Sleuthing The Alamo

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Sleuthing the Alamo

Author : James E. Crisp
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 201 pages
File Size : 53,8 Mb
Release : 2010-04-10
Category : History
ISBN : 9780195184082

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Sleuthing the Alamo by James E. Crisp Pdf

In Sleuthing the Alamo, historian James E. Crisp draws back the curtain on years of mythmaking to reveal some surprising truths about the Texas Revolution--truths often obscured by both racism and "political correctness," as history has been hijacked by combatants in the culture wars of the past two centuries. Beginning with a very personal prologue recalling both the pride and the prejudices that he encountered in the Texas of his youth, Crisp traces his path to the discovery of documents distorted, censored, and ignored--documents which reveal long-silenced voices from the Texan past. In each of four chapters focusing on specific documentary "finds," Crisp uncovers the clues that led to these archival discoveries. Along the way, the cast of characters expands to include: a prominent historian who tried to walk away from his first book; an unlikely teenaged "speechwriter" for General Sam Houston; three eyewitnesses to the death of Davy Crockett at the Alamo; a desperate inmate of Mexico City's Inquisition Prison, whose scribbled memoir of the war in Texas is now listed in the Guiness Book of World Records; and the stealthy slasher of the most famous historical painting in Texas. In his afterword, Crisp explores the evidence behind the mythic "Yellow Rose of Texas" and examines some of the powerful forces at work in silencing the very voices from the past that we most need to hear today. Here then is an engaging first-person account of historical detective work, illuminating the methods of the serious historian--and the motives of those who prefer glorious myth to unflattering truth.

Sleuthing the Alamo

Author : James E. Crisp
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 228 pages
File Size : 54,7 Mb
Release : 2004-12-01
Category : History
ISBN : 0199755809

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Sleuthing the Alamo by James E. Crisp Pdf

In Sleuthing the Alamo, historian James E. Crisp draws back the curtain on years of mythmaking to reveal some surprising truths about the Texas Revolution--truths often obscured by both racism and "political correctness," as history has been hijacked by combatants in the culture wars of the past two centuries. Beginning with a very personal prologue recalling both the pride and the prejudices that he encountered in the Texas of his youth, Crisp traces his path to the discovery of documents distorted, censored, and ignored--documents which reveal long-silenced voices from the Texan past. In each of four chapters focusing on specific documentary "finds," Crisp uncovers the clues that led to these archival discoveries. Along the way, the cast of characters expands to include: a prominent historian who tried to walk away from his first book; an unlikely teenaged "speechwriter" for General Sam Houston; three eyewitnesses to the death of Davy Crockett at the Alamo; a desperate inmate of Mexico City's Inquisition Prison, whose scribbled memoir of the war in Texas is now listed in the Guiness Book of World Records; and the stealthy slasher of the most famous historical painting in Texas. In his afterword, Crisp explores the evidence behind the mythic "Yellow Rose of Texas" and examines some of the powerful forces at work in silencing the very voices from the past that we most need to hear today. Here then is an engaging first-person account of historical detective work, illuminating the methods of the serious historian--and the motives of those who prefer glorious myth to unflattering truth.

A Line in the Sand

Author : Randy Roberts,James S. Olson
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 368 pages
File Size : 53,8 Mb
Release : 2001-08-03
Category : History
ISBN : 9780743222792

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A Line in the Sand by Randy Roberts,James S. Olson Pdf

