Lone Star Nation : The Texas Revolution and the Triumph of American Democracy

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining history in the classic style
Review: In the modern history profession, awash in tides of retrospective sociology, economic determinism, and "the rediscovered voices of marginalized peoples," the old-fashioned style of history and history-writing is sometimes belittled as "kings and battles." "Lone Star Nation" by H.W. Brands is very much a "kings and battles" book. Heavy on drama and personality and light on sociology, anthropology, and dry statistics, Brands' book is popular history told as an adventure story. It's an exciting adventure, and Brands has done a good job telling it.

The "kings" here are the towering figures in the Texan epic: Austin, Houston, Bowie, Crockett, Travis, plus Santa Anna, Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, and a host of smaller players. And the battles are epic too: Not only the literal battles of the revolution, but Austin's fight to establish and defend his colony; Santa Anna's for political control in Mexico; the Alamo; Goliad; the battle in the U.S. Congress over annexation; and finally, Governor Sam Houston's losing fight against the secessionist drive in 1861. In many ways, the early sections of this book especially are a series of biographies, tied together by the common theme of the settlement of Texas.

While most of these men come across as heroic, Brands' portrait of them is not unvarnished (the book isn't *that* old-fashioned). In fact, Brands shows how many of them achieved their heroic memory in spite of their failings, inadequacies, or downright unpleasantness. Similarly, I commend the author for his even-handed portrayal of Santa Anna, his unvarnished look at the slaughter that was the "battle" of San Jacinto (168 years ago today!) -- as well, of course, as the slaughters at the Alamo and Goliad -- and the decidedly unheroic influence of racism and nationalism on both sides of the fight.

I've said in other reviews that I agree with the statement that all history is ultimately biography, and "Lone Star Nation" is definitely personality-driven history. More "serious" academic historians may view that as a failing. But the general fan, looking for an exciting true story with larger-than-life characters, could do a lot worse than to settle down in these pages and discover the causes and consequences of the story in which the Alamo played such a memorable part.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Short History
Review: In the modern history profession, awash in tides of retrospective sociology, economic determinism, and "the rediscovered voices of marginalized peoples," the old-fashioned style of history and history-writing is sometimes belittled as "kings and battles." "Lone Star Nation" by H.W. Brands is very much a "kings and battles" book. Heavy on drama and personality and light on sociology, anthropology, and dry statistics, Brands' book is popular history told as an adventure story. It's an exciting adventure, and Brands has done a good job telling it.

The "kings" here are the towering figures in the Texan epic: Austin, Houston, Bowie, Crockett, Travis, plus Santa Anna, Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, and a host of smaller players. And the battles are epic too: Not only the literal battles of the revolution, but Austin's fight to establish and defend his colony; Santa Anna's for political control in Mexico; the Alamo; Goliad; the battle in the U.S. Congress over annexation; and finally, Governor Sam Houston's losing fight against the secessionist drive in 1861. In many ways, the early sections of this book especially are a series of biographies, tied together by the common theme of the settlement of Texas.

While most of these men come across as heroic, Brands' portrait of them is not unvarnished (the book isn't *that* old-fashioned). In fact, Brands shows how many of them achieved their heroic memory in spite of their failings, inadequacies, or downright unpleasantness. Similarly, I commend the author for his even-handed portrayal of Santa Anna, his unvarnished look at the slaughter that was the "battle" of San Jacinto (168 years ago today!) -- as well, of course, as the slaughters at the Alamo and Goliad -- and the decidedly unheroic influence of racism and nationalism on both sides of the fight.

I've said in other reviews that I agree with the statement that all history is ultimately biography, and "Lone Star Nation" is definitely personality-driven history. More "serious" academic historians may view that as a failing. But the general fan, looking for an exciting true story with larger-than-life characters, could do a lot worse than to settle down in these pages and discover the causes and consequences of the story in which the Alamo played such a memorable part.

