No comments about Californio Voices: The Oral Memoirs of Jose Maria Amador and Lorenzo Asisara (Al Filo: Mexican American Studies).

2 comments about Tascosa: Its Life and Gaudy Times.

1. In his Introduction, western historian Frederick Nolan says, "Tascosa is gone, dissolved, and blown away by the rains and winds of history. It is not even a ghost town." Although that may be physically true, Nolan has successfully resurrected the town with this definitive history.
   
   It is all here in "Tascosa, Its Life and Gaudy Times," the legends, the real stories, often told from three or four differing points-of-view: The Beef Bonanza, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, John Selman's "Regulators," Charles Goodnight, the XIT, the Rocking Chair, the Frying Pan, and other Panhandle ranches, as well as the the Cowboy Strike of 1883 immortalized in Elmer Kelton's "The Day The Cowboys Quit." Nolan offers up all of it, and the stories practically tell themselves.
   
   The town started out as a gathering place for buffalo hunters. Situated on the Canadian River and a hundred miles from Fort Elliott, the collected adobe buildings went by the name of Hidetown for a while, then became Atascosa. However, in 1878, when the town fathers applied for a post office, they were turned down because a town by that name already existed in South Texas. So the first "A" was amputated and the town of Tascosa was officially born.
   
   The new town was wild and woolly, loaded with hotheads, scarlet women, drunken cowboys, and gamblers. Cattle rustling seems to have been a weekend pastime. After barbed wire appeared, fences began to go up without benefit of surveys or clear title. What law existed was ineffective, and almost immediately, Boot Hill began filling with graves.
   
   Several chapters of the book are devoted to the Cowboy Strike, the feud and infamous shoot-out that happened as a result. Nolan does a good job of sorting out the various "sides" to the story, not an easy task as almost everybody who lived in Tascosa was involved. He uses many colorful quotes from grand jury testimonies and from contemporary newspaper interviews that help to give a clear picture of the rough, post-Civil War era in Texas.
   
   It was a time of transition and Tascosa was a transitional town. In it's heyday it boasted a newspaper, a blacksmith, a hotel, livery stables, numerous saloons, a public school, a drugstore, several general mercantile stores, and a barber shop. But it didn't last long.
   
   In 1887, came the big die-up, when blizzards raged across the plains states, dropping temperatures to below zero for several days straight. It was estimated that 80 percent of the cattle on the range perished. Even some of the largest cattle ranches went under. Smaller ones were decimated. Then in 1888, the Fort Worth and Denver, Colorado railway came through the Panhandle, bypassing Tascosa and dealt the town the coup de grace. In a little over a decade, Tascosa had gone from boomtown to a dusty spot in the road between Amarillo and Dalhart.
   
   I cannot imagine that there is anything of the history of Tascosa that Frederick Nolan has missed. The amount of research this work contains is almost staggering. I found myself wondering time and again how he ever unearthed the often obscure bits and pieces he uses to reconstruct the history. His writing is even and fluid, and moves the reader along at a quick pace. The only addition I would have personally liked would have been a map of the Panhandle, in order to place old Tascosa in its proper surrounding.



2. "Tascosa" is worth reading as a follow up to earlier books about this little gunslinger town in the Texas Panhandle, Maverick Town, The Story of Old Tascosa by McCarty and The LS Brand, by Dulcie Sullivan.
   
   My interest in the subject is related to a character in the book and possibly his photo on the front cover, lower lefthand side. Another photo inside the book caught my interest because of a glaring inaccuracy. I know it is inaccurate because my great grandfather is J.E. McAllister.
   
   The family photo misidentifies the child sitting on his lap as his son, when the child is my grandmother. Her older brother is the other child.
   
   I don't know about other "facts" in the book, whether our family history has coverups or whether the author's research reflects opinions of less than honest characters with their own agendas. I do appreciate the lengthy references in the back of the book because it is a subject that always interests me.

5 comments about Kings of Texas: The 150-Year Saga of an American Ranching Empire.

1. I took one star away because I dont think the title tells you what the book is about. Most (9 of 14 chapters) of the book is about Richard King, the founder, and the history that took place in South Texas. Only one chapter is devoted to the men who ran the ranch after King. Robert Kleberg, who really made the ranch so wealthy is given little treatment.