In late February and early March of 1836, the Mexican Army under the command of General Antonio López de Santa Anna besieged a small force of Anglo and Tejano rebels at a mission known as the Alamo. The defenders of the Alamo were in an impossible situation. They knew very little of the events taking place outside the mission walls. They did not have much of an understanding of Santa Anna or of his government in Mexico City. They sent out contradictory messages, they received contradictory communications, they moved blindly and planned in the dark. And in the dark early morning of March 6, they died. In that brief, confusing, and deadly encounter, one of America's most potent symbols was born. The story of the last stand at the Alamo grew from a Texas rallying cry, to a national slogan, to a phenomenon of popular culture and presidential politics. Yet it has been a hotly contested symbol from the first. Questions remain about what really happened: Did William Travis really draw a line in the sand? Did Davy Crockett die fighting, surrounded by the bodies of two dozen of the enemy? And what of the participants' motives and purposes? Were the Texans justified in their rebellion? Were they sincere patriots making a last stand for freedom and liberty, or were they a ragtag collection of greedy men-on-the-make, washed-up politicians, and backwoods bullies, Americans bent on extending American slavery into a foreign land? The full story of the Alamo -- from the weeks and months that led up to the fateful encounter to the movies and speeches that continue to remember it today -- is a quintessential story of America's past and a fascinating window into our collective memory. In A Line in the Sand, acclaimed historians Randy Roberts and James Olson use a wealth of archival sources, including the diary of José Enrique de la Peña, along with important and little-used Mexican documents, to retell the story of the Alamo for a new generation of Americans. They explain what happened from the perspective of all parties, not just Anglo and Mexican soldiers, but also Tejano allies and bystanders. They delve anew into the mysteries of Crockett's final hours and Travis's famous rhetoric. Finally, they show how preservationists, television and movie producers, historians, and politicians have become the Alamo's major interpreters. Walt Disney, John Wayne, and scores of journalists and cultural critics have used the Alamo to contest the very meaning of America, and thereby helped us all to "remember the Alamo."

How Did Davy Die? And Why Do We Care So Much?

Author : Dan Kilgore,James E. Crisp
Publisher : Texas A&M University Press
Page : 121 pages
File Size : 54,6 Mb
Release : 2010-01-19
Category : History
ISBN : 9781603441940

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How Did Davy Die? And Why Do We Care So Much? by Dan Kilgore,James E. Crisp Pdf

Just over thirty years ago, Dan Kilgore ignited a controversy with his presidential address to the Texas State Historical Association and its subsequent publication in book form, How Did Davy Die? After the 1975 release of the first-ever English translation of eyewitness accounts by Mexican army officer José Enrique de la Peña, Kilgore had the audacity to state publicly that historical sources suggested Davy Crockett did not die on the ramparts of the Alamo, swinging the shattered remains of his rifle "Old Betsy." Rather, Kilgore asserted, Mexican forces took Crockett captive and then executed him on Santa Anna's order. Soon after the publication of How Did Davy Die?, the London Daily Mail associated Kilgore with "the murder of a myth;" he became the subject of articles in Texas Monthly and the Wall Street Journal; and some who considered his historical argument an affront to a treasured American icon delivered personal insults and threats of violence. Now, in this enlarged, commemorative edition, James E. Crisp, a professional historian and a participant in the debates over the De la Peña diary, reconsiders the heated disputation surrounding How Did Davy Die? and poses the intriguing follow-up question, “. . . And Why Do We Care So Much?” Crisp reviews the origins and subsequent impact of Kilgore’s book, both on the historical hullabaloo and on the author. Along the way, he provides fascinating insights into methods of historical inquiry and the use—or non-use—of original source materials when seeking the truth of events that happened in past centuries. He further examines two aspects of the debate that Kilgore shied away from: the place and function of myth in culture, and the racial overtones of some of the responses to Kilgore’s work.

The History of Texas

Author : Anonim
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 536 pages
File Size : 42,6 Mb
Release : 2014-01-28
Category : History
ISBN : 9781118617731

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The History of Texas by Anonim Pdf

The History of Texas is fully revised and updated in this fifth edition to reflect the latest scholarship in its coverage of Texas history from the pre-Columbian era to the present. Fully revised to reflect the most recent scholarly findings Offers extensive coverage of twentieth-century Texas history Includes an overview of Texas history up to the Election of 2012 Provides online resources for students and instructors, including a test bank, maps, presentation slides, and more

Sam Houston and the American Southwest

Author : Randolph B. Campbell
Publisher : Longman Publishing Group
Page : 242 pages
File Size : 45,9 Mb
Release : 2002
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : UVA:X004593235

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Sam Houston and the American Southwest by Randolph B. Campbell Pdf

In this biography, Randolph B. Campbell explores the life of Sam Houston and his important role in the development of the Southwest. Paperback, brief, and inexpensive, each of the titles in the Library of American Biography Series focus on a figure whose actions and ideas significantly influenced the course of American history and national life. In addition, each biography relates the life of its subject to the broader themes and developments of the times.