Rating:
Summary: Six for Texas
Review: LONE STAR NATION, by H. W. Brands, almost makes me want to do the tourist thing at the Alamo in San Antonio. But earlier this year, I saw THE ALAMO film starring Billy Bob Thornton et al, so maybe I'll just go to Oklahoma instead. That's just as rewarding as visiting Texas, right?

This creditable narrative history of the area we now know as the Lone Star State really begins in 1821, when Stephen Austin, a debt-ridden and failed businessman, complies with his father's death-bed wish that he realize the latter's ambition of establishing a colony of expatriate Americans in the then Mexican province of Texas. The book ends in 1863 with the death of Sam Houston, the once-celebrated but failed Governor of Tennessee, who achieved personal redemption as the commander of the rebel Texan forces that beat the Mexican dictator General Santa Ana at the Battle of San Jacinto in 1836, and who went on to become the Texas Republic's first President and, after its admission to U.S. statehood, Senator and Governor. In between, the reader becomes acquainted with those other four men that play such a large role in Texas history and myth: Santa Ana, whose treatment of Texas and the Mexican central government is a lesson in self-aggrandizing ham-fistedness; Davy Crockett, the frontier legend and former U.S. Congressman from Tennessee, who sets out for Texas more out of curiosity than anything else; Jim Bowie of big knife fame, a veritable brigand, who seeks his fortune, ill-gotten or otherwise, in the troubled province; William Travis, who, after failing as a husband, lawyer, and newspaper publisher in Alabama, flees to Texas to gain eternal fame as the commander of the doomed Alamo garrison.

LONE STAR NATION is an historical summary comprehensive enough in its details to satisfy one such as myself that once knew relatively little of the subject beyond Fess Parker's gallant death while playing the title role in Walt Disney's DAVY CROCKETT AT THE ALAMO (1955). To my mind, the volume comes across as quite even-handed when discussing the morality - if such a notion can be applied - surrounding Mexico's loss of Texas to the Manifest Destiny-minded Americans. Mexico's mistake was allowing any settlers from the States across the border in the first place, regardless of the newcomers' honest intentions. The province's location on the far periphery of the Mexican state, which made it next to impossible for the central government to effectively police against the subsequent flood of legal and illegal immigrants, and so difficult to populate with Mexican citizens from the interior, made the loss of the land virtually a foregone conclusion. There were honorable and dishonorable men on both sides of the conflict, and Mexico seemed to lose pretty much by default. Brand describes no right or wrong here, only the inexorable forward migration of a human population at a particular time and place - simply one more instance of such in the long evolution of human history.

I'm not awarding five stars because, after describing the Battle of San Jacinto and the Texas Declaration of Independence, LONE STAR NATION dribbles to a close over the final four chapters to culminate with the state's subsequent succession from the Union at the outbreak of the Civil War. For a leaner, more effective presentation, Brand might have better concluded with the 1836 events and followed with but a brief afterword.

After finishing this book, I was reminded once again how fine a film was THE ALAMO (2004), starring Dennis Quaid as Houston, Billy Bob as Crockett, Emilio Echevarria as Santa Ana, Jason Patric as Bowie, and Patrick Wilson as Travis. It's a screen version so much more balanced and closer to the truth than any one previous - though historical and nationalistic purists will still find much to fault.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Preparation for "The Alamo"
Review: Publication of "Lone Star Nation" is well timed, with the imminent theatrical release of "The Alamo." Brands' book is excellent preparation for seeing the movie.

A gifted storyteller, Brands brings to life the extraordinary tale of the Texans' against-the-odds struggle for independence. All the great, larger-than-life personalities are vividly portrayed -- Santa Anna, Austin, Crockett, Bowie, etc. However, Sam Houston clearly emerges as the most sympathetic character. Brands shows how little control Houston wielded over an ill-discipined, poorly-trained, largely volunteer fighting force. Out-manned and out-gunned, Houston's strategy combined a steady retreat toward the U.S. border with appeals to his mentor, Pres. Andrew Jackson, to intercede. It was the restiveness (and insubordination) of his troops that finally compelled Houston to turn and face Santa Anna, leading to the breathtaking rout of the Mexican regulars at San Jacinto, and the capture of the self-proclaimed "Napoleon of the West."

