Bøker utgitt av Texas Christian University Press

The Hispanic Roots of Hollywood Westerns explores how the Spanish history of the American Southwest influenced a movie genre that became a worldwide phenomenon: the Western. Numerous aspects of the Hispanic heritage of the Old West appear in Westerns, including Spanish-language place names, Spanish architecture, and Hispanic characters. This book explores these elements through the lens of two archetypal Western protagonists: the Cisco Kid and Zorro. These two characters starred in books, radio shows, and movies throughout the twentieth century, eventually becoming a natural part of American popular culture. They sometimes acted as heroes, sometimes as antiheroes, but in both cases, they helped to create a joyful and positive image in the American collective unconscious of what it meant to be Hispanic in the Wild West. These representations are part of the American cinematographic legacy; to forget them would be to lose a part of our collective identity.Exploring the Hispanic origins of early Westerns is also key to understanding Westerns that came later, such as Sergio Leone's films and Clint Eastwood in his poncho. The role played by Spain itself continued to be significant, as multiple locations (including Madrid, Barcelona, and Almería) were converted into shooting locations for Westerns throughout the 1950s-1970s. Some of these films were internationally recognized as universal masterpieces of cinematography, like the Dollars Trilogy. This book is essential not only for anyone interested in the origins and development of Westerns but also for those who are interested in what meant to be Hispanic in the western United States in past centuries and what it means to be American today.

Reading Tough Streets, Rough Skies, and Sunday Sidelines, readers may need to be reminded that it is a true story. From Larry Wansley's days as a young police detective, dodging bullets while attempting to calm the Compton (California) race riots to his leadership of a staff that identified the 9/11 hijackers, this globally respected security figure has written an action-packed recollection of his foot-to-the-pedal career. As one of the FBI's first long-term undercover agents, Wansley aided with the search for kidnapped Patty Hearst and once organized a sting operation that resulted in the recovery of $42 million in stolen property. He used so many aliases that at times he had trouble remembering who he was supposed to be. While serving as Global Security Director for American Airlines, he coordinated the numbing turmoil that came in the wake of the 9/11 tragedy and walked among those searching Ground Zero. He dealt with drug cartels, arms smugglers, a shoe bomb, and more than a few Mafia wiseguys.During his tenure as Director of Security and Counseling Services for the Dallas Cowboys, he shielded legendary Cowboys coach Tom Landry from a potential sniper hidden in the Monday Night Football crowd and spent a summer serving as pop singer Whitney Houston's bodyguard during her European tour.Written with two-time Edgar Award winner Carlton Stowers, Wansley's autobiography runs the emotional gamut from terrifying to heartbreaking to laugh-out-loud funny with the dangerous and high drama situations that are often only found in fiction.

Jackrabbit Jewel and Conejo Grande find themselves immersed in a new adventure along the Butterfield Overland Mail route. This mail route covered a distance of 2,800 miles, beginning in St. Louis, Missouri, and ending in San Francisco, California. As in the previous adventure of Jackrabbit Jewel in Jackrabbit Jewel and the Longhorn Cattle Drive, this story blends the history of the southwestern United States with Texas Tall Tale. The president of the Overland Mail Company, John Butterfield, sends Jackrabbit Jewel an urgent message. Due to a lack of stagecoach drivers, he needs Jewel to drive the stagecoach from Fort Smith, Arkansas, to San Francisco. In addition, he needs Conejo Grande to pull the stagecoach. In addition to the bundles of U.S. mail, they are transporting three passengers to California. The trip is fraught with danger during every stage of their journey, but Jewel has keen frontier knowledge and the help of Conejo Grande and her passengers.

Fort Appleby, Texas, 1952--the small West Texas mountain town to which the people of Houston, El Paso and San Antonio flee to escape the dreaded polio epidemic. And then polio hits Fort Appleby, a frightening four cases in a town of 800. School is closed, and the people spend their time fighting fear and attending funerals. For senior football star Kevin Adams, 1952 is the year when his life is turned upside down by the epidemic and by the uncertainties that come of being seventeen and eager for all of life, from girls to football to great literature. Kevin struggles to sort out the many relationships in his life--there's Jasper, his best buddy and the first polio victim; Rosa, the Mexican girl society forbids him to love, and her mother, Carmelita, who drives a strange bargain with Kevin; Jay Eisenbarger, the high school principal who sees in Kevin that rare pupil in whom education lights a spark; and Mary Beth Adams, his remote and distant mother. With careful attention to detail, Bryan Woolley draws you into several small worlds--that of a West Texas town, that of adolescence, and that of the pain and grief of loss. Time and Place is a sweet, sad, sometimes funny novel that deals with universal problems yet roots them deeply in West Texas, a regional novel in the best sense of the word.

