this important, yet much neglected, aspect of Texas history and the dynamics of a still emerging Texas identity.
Download or read book God Save Texas written by Lawrence Wright and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2019-03-05 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Looming Tower—and a Texas native—takes us on a journey through the most controversial state in America. • “Beautifully written…. Essential reading [for] anyone who wants to understand how one state changed the trajectory of the country.” —NPR Texas is a red state, but the cities are blue and among the most diverse in the nation. Oil is still king, but Texas now leads California in technology exports. Low taxes and minimal regulation have produced extraordinary growth, but also striking income disparities. Texas looks a lot like the America that Donald Trump wants to create. Bringing together the historical and the contemporary, the political and the personal, Texas native Lawrence Wright gives us a colorful, wide-ranging portrait of a state that not only reflects our country as it is, but as it may become—and shows how the battle for Texas’s soul encompasses us all.
Download or read book Big Wonderful Thing written by Stephen Harrigan and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2019-10-01 with total page 944 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Cult of Glory written by Doug J. Swanson and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-06-08 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Swanson has done a crucial public service by exposing the barbarous side of the Rangers.” —The New York Times Book Review A twenty-first century reckoning with the legendary Texas Rangers that does justice to their heroic moments while also documenting atrocities, brutality, oppression, and corruption The Texas Rangers came to life in 1823, when Texas was still part of Mexico. Nearly 200 years later, the Rangers are still going--one of the most famous of all law enforcement agencies. In Cult of Glory, Doug J. Swanson has written a sweeping account of the Rangers that chronicles their epic, daring escapades while showing how the white and propertied power structures of Texas used them as enforcers, protectors and officially sanctioned killers. Cult of Glory begins with the Rangers' emergence as conquerors of the wild and violent Texas frontier. They fought the fierce Comanches, chased outlaws, and served in the U.S. Army during the Mexican War. As Texas developed, the Rangers were called upon to catch rustlers, tame oil boomtowns, and patrol the perilous Texas-Mexico border. In the 1930s they began their transformation into a professionally trained police force. Countless movies, television shows, and pulp novels have celebrated the Rangers as Wild West supermen. In many cases, they deserve their plaudits. But often the truth has been obliterated. Swanson demonstrates how the Rangers and their supporters have operated a propaganda machine that turned agency disasters and misdeeds into fables of triumph, transformed murderous rampages--including the killing of scores of Mexican civilians--into valorous feats, and elevated scoundrels to sainthood. Cult of Glory sets the record straight. Beginning with the Texas Indian wars, Cult of Glory embraces the great, majestic arc of Lone Star history. It tells of border battles, range disputes, gunslingers, massacres, slavery, political intrigue, race riots, labor strife, and the dangerous lure of celebrity. And it reveals how legends of the American West--the real and the false--are truly made.
Download or read book Lone Star Politics written by Ken Collier and published by CQ Press. This book was released on 2016-12-01 with total page 1043 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Texas, myth often clashes with the reality of everyday governance. The Nacogdoches author team (Ken Collier, Steven Galatas, & Julie Harrelson-Stephens) of Lone Star Politics explores the state’s rich political tradition and explains who gets what, and how by setting Texas in context with other states’ constitutions, policymaking, electoral practices, and institutions. Critical thinking questions and unvarnished “Winners and Losers” discussions guide students toward understanding Texas government. This Fifth Edition expands its coverage of civil rights in the state, and includes the contemporary issues that highlight the push and pull between federal, state, and local governments.
Download or read book Forget the Alamo written by Bryan Burrough and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-06-07 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Kings of Texas written by Don Graham and published by Turner Publishing Company. This book was released on 2010-12-22 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Praise for KINGS OF TEXAS "Kings of Texas is a fresh and very welcome history of the great King Ranch. It's concise but thorough, crisply written, meticulous, and very readable. It should find a wide audience." -Larry McMurtry, author of Sin Killer and the Pulitzer Prize--winning Lonesome Dove "This book is about the King Ranch, but it is about much more than that. A compelling chronicle of war, peace, love, betrayal, birth, and death in the region where the Texas-Mexico border blurs in the haze of the Wild Horse Desert, it is also an intriguing detective story with links to the present-and a first-rate read." -H.W. Brands, author of The Age of Gold and the bestselling Pulitzer Prize finalist The First American
Download or read book The Great Texas Wind Rush written by Kate Galbraith and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2013-07-15 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the late 1990s, West Texas was full of rundown towns and pumpjacks, aging reminders of the oil rush of an earlier era. Today, the towns are thriving as 300-foot-tall wind turbines tower above those pumpjacks. Wind energy has become Texas’s latest boom, with the Lone Star State now leading the nation. How did this dramatic transformation happen in a place that fights federal environmental policies at every turn? In The Great Texas Wind Rush, environmental reporters Kate Galbraith and Asher Price tell the compelling story of a group of unlikely dreamers and innovators, politicos and profiteers. The tale spans a generation and more, and it begins with the early wind pioneers, precocious idealists who saw opportunity after the 1970s oil crisis. Operating in an economy accustomed to exploiting natural resources and always looking for the next big thing, their ideas eventually led to surprising partnerships between entrepreneurs and environmentalists, as everyone from Enron executives to T. Boone Pickens, as well as Ann Richards, George W. Bush and Rick Perry, ended up backing the new technology. In this down-to-earth account, the authors explain the policies and science that propelled the “windcatters” to reap the great harvest of Texas wind. They also explore what the future holds for this relentless resource that is changing the face of Texas energy.