Brands has written many stellar histories, including biographies of Ben Franklin and Theodore Roosevelt as well as an opus on the California Gold Rush. "Lone Star Nation" is another five-star installment in that pantheon. A compelling story well told.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Preparation for "The Alamo"
Review: Publication of "Lone Star Nation" is well timed, with the imminent theatrical release of "The Alamo." Brands' book is excellent preparation for seeing the movie.

A gifted storyteller, Brands brings to life the extraordinary tale of the Texans' against-the-odds struggle for independence. All the great, larger-than-life personalities are vividly portrayed -- Santa Anna, Austin, Crockett, Bowie, etc. However, Sam Houston clearly emerges as the most sympathetic character. Brands shows how little control Houston wielded over an ill-discipined, poorly-trained, largely volunteer fighting force. Out-manned and out-gunned, Houston's strategy combined a steady retreat toward the U.S. border with appeals to his mentor, Pres. Andrew Jackson, to intercede. It was the restiveness (and insubordination) of his troops that finally compelled Houston to turn and face Santa Anna, leading to the breathtaking rout of the Mexican regulars at San Jacinto, and the capture of the self-proclaimed "Napoleon of the West."

Brands has written many stellar histories, including biographies of Ben Franklin and Theodore Roosevelt as well as an opus on the California Gold Rush. "Lone Star Nation" is another five-star installment in that pantheon. A compelling story well told.

Rating:
Summary: A great story, well told
Review: Texas is sure of itself today, certain and confident of its place in the nation. Native Texans have occupied the White House, and held countless other positions of power, whether direct (Secretary James Baker) or indirect (e.g.,Colonel House under Wilson). That Texas was at once vastly uncertain as to its identity comes through clearly in Professor Brand's sharply written history. Austin came to Texas in fulfillment of his father's dying wish to colonize the state. To do so, he and countless others were willing to pledge allegiance to the Mexican flag. They were supportive of Santa Anna's commitment to federalism at one point (and then fought Santa Anna, and then sent him to Washington on their behalf, and fought him again, and embraced him later; he had, Brands' says, "more lives than a cat"). When the break with Mexico came, Texas experienced a period of independence during which she flirted with both Great Britain and France, and left open the possibility that if she were not annexed to the U.S., she might serve herself well by becomming a pawn in the efforts of both countries to halt U.S. expansion. Brands excells at biographical description -- Austin, Houston, Bowie, Crocket, and the rest are superbly rendered in his text. As to the lot of them, let it suffice to say that the founding fathers of Texas were not men who entered the region to "top off" already successful careers. Perhaps as a result, Texas, until the end of the civil war, seemed to represent, writ large, her anxious, impressionable and undisciplined founders. If the pioneers of Texas agreed on anything, it was that Texas was to be a new beginning. That dream went unfulfilled -- the withered "raisin in the sun" of Langston Hughes' imagery. This is because, try as it might, Texas, and the Texicans and tejanos never quite escaped being drawn into the vortex of larger forces, and the stress of pre-existing conflicts. What a great tale the Lone Star Nation conveys.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Short History
Review: W.R. Brands has written a wonderful book that captures the essentials of the history of the Republic of Texas in a single, can't-put-it-down, volume. If you read only one book on Texas history, this is the one you want to read.

Rating:
Summary: Lone Star WINNER!
Review: We all have heard the story of the Alamo. By now must of us have heard that it's possible that Davy Crockett did not die in the fight but was executed after the battle was over. What H W Brands brings in this new volume of Texas History is just how unlikely the entire revolution was and how close it came to being crushed. A commander-in-cheif that had no real authority and a government in rebellion that would not or could not supply the army they ordered Sam Houston to raise. It really makes one wonder just how the heck they succeeded. It appears with some skill, a lot of luck and the desire to be independent.

H W Brands makes all his subjects interesting and this one is no exception. READ THIS before going to see THE ALAMO!