   However, I did like this book. Its well-written and easy to read. One really gets a sense of what life was like in the late 1800's in South Texas. The later part of the book deals with the impending lawsuit against the King Ranch. Did Richard King swindle his partner's widow out of what was rightfully her's? (about 7,000 acres of prime real estate). The widow's descendants sure think so. Can they win their claim over the power King Ranch? This is a complicated question to answer but the author digs deep into the story. The only bad part is that the case has not yet been settled, so there is no resolution to the engaging battel for money and land.

   If you like Texas or western history, you should read this book.




2. Graham begins his tale by informing the reader that he was denied access to the King Ranch's Archives. This immediately sets the tone for the rest of his book as he views the King Ranch through a bitter lens. He spends much of his time writing on the history of the area around the Ranch. He intersperses the document with his personal pronouns and anecdotes of his own experiences. This all culminates in the Big Trials of the King Ranch. This is where his bias against the King Ranch shines. He is clearly opposed to the King Ranch. Foregoing an impartial view of events his prose begins to be colored by his frustrations. This book does give some history of Southern Texas, so it rates a 3 out of 5.



3. I bought this tome for my spouse and it sat around the house, unread, until I picked it up myself. I was surprised that this slim volume could explain so much about the founding of the King Ranch and the controversy surrounding its ownership. I was especially interested in the property rights of the missing character, a military cohort and investor of King's whose heirs later sued the King heirs for their ancestor's part of the ranch. All unsuccessfully, of course.

   However, this work by Don Graham, whose work I often read in "Texas Monthly Magazine", which centers more on Kleberg than on the later years and workings, is quite interesting. I couldn't put it down until the end. And after yakking it up to my husband, he finally indulged himself in the read. We both recommend it for anyone fascinated by the legends of this gigantic property and its landlords.




4. I enjoyed this book on the history of the King Ranch and South Texas generally. But it left me wanting more.
   
   The author seems to spend an undue amount of time telling the other side of the story and focusing on parts of the history that were not previously told. This is fine for someone that has already read about the King Ranch. But for a first read on the King Ranch, I suspect that there are better books out there such as Tom Lea's book "The King Ranch" that the author cites and references numerous times.



5. I ordered this book for my husband and he said it is the best of all the books he has read on the King Ranch and King family. Our daughter has ordered it also for some writing she is doing on the Valley.

5 comments about Heimskringla: History of the Kings of Norway.

1. I have never read a more hilarious piece of academic literature. The Norse Kings are so funny... you wouldn't believe how many of them died in drunken accidents. But that's not the book's focus. As a college junior, I found this book to be a great reference for my History and English papers and have included it in my necessary-reference-books collection. Sturluson is great! A very entertaining read.

   Word Ninja




2. First of all, a great translation! Fun and interesting (often very violent) reading. A good history also. Worth reading.



3. "The Heimskringla" was written around 1230 by Snorri Sturluson, a powerful Icelandic chief living in Norway. Snorri also wrote the "Prose (or Younger) Edda", a book about poetry that incidentally gives much valuable information on heathen Scandinavian mythology. While Snorri's contemporaries primarily regarded him as a politician and dangerous enemy, posterity remembers him as a writer and poet.
   
   "The Heimskringla" is a highly entertaining work, at least if you are a hard-core Viking or medievalist buff. The story starts in Sweden, at Old Uppsala, then moves on to Norway, with occasional landfalls in England, Spain, Constantinopel and even Jerusalem. Today, the earliest portion of "the Heimskringla", the saga of the Ynglings, is regarded as purely mythological. While Old Uppsala undoubtedly existed (the large burial mounds mentioned by Snorri still stands), it was hardly the capital of a powerful Swedish kingdom. The later parts of Snorri's work deal with real people: St. Olaf, Magnus the Good, Harald Hardruler, Sigurd the Crusader, and others. This part of "the Heimskringla" blends fact and fiction. Some has been confirmed by other medieval chronicles. For instance, Sigurd did sail all the way from Norway to Palestine around the year 1100! Much else sound like tall-tales, as when St.Olaf, still a young boy, attacks and plunders the heathen Estonians...
   
   Even so, this work tells us a lot about how at least some groups of Scandinavians saw themselves and their world during the 13th century. To a modern reader, much of it sounds shocking. That Muslims and heathens should be killed is taken for granted. Sigurd takes a dip in the Jordan river at the spot where Jesus was baptized. Then, he moves on to kill some infidels. He never sees any contradiction. Martial prowess, at as young an age as possible, is the ideal. Most wars are actually fought between different Christian factions. Part of the heroic exploit is to capture and enslave the womenfolk of your enemies. There are also constant supernatural occurances, as when an angel stops St.Olaf from sailing through the strait of Gibraltar, or when Harald Hardruler is saved by a supernaturally risen St.Olaf!
   