Download or read book Out of Darkness written by Ashley Hope Pérez and published by Carolrhoda Lab ®. This book was released on 2015-09-01 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A 2016 Michael L. Printz Honoree "This is East Texas, and there's lines. Lines you cross, lines you don't cross. That clear?" New London, Texas. 1937. Naomi Vargas and Wash Fuller know about the lines in East Texas as well as anyone. They know the signs that mark them. They know the people who enforce them. But sometimes the attraction between two people is so powerful it breaks through even the most entrenched color lines. And the consequences can be explosive. Ashley Hope Pérez takes the facts of the 1937 New London school explosion—the worst school disaster in American history—as a backdrop for a riveting novel about segregation, love, family, and the forces that destroy people.
Download or read book Rough Country written by Robert Wuthnow and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2016-04-05 with total page 662 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How the history of Texas illuminates America's post–Civil War past Tracing the intersection of religion, race, and power in Texas from Reconstruction through the rise of the Religious Right and the failed presidential bid of Governor Rick Perry, Rough Country illuminates American history since the Civil War in new ways, demonstrating that Texas's story is also America’s. In particular, Robert Wuthnow shows how distinctions between "us" and “them” are perpetuated and why they are so often shaped by religion and politics. Early settlers called Texas a rough country. Surviving there necessitated defining evil, fighting it, and building institutions in the hope of advancing civilization. Religion played a decisive role. Today, more evangelical Protestants live in Texas than in any other state. They have influenced every presidential election for fifty years, mobilized powerful efforts against abortion and same-sex marriage, and been a driving force in the Tea Party movement. And religion has always been complicated by race and ethnicity. Drawing from memoirs, newspapers, oral history, voting records, and surveys, Rough Country tells the stories of ordinary men and women who struggled with the conditions they faced, conformed to the customs they knew, and on occasion emerged as powerful national leaders. We see the lasting imprint of slavery, public executions, Jim Crow segregation, and resentment against the federal government. We also observe courageous efforts to care for the sick, combat lynching, provide for the poor, welcome new immigrants, and uphold liberty of conscience. A monumental and magisterial history, Rough Country is as much about the rest of America as it is about Texas.
Download or read book Springs of Texas written by Gunnar M. Brune and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 616 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text explores the natural history of Texas and more than 2900 springs in 183 Texas counties. It also includes an in-depth discussion of the general characteristics of springs - their physical and prehistoric settings, their historical significance, and their associated flora and fauna.
Download or read book Comanche Marker Trees of Texas written by Steve Houser and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2016-09-23 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this unprecedented effort to gather and share knowledge of the Native American practice of creating, designating, and making use of marker trees, an arborist, an anthropologist, and a Comanche tribal officer have merged their wisdom, research, and years of personal experience to create Comanche Marker Trees of Texas. A genuine marker tree is a rare find—only six of these natural and cultural treasures have been officially documented in Texas and recognized by the Comanche Nation. The latter third of the book highlights the characteristics of these six marker trees and gives an up-to-date history of each, displaying beautiful photographs of these long-standing, misshapen, controversial symbols that have withstood the tests of time and human activity. Thoroughly researched and richly illustrated with maps, drawings, and photographs of trees, this book offers a close look at the unique cultural significance of these living witnesses to our history and provides detailed guidelines on how to recognize, research, and report potential marker tree candidates.
Download or read book Texas Almanac 2000 2001 Millennium Edition written by and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Real Vampires Have Curves written by Gerry Bartlett and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2008 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: BARTLETT/REAL VAMPIRES HAVE CURVES
Download or read book Alma and How She Got Her Name written by Juana Martinez-Neal and published by Candlewick Press. This book was released on 2023-09-05 with total page 33 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A beautifully illustrated, tender story to be shared with all children, sure to evoke conversations about their names." --School Library Journal (starred review) If you ask her, Alma Sofia Esperanza José Pura Candela has way too many names: six! How did such a small person wind up with such a large name? Alma turns to Daddy for an answer and learns of Sofia, the grandmother who loved books and flowers; Esperanza, the great-grandmother who longed to travel; José, the grandfather who was an artist; and other namesakes, too. As she hears the story of her name, Alma starts to think it might be a perfect fit after all--and realizes that she will one day have her own story to tell. In her 2019 Caldecott Honor Book, Juana Martinez-Neal opens a treasure box of discovery for children who may be curious about their own origin stories or names.
