Yes, my mistake.
HW Brands Lone Star Nation
Hardin Texian Iliad
Both excellent.
Have we mentioned/talked about “The Son” before?
I would assume so, but this just made me remember it.
I was interested in knowing more about both books (Texian Iliad and Lone Star Nation) so I went to Amazon to learn more. I like Brands but how in fucking god’s name did he write this shit?
“imported bondsmen”?
That’s a pretty fucking genteel way of putting it.
Not to mention “trampled the rights” papers over some incredible pain and suffering.
And democracy didn’t do shit when it came to ending slavery. It took one of the bloodiest civil wars in the history of the planet to do that. Brands knows how stupid he’s sounding and he tries (and fails) to save it by throwing in the “sometimes after a terrible strife” part.
Kindly read the book and let us know what you think.
Brands does not get out the pom poms. Not about the American colonists who revolted, the ‘army’ they formed, the victory they won, or the fledgling nation they formed (with statehood ALWAYS the ultimate goal).
And he spends the last phase of the book documenting Sam Houston’s unsuccessful attempt to keep Texas from seceding. Houston learned, the hard way, that in democracy the people don’t always choose the right thing.
Btw the word slaves appears 54 times, slavery 74, slaveholder 10, slave 168, slaveholding 2, slaveholders 7. The desire for American colonists to maintain slavery and the Mexican government’s opposition was a central conflict in the revolution that is dealt with straightaway.
Those cherries are ripe for picking.
The Son was one of the best books I’ve read in the last ten, maybe twenty years. Made me think of my dad and his family, who emigrated from Germany in the 1840’s.
Haven’t watched the AMC series, though. Much as I love Pierce Brosnan, Remington Steele is not who I thought of as the patriarch.
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Yep, same. Just an amazing read (pretty sure I’ve read it twice, American Rust is great too), I think it means more to some than others.
I watched 20 minutes of that show, and laughed at his terrible pretend accent, and that’s all I know.
Democracy means our people choose, and as you said, and Trump proved yet again, the choice sometimes is wrong. H. W. Brands’ scholarship and intellectual honesty is above reproach or should be. Books should be read before criticism.
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This is the sort of liberal nonsense that infects our schools.
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Lone Star is Fehrenbach. I have it here, but I have not yet read it. I do not have Brands Lone Star Nation.
Loved his “Gates Of The Alamo” too.
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Harrigan?
Yes, Harrigan.
Yep, he’s great.
I finished Little, Big by John Crowley yesterday. This is technically classified as a “fantasy”, but it is truly one of the most awesome literary works I’ve ever tackled. An essay about it in the back I think quite accurately describes Crowley as possessing “potentially overweening intelligence.” It is extremely dense and rich and went on too long (a criticism I don’t usually go in for, but in this case too much of a good thing is still too much). I described it to a friend as like having a banquet of the best but most decadent food just tipped right into your face, cartoon-style.
I was so exhausted by it I immediately read the entirety of All Systems Red, a sci-fi novella by Martha Wells, the first in her much-written-up Murderbot series. It was an outstanding little story and a perfect after dinner mint. Now on to Utz by Bruce Chatwin.
And I’d be remiss not to mention God, Human, Animal, Machine, a book of linked essays by Meagan O’Gieblyn published last year: an absurdly thought-provoking, unique, unsettling, unputdownable work of bleeding edge philosophy. O’Gieblyn is an atheist with Calvinist roots. She has an amazingly well-organized brain I’d like my brain to take a bath in.
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[quote=“JimR, post:110, topic:1368, full:true”] Books should be read before criticism.
[/quote]
Y’all need to calm down and perhaps work on your reading comprehension. I didn’t criticize the entire book. I criticized a single sentence.
Thanks for your lecture. You should work on your reading.
I finished Don Delilo’s Libra last night, a fictional account of the JFK conspiracy that paints Oswald as a puppet manipulated by rogue/former CIA assets. It skips around in time, following both Oswald from early life to the assassination, as well as the larger plot, involving historical figures you’ve probably heard of (David Ferrie and Guy Bannister, notably) and a few completely invented characters.
Very good all around