   Most of the people described in this remarkable chronicle are Christians, as was Snorri himself. Yet, it's as if the Viking Age never ended. Onward, Christian Vikings!



4. Don't be afraid to start this very, very long book. You can skip around and read the exciting histories of the kings of Norway. I loved the tale of how Norway's "1st King" Harald Fairhair conquered the kingdom for the sake of a gal he liked. The sections on St. Olaf are good too. Happy reading!



5. Any prospective reader should know that Snorri has not written a comprehensive history of ALL of the Norwegian kings. His account stops in 1177, so don't expect any juicy gossip about the current king, Harald V or his son, the crown prince Haakon. Still, if the prospective reader's interest is the medieval history of Norway, Snorri's sagas are a good primary source to read. In fact, the prospective reader should stongly consider this work if he or she has a strong interest in medieval history in general, or if he or she is interested in the Christianization of Northern Europe, or if he or she wants to learn more about Norwegian state formation, or if he or she likes to read gory stories about Norwegians killing Norwegians.

5 comments about Hold Autumn in Your Hand (A Zia Book).

1. I was introduced to this book in a Texas literature class in college and was completely charmed by it. Then I shared it with my grandfather, who spent his youth "workin' on the halves" in the very country inhabited by the characters in this book, the blackland prairie of Texas. My grandfather is not normally a voracious reader of anything besides the newspaper and the Bible, but he zipped through this book in a few days. As he returned it to me he said with a grin, "I didn't think he was gonna get it all in there, but he did!" A tribute to the authentic feel of the story. I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in agrarian traditions, sharecropping, the 1930s, or the durability of the human spirit.



2. Perry creates an easy and enjoyable read while at the same time providing deep insight into the lives of tenant farmers in the Depression-era deep South at the dawn of the welfare state. The author's resourceful and loyal creation is Sam Tucker and his family, whom Perry portrays as hardworking, neighborly, poverty stricken, and yet content. The story follows a myriad of concerns that faced many, if not most, poor and uneducated tenant farmers in East Texas during the 1930's. Whether White, Black, or Hispanic, they all faced the same obstacles of bad weather, ravenous insects, sick children, or belligerant neighbors. But Tucker, despite all of these unfortunate setbacks and tragedies, is able to maintain, sometimes through sheer will, an enviable optimism and determination to press on for the provision of his loved ones. Now Tucker is no "too good to be true" fellow, he indeed has faults, and it is these faults, as well as his responses to the tragic events that unfold in the story, that help to paint the lucid image of his glowing humanity and that of his family.

   Interestingly, the book has a number of not so subtle parallels to a certain Steinbeck novel of the same period.

   Highly recommended.




3. George Sessions Perry's Hold Autumn in Your Hand is a classic piece of Texas literature. He writes in a style that allows the reader to whiz through the pages, and makes you fall in love with the characters and their problems.
   
   Sam Tucker is a hardworking and decent tenant farmer during the Depression. He is trying to get his family out of the duldrums they have found themselves in the last few years. He finally gets some luck when he is allowed to farm a piece of land that has enough acreage to make a profit. With one neighbor helping him every step of the way and another trying to thwart his attempts to prosper, Sam is able to use his optimism and will power to succeed as a tenant farmer during the Depression.
   
   I loved the story pertaining to his neighbors cow, along with his quest to catch the giant fish (one hilarious and the other filled with mixed emotions). There are some classic characters riddled throughout Hold Autumn in Your Hand (the grandma for example) and some funny scenarios, which make this a must read for anyone. Everyone enjoy!



4. "Hold Autumn In Your Hand" by George Sessions Perry is a deeply felt and powerfully moving work that deserves to be better known within the canon of American literature. The slim and highly readable work powerfully evokes the feel of the American South in the 1930s. Perhaps because its author produced so little due to his mental illness, this book is still little known outside a small base of those who hold it within their affections. After reading this book, a reader will feel that he or she has truly gotten to know Sam Tucker and his family. The book can and should be better known, and deserves greater recognition for its eloquent portrayal of a man and his struggles.



5. Once the reader falls into the steady, slow rhythms of Perry's novel about an impoverished Texas farmer of the 1930s, the book becomes almost compulsively readable. It has little action other than Sam Tucker's quest to tame nature and to wrest a living from the Texas soil, yet the novel evokes a sense of drama and of real accomplishment.
   