The autonomous tales in this collection are linked by a set of recurring characters and the common backdrop of New Mexico and the American West.

Gideon Ledbetter, freed from slavery, finds himself with no land, no money, and no means to make a living. He is drawn into the army, which had painted a deceptively alluring picture of cavalry life. Soon, Gideon becomes locked in a battle with a Comanche warrior, and a portrait emerges of two men who are merely pawns in a tragic conflict.

In contemporary American politics, where absurdity often overshadows reality, Worse Than You Think emerges as a refreshingly candid and witty account of what happens when ordinary individuals, fueled by a blend of idealism and frustration, leap into the political arena. This narrative dives into the real-life journey of a high school teacher, Edward "Todd" Allen, who took the bold step of running for Congress in 2018. Along for the ride was his best friend and fellow educator, Heath Hamrick, who had a simple job: make everything work out in the end. Todd and Heath embark on a quest to fix the "crazy circus" of our partisan divide, only to find themselves in a series of comical and eye-opening situations, encountering bizarre characters that could only arise deep in the heart of American politics. Worse Than You Think offers laughter, surprises, and perhaps a spark of inspiration to those contemplating their role in democracy. Whether you're seeking validation for your political cynicism, a guide on what not to do in a political campaign, or just a good laugh, this book promises to be an engaging read.

Wards of the League is a long-lost tale from pro football's buried past. Very few people even know that the 1952 Dallas Texans ever existed and played in the National Football League. Before the Dallas Cowboys became America's Team, these Texans were nobody's team. The NFL's first venture into the football-crazed hotbed known as the Lone Star State began with enthusiasm but ended in a doomed collapse before the season was even over. The Texans' rapid rise and fall are chronicled in this book for the first time. The story of the failed team in a place that now boasts of having the most valuable sports franchise in the world today is truly a tale of being in the right place but at the wrong time.

The saga of Cynthia Ann Parker is well known to historians of the Texas frontier and readers of historical fiction. Kidnapped from Parker's Fort near Mexia by raiding Comanches in 1836, she was completely assimilated into the Noconi band. She married tribal leader Peta Nocona and bore him two sons, Quanah and Pecos, and a daughter, Toh-Tsee-Ah. Late in 1860, she and toddler Topsannah (as the whites called her) were recaptured by Texas Rangers and returned to ""civilization"" and the extended Parker clan. Cynthia Ann never adapted to white culture. She was shunted from one Parker family to another, living in constant grief and doubt—about herself and her daughter and about the fate of her Comanche family still on the prairies. Convinced she was a captive of the Texans, Cynthia Ann was determined to escape to the high plains and the Comanche way. The Parkers neither cared for nor understood Cynthia Ann's obsession with returning to her homeland and her people.Charles Brashear's thoroughly researched and vividly realistic novel, Killing Cynthia Ann, tells the story as it might have happened and turns it into a compelling and unforgettable drama. "Basing his fictional speculation on a careful reading of the historical record, Brashear chronicles the heartbreaking descent into despair of a proud woman who could not forget her warrior husband and two sons. . . [The public] will appreciate this engrossing novel, which can also supply a personal perspective to supplement history texts.”--Library Journal

In the 1870s, buffalo hunters moved onto the High Plains of Texas. The Plains Indians watched hunters slaughter the animals that gave them shelter and clothing, food and weapons. The author presents both sides of a clash between cultures. With a firm grasp of Comanche life, he describes 'The People' as very human and very threatened.

As he flees to the sanctuary of Mexico, Chacho Fernandez is unaware of the fuel he has added to the already simmering racial hatreds in and around the quiet town of Domingo, Texas. Through events set in motion by a misunderstanding, Chacho becomes a folk hero to his people and a dangerous fugitive to a group of zealous lawmen.

Empire Marine examines the role that Littleton W. T. Waller played in the development and growth of the Marine Corps within the emerging empire of turn-of-the-century America. The grandson of the governor of Virginia, Littleton W.T. Waller grew up during the post-Civil War years when his widowed mother struggled to provide for her sons. Unable to attend university or a professional military school, Waller secured a commission in the Marine Corps in 1880 and began a long and successful military career. Waller's service corresponded with the growth of the Marine Corps and the exportation of American imperialism in the 1890s and beyond. Particularly significant were the episodes of U.S. political and military expansion in South America, the Philippines, China, Panama, Cuba, and Haiti. Waller's experiences reflected the new emerging role that marines would play in the execution of American policy across the globe.

