Texas, a Modern History

Texas has always seemed too big to me, too big to really comprehend. The Alamo was important and a high point on a high school exchange trip to Abilene Texas, petroleum was a major driver, of course, and several people made deep impressions: LBJ, Oswald, both Bushes. But somehow I never tried to make sense of all my impressions of the state. It wasn't until I took a trip to visit Austin, San Antonio and the Hill Country that I tried to grasp the state's vastness and focus on what made it different from other places I've dreamed about and visited. This excellent overview emphasized many of the changes in the state over the past 150 years as it moved from a primarily agricultural state to a much more diverse economy. I learned about many of the interest groups: minorities, women, Native Americans and other immuigrants. I was impressed with McComb's directness on Texas' faults, exploring the ways Texans have managed and mismanaged the problems of pollution, exploitation of natural resources, the oil depression, and civil rights. Even small mysteries became clearer; after reading the book and visiting the five missions in San Antonio, I understood that the Alamo itself was a mission at the time of the battle for independence, much large than the small but important shrine that is so venerated today. McComb writes very well, as this extract from the introduction shows: "The land possesses a powerful and haunting beauty, and Texas, the name for this country, is a word of myth and reality. The five letters are so emotionally encrusted that the name defies definition. It means too many things to people. For example, Thomas Jefferson wrote to James Madison in 1820, 'The province of Techas will be the richest state of our Union without any exception.' Frederick Law Olmsted, a traveler and landscape architect, recorded in 1857, '"'G.T.T.",' (gone to Texas) was the slang appendage, within the reader's recollection, to every man's name who had disappeared before the discovery of some rascality. Did a man emigrate thither, everyone was on the watch for the discreditable reason to turn up.' "'Other states were carved or born, Texas grew from hide to horn,' stated Texas poet Berta Hart Nance around 1930. And in 1962, after traveling with his dog Charley, John Steinbeck wrote, 'Writers facing the problem of Texas find themselves floundering in generalities, and I am no exception. Texas is a state of mind, Texas is an obsession. Above all, Texas is a nation in every sense of the word.'" *** The book's table of contents describes the major topics; the Afterword is particularly good for further reading: Preface 1. Land and Nature 2. The Spanish Legacy 3. Texas and the United States 4. Settlement 5. Texas in Transit 6. The Texas Mystique 7. Afterword: Books and Themes References Index Overall, this book is a pleasure to read and to recommend to others interested in a general introduction to this complex state. I agree completely with Longitude Book