   A key passage highlights for me the fact that Perry has a social agenda. He is an idealist who believes that cooperation among human beings is essential for our species' survival. Call him a populist or a dirt-road socialist, but don't forget this, on Page 136:
   
   "Once you knew what Sam knew, that ignorance and disease, the blackness of the night and the terror of the storm, were the great eternal enemies of man, there could be no tolerance for those who sought to replace the processes of patient reason by violence, joint effort by war. . . . If salvation, in the form of progress and fulfillment, were ever to come to men, it must come through intelligent trust, by rising above fear, abd by means of the natural affection of man for man that automatically occurs when fear is removed, like the emergence of green leaves when winter is over."
   
   This unforgettably expresses the best of the sentiments that grew out of the Great Depression.

1 comments about Houston's Silent Garden: Glenwood Cemetery, 1871-2009 (Sara and John Lindsey Series in the Arts and Humanities).

1. I used to jog down the Buffalo Bayou Greenbelt and often wonder what was beyond the curve of the Bayou in the lush clearing. One day I decided to run down Washington and see what this parklike clearing was and to my shocking amazement this glorious, rolling Necropolis rose out of the Bayou like Valhalla. I was totally mesmerized at the beauty of the majestic oaks and the rolling vistas, so foreign to the Houston I knew. Later, I did some research and found out that the Cemetery was the resting place of Houston's Brahman class, it's a who's who of Houston's Jet set, from Hugh Cullen to Jesse Jones, from Gene Tierney to Howard Hughes, it's like the River Oaks for the dead. I was thrilled when I found out that a book was being published on Glenwood, and I could not be more pleased with the end product. It is full of gorgeous images and insightful, scholarly, yet not dry, text. I'll grant you some might find a book on a cemetery to be, well, morbid, but those are people who have never seen Glenwood. Houston is a city full of surprises, it's the city the built the Astrodome, the Galleria, and a 900 foot tall skyscraper six miles from downtown, but its biggest surprise, its most hallowed treasure, is Glenwood. I highly recommend this book and want to personally thank the authors as well as Mr. and Mrs. Lindsey for publishing this book; good work indeed.

5 comments about Eighteen Minutes: The Battle of San Jacinto and the Texas Independence Campaign.

1. The brave Texans who fought and died in the Battle of San Jacinto are only remembered in the footnotes of Modern U.S. History books and have never received credit for their magnanimous victory on the fields of San Jacinto. Rallying around the battle cry of the infamous phrases "Remember the Alamo" and "Remember Goliad," the Texan Army gained their independence by routing the Mexican Army of Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna Perez de Lebron (Otherwise known as Santa Anna to mortals). Stephen L. Moore's "Eighteen Minutes" uses the battle as a background to tell the story of the Texan Independence Campaign and the men who fought in it. In fact, Moore goes into too much detail by telling readers the names, ranks, and background of just about everyone who fought in the San Jacinto campaign, which is several thousand Texans and Mexicans combined. Exaggerations aside, "Eighteen Minutes" is a great book for those history buffs around the country, and I picked it up wanting to learn more about a war that is barely covered or remembered. I do not recommend it for anyone wanting a page-turner, but it is great history and a great history novel. Finally, the Texan freedom-fighters are given the credit they deserve. From one history buff to another, I applaud your effort Mr. Moore.



2. Written by a sixth generation Texan and a descendant of fighters who themselves battled for Texas independence, Eighteen Minutes: The Battle Of San Jacinto And The Texas Independence Campaign is an extensive retelling of the critical battle that established Texas as the Lone Star Republic, independent from Mexico. Drawing directly from and telling its story through the words of over 120 Texan and Mexican soldiers, Eighteen Minutes follows the actions of General Sam Houston and his Texas volunteers from one week after the fall of the Alamo to his victory at San Jacinto. Eighteen Minutes is an exhaustively researched, superbly written military history, laying out the brief yet utterly decisive battle in minute detail.



3. On a warm, partly cloudy afternoon on Thursday, April 21st in 1836 a smaller, poorly trained, ragtag army attacked a larger, better equipped force. In 18 minutes, a nation was born and over a million acres of land changed ownership. Ranked as one of the decisive battles of the western world,the author has done an excellent job tracing the history of the San Jacinto Campaign of the Texas Revolution. Using maps and first hand accounts (many of which have seldom seen the light of day) Stephen Moore tracks both the Texian and Mexican forces. Included are several useful muster rolls and lists show when and where the various volunteer units were formed. (The writer of this review had two ancestors at San Jacinto.) An added bonus are some outstanding paintings by Texas artist Charles Shaw.If you are studying the Texas Revolution in general or San Jacinto in particular, BUY THIS BOOK.