While the Spanish are often remembered for bringing smallpox and other diseases to the New World, little attention is paid to their efforts to eradicate one of the greatest killers in human history. In the middle of the Napoleonic Wars, King Charles IV funded and dispatched a humanitarian mission aimed at inoculating all of the imperial colonies in Latin America and Asia. Known as the Balmis Expedition, it was launched in 1803 and utilized Edward Jenner's new method by which to vaccinate people against smallpox. Using a human daisy chain of two dozen orphans, Dr. Francisco Balmis was able to bring the live virus across the Atlantic Ocean and later the Pacific. Yet, despite saving hundreds of thousands of lives, the history of the expedition was largely forgotten for the next two hundred years. Many at the time resented the Scientific Absolutism that the mission represented, doing away with old methods and cures, as well as its economic implications. Finally, the onset of revolutions in the region only a few years later resulted in a rewriting of history which necessarily eliminated any positive accomplishments of the Bourbons. The Expedition became yet another victim of the Black Legend in Latin American historiography. A voyage which Jenner himself once called "an example of philanthropy so noble, so extensive," and which served as the precursor for future world efforts at disease management, became forgotten. Yet despite this, its effects on the population and on public health efforts in the region were profound. The Balmis Expedition represented a perfect confluence of the tenets of the Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment, and Absolutism, and bridged the divided between medieval and modern public health management.

"In 2017, the centennial of our nation's military entry into World War I provided the perfect opportunity to bring the war's historical lessons to a wider American and Texan audience. Working in tandem with national and grassroots organizations such as the United States World War One Centennial Commission and Texas World War I Centennial Commemoration Association, the Texas Historical Commission was tasked by the governor with coordinating the state's response to the centennial. This placed the agency in the unique position of being able to document fresh perspectives on the state's role in the conflict and its memorialization. In the United States, public memory of World War I remains weak, especially compared to other conflicts. A YouGov poll from 2014 revealed that while three quarters of Americans believed the history of World War I to be relevant today, only half could correctly name the year hostilities began and only a little more than a third knew when the United States entered the war. This lack of cultural memory is in stark contrast to the war's historical significance: empires fell and new nations were born, instability brought about yet another world war and ongoing conflict in the Middle East, and accelerated social reforms saw traditional conventions rejected and minority violence increase. The First World War is easily one of the most transformative and important events of world history. A Centennial Perspective on Texas in the Great War provides a record of the memorialization of World War I in Texas in 2017 as well as offering critical background on the importance of the conflict in the United States and Texas today"--

"Running in Borrowed Shoes journeys with the United States Track and Field Team from the tryouts in Los Angeles to the 1952 Olympics and afterwards, as the Olympians traveled and competed in local competitions throughout a Europe still recovering from World War II. Running in Borrowed Shoes focuses on pivotal days in the life of Thane Baker, who won silver in 1952 and gold in the 1956 games. Running in Borrowed Shoes relates his first triumph, when the young Kansan overcame physical, educational, and financial obstacles to compete in the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki. When an accident at work left the fourteen-year-old with a piece of metal lodged under a kneecap, Thane's doctors told him he would never run again. But when a legendary coach at Kansas University admitted Thane to the team, Thane understood that his tenacity and hard work in the intervening years had paid off. Thane Baker's daughter Catherine Nicholson worked with her father to record his story. Seen through twenty-year-old Thane Baker's eyes, Running in Borrowed Shoes plunges the reader into the world of the young American athletes who competed in the first Olympics to reach a wide US audience through television. Primitive by today's standards, Helsinki's 1952 Olympic Village is brought into sharp focus, as are the characters who represented a USA fearful of Communism and still under the grip of Jim Crow. The Olympic competitions themselves, and Thane's sometimes risky travels throughout war-torn Europe, are rendered in acute detail by a young athlete relating his most unforgettable experience"--

