The History of Texas. Robert A. Calvert

Чтение книги онлайн.

Preface and Acknowledgments

      The sixth edition of The History of Texas presents the fascinating story of the various peoples who have inhabited the land we know as Texas. Readers of this book will gain an understanding of the forces of cause and effect that have shaped the disparate pasts of different groups within the state as well as the heritage shared by all Texans. They will also develop an appreciation for the dynamic interpretations that scholars give to historical movements and specific events.

      When initially published in 1990, the textbook was innovative in several ways. First, it took a social history approach, placing ordinary Texans at the center of the story, instead of the traditional “great man” approach. It thus became the first Texas history textbook consistently and systematically to include the histories of women, Tejanos, African Americans, and working‐class people. The book was also innovative in its chronological coverage. Texas history textbooks had traditionally emphasized the nineteenth century at the expense of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and particularly of the twentieth century. This Sixth Edition devotes two‐thirds of its pages to the post‐Civil War era and nearly 50 percent to the twentieth and twenty‐first centuries.

      All peoples make history; we have continued to honor that tenet by incorporating the many cultures embraced by the Texas experience. The same principle also drove our effort to give due attention to the lives of ordinary Texans, as seen in the continued coverage of topics such as agriculture, industrialization, urbanization, economic disparity, migration patterns, and demographic change. Also included are the unsung subjects who contributed to the Texas saga, among them plain white folks, women, and the leaders and members of local labor, agricultural, and other grassroots organizations. Like its predecessors, this edition also pays attention to the history of folklore, music, literature, sports, religion, and other aspects of Texas culture that help determine the flavor of Texas, past and present. Believing that the history of Texas in recent times is as significant as that of past periods, we once again provide a comprehensive, unflinching analysis of Texas history in the more modern era.

Since 1990, the authors have kept abreast of new scholarly literature, incorporating it into each new edition and keeping the book historiographically current and relevant. Here we continue this practice. We have amplified some parts of the text and streamlined others for clarity. Therefore, the sixth edition features expanded discussions on the era between 1821 and 1848, on hardships civilians experienced during the Civil War, on agricultural reform in the early twentieth century, on women and minority groups, on the modern LGBTQ‐rights movement, and on recent environmental issues. At the same time, we cut statistics where we thought them repetitious or where we felt removing them would not harm the narrative. We also dropped passages when we considered them to overlap with information covered in American history survey classes. Our intent has always been to produce a highly readable work.