Lone Star Nation
How a Ragged Army of Courageous Volunteers Won the Battle for Texas Independence
2 of 2 copies available
2 of 2 copies available
"For better or for worse, Texas was very much like America. The people ruled, and little could stop them. If they ignored national boundaries, if they trampled the rights of indigenous peoples and of imported bondsmen, if they waged war for motives that started from base self-interest, all this came with the territory of democracy, a realm inhabited by ordinarily imperfect men and women. The one saving grace of democracy—the one that made all the difference in the end—was that sooner or later, sometimes after a terrible strife, democracy corrected its worst mistakes."
—from Lone Star Nation
Lone Star Nation is the gripping story of Texas's precarious journey to statehood, from its early colonization in the 1820s to the shocking massacres of Texas loyalists at the Alamo and Goliad by the Mexican army, from its rough-and-tumble years as a land overrun by the Comanches to its day of liberation as an upstart republic. H. W. Brands tells the turbulent story of Texas through the eyes of a colorful cast of characters who have become a permanent fixture in the American landscape: Stephen Austin, the state's reluctant founder; Sam Houston, the alcoholic former governor who came to lead the Texas army in its hour of crisis and glory; William Travis, James Bowie, and David Crockett, the unforgettable heroic defenders of the doomed Alamo; Santa Anna, the Mexican generalissimo and dictator whose ruthless tactics galvanized the colonists against him; and the white-haired President Andrew Jackson whose expansionist aspirations loomed large in the background. Beyond these luminaries, Brands unearths the untold stories of the forgotten Texans—the slaves, women, unknown settlers, and children left out of traditional histories—who played crucial roles in Texas’s birth. By turns bloody and heroic, tragic and triumphant, this riveting history of one of our greatest states reads like the most compelling fiction, and further secures H. W. Brands's position as one of the premier American historians.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
November 12, 2003 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9781415952252
- File size: 506992 KB
- Duration: 17:36:13
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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This detailed account of the history and personalities that gained Texas independence in 1836 is quite an earful. The author goes way back into the ancestry of Houston and Austin families, gives a nice view of Jacksonian politics (Sam Houston was a protégé of Andrew Jackson), and lets his audience in on the story of Mexican politics. All of this is quite fascinating, and at the end one marvels at the miracle of Texas gaining its independence and the tragedies that resulted from it in 1846 and then in 1861. Don Leslie gives a splendid and energetic reading. He does well with the narrative and renders credible accents for the quotations, which are often lengthy. M.T.F. (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine -
December 15, 2003
Nicely told as it is, this story could have been written 50 years ago. What's frustrating in this telling is that none of the advances in perspective that would make the work attractive to a general and mixed audience today are to be found in it. Brands's book is macho, tub-thumping, narrative Texas history at its old-fashioned best. But that's no longer good enough. Published at the same time, William C. Davis's Lone Star Rising
(Forecasts, Nov. 3) has ideas, argument and a point of view. It keeps Mexicans, Mexican-Texans and Anglo-Texans front and center. Brands (The First American, The Age of Gold
), on the other hand, lets chronicle substitute for history and breathlessness for style. The tale of the hard-won struggle for Texan independence from Mexico has inherent dramatic power. In addition to Stephen Austin and Sam Houston, other actors, like William Travis, Jim Bowie and Noah Smithwick, some little known, could excite any movie producer. It's hard to think that the story could be better told—but what's lacking is a theme or perspective, some new way, like Davis's, to relate the story. And was "the victory of Texans the victory for America" when the spread of slavery was one of its consequences? This anachronistic work may prove popular in the Lone Star State. Davis's better work, however, is where the larger, more pertinent history lies. Agent, James Hornfischer.
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