"Michael Corcoran culminates forty years of writing about Austin music with a history of the scene, going back to the German singing societies of the late 1800s and ending with the ascent of South by Southwest, whose registration line would become the Ellis Island of new Austin. Over fifty legendary Austin live music venues, starting with the Skyline and Victory Grill in the wake of WWII, are profiled in a rolling "Clubland Paradise" subsection. Told are the stories of Willie Nelson and the Armadillo, nascent Black radio DJs Lavada Durst and Tony Von, the making of Stevie Ray Vaughan, the significance of Sixth and Red River Streets, and how Aquafest went from Austin's biggest annual event to belly-up in five years. As a daily newspaper journalist for over twenty years, Corcoran is first about the facts in this dig for interesting stories and context from the Live Music Capital of the World"--

"Reflections on Wright is a collection of essays on Jim Wright from his early years through his retirement from the House of Representatives. Wright was one of the most influential members of Congress in the latter part of the twentieth century and had a major role in policies such as the interstate highway system and American policy in Central America. Foreclosed from moving to the Senate, Wright eventually sought to become Majority Leader and won in a hotly contested race against California's Phil Burton. Both as Majority Leader and as Speaker, Wright proved himself an exceptionally strong leader. Indeed, Wright pushed his agenda so strongly that it led to grumbling among members of his caucus. With attacks on his ethics by Georgia Republican Newt Gingrich, attacks that heralded a new level of viciousness between the two parties in the House, Wright resigned and returned to Fort Worth. For most of the remainder of his life, he taught at Texas Christian University"--

"Hank O'Sullivan, a 65-year-old widower, lives a routine life, nursing his loneliness with cocktails at his favorite local bar in Austin, Texas. A brawl lands him in jail, and he's sentenced to community service, picking up trash beside the highway. Luis Delgado lives with his single father in a small apartment. The 16-year-old troublemaker has remarkable artistic abilities, but his penchant for sneaking out and trespassing onto rooftops late at night also lands him in community service. These loners form an unlikely friendship, and when Hank tells Luis about his desire to drive to Houston to reconnect with an old flame, Luis asks to tag along. Luis's estranged mother lives in Houston, and he has been saving money for a trip, dreaming of reconnecting with her. Hank agrees, setting in motion a raucous road trip in a hot pink 1970 Plymouth Barracuda. The Codger and the Sparrow is a rambunctious story about an unusual friendship stretching across the generations"--

"According to author Joe Holley, the story of the Texas Electric Cooperatives, a collective of some 76 member-owned electric providers throughout the state, is a story of neighborliness and community, grit and determination, and persuasion and political savvy. It's the story of a grassroots movement that not only energized rural Texas but also showed residents the power they have when they band together to find strength in unity. Opening with the coming of electricity to Texas' major cities at the turn of the twentieth century, Power: How the Electric Co-op Movement Energized the Lone Star State describes the dramatic differences between urban and rural life. Though the major cities of Texas were marvels of nighttime brilliance, the countryside remained as dark as it had been for centuries before. It was not economical for the startup electrical companies to provide service to far-flung rural areas, so they were forced to do without. Beginning with the New Deal-era efforts of Sam Rayburn, Lyndon Johnson, and others, Holley chronicles the birth and development of the electric cooperative movement in Texas, including the 1935 federal act that created the Rural Electrification Administration. Holley concludes with the devastation wrought by Winter Storm Uri in February 2021 and the intense debate that continues around climate resilience and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), overseer of the state's electric grid, all of which has profound implications for rural electric cooperatives who receive their allocations according to procedures administered by ERCOT. Power is sure to enlighten, entertain, and energize readers and policymakers alike"--

"As with his well-received first book on the historic homes of Waco, architectural historian Kenneth L. Hafertepe brings to life the colorful and varied pasts of an entirely new set of notable residences in this city. Hafertepe extends coverage beyond the typical focus on homes of the more well-to-do classes. Included here are "homes of saloon keepers, horse traders, saddlers, ministers, bookkeepers, candy store owners, and laborers" as well as the residences of lawyers, doctors, and wealthy merchants, among others. With a blend of meticulous research, beautiful color photographs, and accessible, entertaining writing, Hafertepe presents these historic homes as a lens on the history and sociology of Waco, Texas, showing how immigrants from Western and Central Europe, West Asia, and other places of origin, along with African Americans, Mexican Americans, Anglo-Americans, and others, made places and lives for themselves and their families in this central Texas community. The result, as described by Hafertepe, is "an intricate tapestry, with materials contributed by Black Wacoans as well as white; by immigrants from abroad and people born elsewhere in the United States. These houses tell stories of successes and failures, triumphs and tragedies, dreams that came true and dreams that were denied. These houses speak to the complexity of the human condition and to the ongoing experiments that are Waco, Texas, and the United States of America.""--