Legends, Lies & Cherished Myths of American History

Author : Richard Shenkman
Publisher : Harper Collins
Page : 226 pages
File Size : 44,8 Mb
Release : 2013-03-26
Category : History
ISBN : 9780062098870

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Legends, Lies & Cherished Myths of American History by Richard Shenkman Pdf

The truth and nothing but the truth—Richard Shenkman sheds light on America's most believed legends. The story of Columbus discovering the world was round was invented by Washington Irving. The pilgrims never lived in log cabins. In Concord, Massachusetts, a third of all babies born in the twenty years before the Revolution were conceived out of wedlock. Washington may have never told a lie, but he loved to drink and dance, and he fell in love with his best friend's wife. Independence wasn't declared on July 4th. There's no evidence that anyone died in a frontier shootout at high noon. After World War II, the U.S. government concluded that Japan would have surrendered within months, even if we had not bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Joe, the Slave Who Became an Alamo Legend

Author : Ron J. Jackson,Lee Spencer White
Publisher : University of Oklahoma Press
Page : 351 pages
File Size : 43,5 Mb
Release : 2015-03-02
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780806149608

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Joe, the Slave Who Became an Alamo Legend by Ron J. Jackson,Lee Spencer White Pdf

"Among the fifty or so Texan survivors of the siege of the Alamo was Joe, the personal slave of Lt. Col. William Barret Travis. First interrogated by Santa Anna, Joe was allowed to depart (along with Susana Dickinson) and eventually made his way to the seat of the revolutionary government at Washington-on-the-Brazos. Joe was then returned to the Travis estate in Columbia, Texas, near the coast. He escaped in 1837 and was never captured. Ron J. Jackson and Lee White have meticulously researched plantation ledgers, journals, memoirs, slave narratives, ship logs, newspapers, personal letters, and court documents to fill in the gaps of Joe's story. "Joe, the Slave Who Became an Alamo Legend" provides not only a recovered biography of an individual lost to history, but also offers a fresh vantage point from which to view the events of the Texas Revolution"--

Decorative Arts

Author : Judith Miller
Publisher : Dorling Kindersley Ltd
Page : 443 pages
File Size : 46,8 Mb
Release : 2006
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
ISBN : 9781405312905

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Decorative Arts by Judith Miller Pdf

A comprehensive guide to the history and development of style and design from 1700 to the present day, from No.1 antiques and collectables expert Judith Miller. From priceless Oriental porcelain and Huguenot silver to exquisite Art Deco glass and minimalist contemporary chairs, explore the entire spectrum of decorative pieces including furniture, ceramics, silverware, glass, textiles, sculpture, clocks, and posters through the centuries. Discover how to identify the key features and motifs, materials and techniques that influenced design and their significance. Uncover the stories behind the key designers and craftsmen, and the movements they represent. Over 3,000 beautiful items reveal the style and beauty of furnishings and objects used to decorate interiors through the centuries.

Gone to Texas

Author : Randolph B. Campbell
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 479 pages
File Size : 46,7 Mb
Release : 2017-03-15
Category : HISTORY
ISBN : 0190642394

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Gone to Texas by Randolph B. Campbell Pdf

Gone to Texas: A History of the Lone Star State engagingly tells the story of the Lone Star State, from the arrival of humans in the Panhandle more than 10,000 years ago to the opening of the twenty-first century. Focusing on the state's successive waves of immigrants, the book offers an inclusive view of the vast array of Texans who, often in conflict with each other and always in a struggle with the land, created a history and an idea of Texas. An Instructor's Resource Manual and a set of approximately 400 PowerPoint slides to accompany Gone to Texas, Third Edition, are now available to adopters. Please contact your local Oxford University Press representative for details.

