Almost a century and a half went into the making of My Eighty Years in Texas. It began as a diary, kept by fifteen-year-old William Physick Zuber after he joined Sam Houston’s Texas army in 1836, hoping he could emulate the heroism of American Revolutionary patriots. Although his hopes were never realized, Zuber recorded the privations, victories, and defeats of armies on the move during the Texas Revolution, the Indian campaigns, and, as he styled it, the Confederate War. In 1910, at the age...

This "riveting" companion to the PBS documentary "clarifies our understanding of the 'worst manmade ecological disaster in American history'" ( Booklist).In this riveting chronicle, Dayton Duncan and Ken Burns capture the profound drama of the American Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Terrifying photographs of mile-high dust storms, along with firsthand accounts by more than two dozen eyewitnesses, bring to life this heart-wrenching catastrophe, when a combination o...

In the early morning of April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh drove into downtown Oklahoma City in a rented Ryder truck containing a deadly fertilizer bomb that he and his army buddy Terry Nichols had made the previous day. He parked in a handicapped-parking zone, hopped out of the truck, and walked away into a series of alleys and streets. Shortly after 9:00 A.M., the bomb obliterated one-third of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, killing 168 people, including 19 infants and toddlers. McVe...

Arizona never experienced a summer like this, as snipers Dale Hausner and Sam Dieteman took aim at anything?and everything?in their path. Phoenix was a city in terror as the deadly spree ultimately claimed 37 vicitims, people and pets? until one detective began to put the pieces together to nail the murderous duo.

The Colorado River Plateau is home to two of the best-known landscapes in the world: Rainbow Bridge in southern Utah and Monument Valley on the Utah-Arizona border. Twentieth-century popular culture made these places icons of the American West, and advertising continues to exploit their significance today. In Rainbow Bridge to Monument Valley, Thomas J. Harvey artfully tells how Navajos and Anglo-Americans created fabrics of meaning out of this stunning desert landscape, space tha...

During the 1930s in the United States, the Works Progress Administration developed the Federal Writers’ Project to support writers and artists while making a national effort to document the country’s shared history and culture. The American Guide series consists of individual guides to each of the states. Little-known authors-many of whom would later become celebrated literary figures-were commissioned to write these important books. John Steinbeck, Saul Bellow, Zora Neale Hurston, and Ral...

William A. Keleher always had an active curiosity and this made him an outstanding newspaperman and an indefatigable researcher of historical events. It led him into many intellectual adventures that resulted in a whole series of books of New Mexicana. In this personal narrative, he gives readers a glimpse behind the scenes of his career not only as a writer but as a lawyer. The pages of this last book are full of rich anecdotes and little-known episodes involving such men as Governor Clyd...

Tracking the Texas Rangers is an anthology of sixteen previously published articles, arranged in chronological history, covering key topics of the intrepid and sometimes controversial law officers named the Texas Rangers. Determining the role of the Rangers as the state evolved and what they actually accomplished for the benefit of the state is a difficult challengethe actions of the Rangers fit no easy description. There is a dark side to the story of the Rangers; during the war with Mexi...

San Antonio is in the national spotlight as one of the fastest growing and most dynamic emerging major cities in America. Yet local lore has it that every Texan has two hometowns-his own and San Antonio. The Alamo City's charm, colorful surroundings, and diverse cultures combine to make it one of the most interesting places in Texas and the nation. In San Antonio Uncovered, Mark Rybczyk examines some of the city's internationally known legends and lore (including ...

Oklahoma historian Angie Debo once observed that all the forces of United States history have come to bear in the development of the Sooner State. This collection of essays provides a series of snapshots reflecting both the singularity of the Oklahoma experience and the state’s connections to America’s broader history.Spanning the Civil War era and the present, this book develops historic themes as varied as the causes of Indian land dispossession, the Statehood Day wedding ceremon...

The Turquoise Trail National Scenic Byway is located in the heart of Central New Mexico. Linking Albuquerque to Santa Fe, the trail weaves its way north from Tijeras to the Lone Butte area, ending just south of the "City Different." The trail is renowned for its mountainous landscapes, brilliantly painted skies, and diversity of cultures, all of which are reflected in local theater and dance traditions that are found along this 62-mile route. These arts have been important to Native Americ...

Barren Landscape is just one town, but it defines an entire region. Follow an eclectic mix of characters as they navigate the towns and deserts of New Mexico en route to a mysterious game, whose prize strikes the imagination of the hard men and women of the land. A series of non-sequential, linked stories that tell the tales and fate of hired guns, quick draw artists, cutthroat businessmen, and simple townspeople.Contains five interconnected short stories.