4. This book would not be the first to read on the subject of the 1835-1836 independence movement. 'Texian Iliad' is a good introduction. 'Eighteen Minutes' contains more detail than some readers would want in the names of persons, army organization, and so forth. The details provide what is needed by those wanting to investigate further, but little help is provided those readers lacking a understanding of the conditions of the time and place.



5. A great overview of the Texas Revolution, troops movements and motivations. The often told story of the climatic battle of San Jacinto [make that "San Haceento" not "San Yacinto"] is riveting. The small band of distraught and angry Texas survivors refuses to retreat further. Houston is forced to make the best of a bad situation and is forced to fight.
   
   Santa Ana was never worried. He'd whipped the Texans at Alamo. He'd butchered them at Goliad--and--the remaining Texans were running like scalded cats. Only worried that the Texas rebels might escape his vengeful hand, he splits his force into a three-prong dragnet. The morning the Texas forces show up, finds Santa Ana and his small army of regulares backed against the Buffalo Bayou.
   
   The General is so unconcerned, some recollections have it, that he was entertaining himself with a mulatto girl he'd picked up at one of the local plantations. This is the famous "Yellow Rose" of Texas song and legend. She gave her all for Texas and Santa Ana was caught with his pants down.
   
   The enraged Texans break the Mexican line screaming, "Remember Goliad! Remember the Alamo!" They remembered in blood. Pleading Mexican soldiers are backed into the bayou where they are shot, clubbed and knifed. Hatred between Texas and Mexico--hatred warmed at Alamo and heated at Goliad--came to a fatal boil at San Jacinto.
   
   The great Generalissimo-Presidente de Mexico, Antonio Lopez de Santa, when offered the choice between hanging from an oak tree and signing away Texas, chose the latter or, as Col. Enrique de la Pena said, "Travis was a land-thief and criminal but he gave his life for his country. Santa Ana, when given the opportunity of dying like a Mexican hero, decided to save his own cowardly neck."
   
   Ron Braithwaite author of novels--"Skull Rack" and "Hummingbid God"--on the Conquest of Mexico

No comments about Mexican Americans in Texas: A Brief History, Third Edition.

1 comments about Flag Burning and Free Speech: The Case of Texas v. Johnson.

1. Pros: Goldstein announces his bias in the preface to alert readers to possible slants in his writing style. It's an easy read and organized well.
   
   Cons: I find that he uses too many citations and includes little analysis. Insights and rhetorical questions are pretty surface-level.
   
   Overall, it's a good read and poses some interesting questions.

4 comments about The History of Texas.

1. If you've ever read anything by De Leon--master of the term "White Supremecy"--then you know what he's capable of. And, unfortunately, his grubby little fingers were all over this book; which--again, unfortunately--is used as a college textbook. Therefore all evil in Texas leads back to one thing--the white man. Boo!
   
   That aside, it's little things that add up. Such as stating for a fact that Crockett was executed after the The Alamo fell. There is no opposition statement.
   
   That may not seem like much, but this isn't yet another history; this is a textbook, used to teach our future leaders. Any hedging of facts, no matter how subtle, should not be tolerated.



2. I read the book while preparing for my teacher certification exam. My professional training is in History and I have had my share of dry, boring books, but this one literally put me to sleep. I used to read few pages before going to bed, a sure way to cure insomnia.
   
   The textbook is just a collection of facts, dates and names. There is no cause-and-effect line in the book, not even an attempt to draw some conclusions. Instead, it reads like a statistician report. If memorizing the dry numbers is your thing, go for it. For the rest of us, who are trying to actually understand and make some sense out of the past, stay away from this book. You will get your basics in, but it will not make you think or encourage you to seek more information.



3. This is my textbook for my college Texas History class, and I hate it. As others have said, it definitely lacks organization. In other words, it sucks. Please don't read it unless you're assigned to it like I am.



4. I had a high school history teacher who taught like this book reads. She just wrote facts down on the overhead and had the students copy. No exposition, no narrative. Just bland facts.
   
   Thank God for the history books that read like the great storytellers tell them. Sadly, this isn't one of them. Steer clear of this one.