Bootstrap Liberalism

Author : Sean P. Cunningham
Publisher : University Press of Kansas
Page : 328 pages
File Size : 46,8 Mb
Release : 2002-04-21
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780700633005

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Bootstrap Liberalism by Sean P. Cunningham Pdf

Has Texas always been one of the United States’ most conservative states? The answer might surprise you. Bootstrap Liberalism offers a glimpse into the world of Depression-era Texas politics, revealing a partisan culture that was often far more ideologically nuanced and complex than meets the eye. The Lone Star State is often viewed as a bastion of conservative politics and rugged “bootstrap” individualism, but that narrative overlooks the fact that FDR’s New Deal was quite popular in Texas, much more so than previous histories of the era have suggested. While it is true that many Texas Democrats remained staunchly conservative during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency, and it is also true that many of these conservatives formed the basis of an established majority that would grow stronger in the decades that followed, it is simultaneously true that ordinary voters—and a good many politicians—embraced New Deal policies, federal experimentation, and direct economic aid, and often did so enthusiastically as liberal Texas Democrats rode FDR’s coattails to electoral success. Texas political leaders recognized the popularity of the New Deal and identified themselves with FDR for their own political advantage. Using original resources mined from six research archives, Bootstrap Liberalism explores campaign strategies and policy debates as they unfolded at the local, state, and national levels throughout the Great Depression and World War II eras, revealing a consistent brand of pro–New Deal messaging that won favor with voters across the state. Most Texas Democrats did not apologize for supporting FDR. Rather, they celebrated him and often marketed themselves as New Deal Democrats. Voters endorsed that strategy by electing liberals throughout the 1930s and early 1940s.

Texian Macabre

Author : Stephen L. Hardin
Publisher : TX A&m-McWhiney Foundation
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 51,6 Mb
Release : 2013-03-02
Category : Hanging
ISBN : 1933337567

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Texian Macabre by Stephen L. Hardin Pdf

Mandred Wood may have caught a glint off the Bowie knife that sank into his belly--but probably not. On the afternoon of November 11, 1837, he had exchanged "harsh epithets" with David James Jones, a hero of the Texas Revolution. When words failed, Jones closed the argument with his blade. Such affrays were common in Houston, the fledgling capital of the Republic of Texas. This one, however, was singular. Wood was a gentleman and Jones a member of a disruptive gang of vagrants that the upper crust denounced as the "rowdy loafers." Jones went to jail; Wood went to his grave. In the weeks that followed, the killing resounded throughout the squalid, verminous city that one resident described as the "most miserable place in the world." Stephen L. Hardin's suspenseful and witty narrative reads like a contemporary page-turner, yet all is carefully documented history. He entwines the murder into the story of the sordid city like the strands of a hangman's rope. It is an astonishing tale peopled by remarkable characters: the one-armed newspaper editor and political candidate who employs the crime to advance his sanctimonious agenda; the Kentucky lawyer who enjoys champagne breakfasts and collecting human skulls; the German immigrant who sees rats gnaw the finger off an infant lying in his cradle; the Alamo widow whose circumstances force her to practice the oldest profession; the sociopathic physician who slaughters an innocent man in a duel; the Methodist minister horrified by the drunken debaucheries of government officials; and the president himself--the Sword of San Jacinto-- who during a besotted bacchanal strips to his underwear. Skillfully conceived and masterfully written, Texian Macabre: A Melancholy Tale of a Hanging in Early Houston will transport readers to a lost time and place.

The Texas Revolutionary Experience

Author : Paul D. Lack
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 368 pages
File Size : 48,6 Mb
Release : 1992
Category : History
ISBN : UOM:39015025194443

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The Texas Revolutionary Experience by Paul D. Lack Pdf

This fresh perspective, drawn from exhaustive examination of primary documents (claims records and land documents as well as traditional manuscript collections), portrays the Texans entering their quarrel with Mexico as a fragmented people--individualistic, divided from one community to another by ethnic and racial tensions, and lacking a consensus about the meaning of political changes in Mexico. Paul D. Lack examines, one at a time, the various groups that participated in the Texas Revolution. He concludes that the army was highly politicized, overly democratic and individualistic, and lacking in discipline and respect for property. With the statistical profile of the army he has compiled, Lack puts to rest forever the idea that the Anglo community gave an overwhelming response to the call to arms. He details instead the tensions between army volunteers and the majority of Texans who refused military service.

Smalltime: A Story of My Family and the Mob

Author : Russell Shorto
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
Page : 272 pages
File Size : 55,8 Mb
Release : 2021-02-02
Category : History
ISBN : 9780393245592

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Smalltime: A Story of My Family and the Mob by Russell Shorto Pdf

A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of 2021 Family secrets emerge as a best-selling author dives into the history of the mob in small-town America. Best-selling author Russell Shorto, praised for his incisive works of narrative history, never thought to write about his own past. He grew up knowing his grandfather and namesake was a small-town mob boss but maintained an unspoken family vow of silence. Then an elderly relative prodded: You’re a writer—what are you gonna do about the story? Smalltime is a mob story straight out of central casting—but with a difference, for the small-town mob, which stretched from Schenectady to Fresno, is a mostly unknown world. The location is the brawny postwar factory town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The setting is City Cigar, a storefront next to City Hall, behind which Russ and his brother-in-law, “Little Joe,” operate a gambling empire and effectively run the town. Smalltime is a riveting American immigrant story that travels back to Risorgimento Sicily, to the ancient, dusty, hill-town home of Antonino Sciotto, the author’s great-grandfather, who leaves his wife and children in grinding poverty for a new life—and wife—in a Pennsylvania mining town. It’s a tale of Italian Americans living in squalor and prejudice, and of the rise of Russ, who, like thousands of other young men, created a copy of the American establishment that excluded him. Smalltime draws an intimate portrait of a mobster and his wife, sudden riches, and the toll a lawless life takes on one family. But Smalltime is something more. The author enlists his ailing father—Tony, the mobster’s son—as his partner in the search for their troubled patriarch. As secrets are revealed and Tony’s health deteriorates, the book become an urgent and intimate exploration of three generations of the American immigrant experience. Moving, wryly funny, and richly detailed, Smalltime is an irresistible memoir by a masterful writer of historical narrative.

Up the Trail

Author : Tim Lehman
Publisher : JHU Press
Page : 259 pages
File Size : 46,9 Mb
Release : 2018-08-15
Category : History
ISBN : 9781421425917

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Up the Trail by Tim Lehman Pdf

How did cattle drives come about—and why did the cowboy become an iconic American hero? Cattle drives were the largest, longest, and ultimately the last of the great forced animal migrations in human history. Spilling out of Texas, they spread longhorns, cowboys, and the culture that roped the two together throughout the American West. In cities like Abilene, Dodge City, and Wichita, buyers paid off ranchers, ranchers paid off wranglers, and railroad lines took the cattle east to the packing plants of St. Louis and Chicago. The cattle drives of our imagination are filled with colorful cowboys prodding and coaxing a line of bellowing animals along a dusty path through the wilderness. These sturdy cowhands always triumph over stampedes, swollen rivers, and bloodthirsty Indians to deliver their mighty-horned companions to market—but Tim Lehman’s Up the Trail reveals that the gritty reality was vastly different. Far from being rugged individualists, the actual cow herders were itinerant laborers—a proletariat on horseback who connected cattle from the remote prairies of Texas with the nation’s industrial slaughterhouses. Lehman demystifies the cowboy life by describing the origins of the cattle drive and the extensive planning, complicated logistics, great skill, and good luck essential to getting the cows to market. He reveals how drives figured into the larger story of postwar economic development and traces the complex effects the cattle business had on the environment. He also explores how the premodern cowboy became a national hero who personified the manly virtues of rugged individualism and personal independence. Grounded in primary sources, this absorbing book takes advantage of recent scholarship on labor, race, gender, and the environment. The lively narrative will appeal to students of Texas and western history as well as anyone interested in cowboy culture.