The Texas State Historical Association is pleased to offer a reprint edition of Stephen F. Austin: Empresario of Texas, Gregg Cantrell’s path-breaking biography of the founder of Anglo Texas. Cantrell’s portrait goes beyond the traditional interpretation of Austin as the man who spearheaded American Manifest Destiny. Cantrell portrays Austin as a borderlands figure who could navigate the complex cultural landscape of 1820s Texas, then a portion of Mexico. His command of the Spanish language, respect for the Mexican people, and ability to navigate the shoals of Mexican politics made him the perfect advocate for his colonists and often for all of Texas. Yet when conflicts between Anglo colonists and Mexican authorities turned violent, Austin’s accomodationist stance became outdated. Overshadowed by the military hero Sam Houston, he died at the age of forty-three, just six months after Texas independence. Decades after his death, Austin’s reputation was resurrected and he became known as the “Father of Texas.” More than just an icon, Stephen F. Austin emerges from these pages as a shrewd, complicated, and sometimes conflicted figure.

Almost a hundred years after the death of Stephen F. Austin this first full-length biography was published. And for almost a quarter of a century--dividing his time between editing, teaching, textbook writing, and serving in various academic capacities--Eugene C. Barker pursued the study which resulted in The Life of Stephen F. Austin. His accomplishment has long been regarded as a fine example of biography in Texas literature.

A brief account of the lives of Moses Austin and his son, Stephen Fuller Austin, important figures in Texas history.

A Day at SFA takes young children on a tour through Stephen F. Austin State University's Lumberjack land. Whether visiting Homer Bryce Stadium where the ferocious Lumberjacks dominate the field, the Johnson Coliseum where Lumberjack athletes show off their talents,or the newly built STEM center with its magical planetarium, this is a book for Lumberjack fans of all ages. Images bursting with color lead readers through the tall pines in the award-winning azalea garden to the famous Ag Pond tucked behind the Military Science building.

Surveys the life of Stephen Austin, an American pioneer, who later became one of the founders of Texas.

The story of Texas is the story of struggle and triumph in a land of extremes. It is a story of drought and flood, invasion and war, boom and bust, and of the myriad peoples who, over centuries of conflict, gave rise to a place that has helped shape the identity of the United States and the destiny of the world. “I couldn’t believe Texas was real,” the painter Georgia O’Keeffe remembered of her first encounter with the Lone Star State. It was, for her, “the same big wonderful thing that oceans and the highest mountains are.” Big Wonderful Thing invites us to walk in the footsteps of ancient as well as modern people along the path of Texas’s evolution. Blending action and atmosphere with impeccable research, New York Times best-selling author Stephen Harrigan brings to life with novelistic immediacy the generations of driven men and women who shaped Texas, including Spanish explorers, American filibusters, Comanche warriors, wildcatters, Tejano activists, and spellbinding artists—all of them taking their part in the creation of a place that became not just a nation, not just a state, but an indelible idea. Written in fast-paced prose, rich with personal observation and a passionate sense of place, Big Wonderful Thing calls to mind the literary spirit of Robert Hughes writing about Australia or Shelby Foote about the Civil War. Like those volumes it is a big book about a big subject, a book that dares to tell the whole glorious, gruesome, epically sprawling story of Texas.

A collection of Courtney's columns from the Texas Monthly, curing the curious, exorcizing bedevilment, and orienting the disoriented, advising "on such things as: Is it wrong to wear your football team's jersey to church? When out at a dancehall, do you need to stick with the one that brung ya? Is it real Tex-Mex if it's served with a side of black beans? Can one have too many Texas-themed tattoos?"--Amazon.com.

The Texas Equivalent of the Mayflower adventures, the three hundred families who settled Stephen F. Austin, s original colony formed the foundation on which a republic and then a state was built. In this revised and expanded edition of the book first published in 1991, many stories of those early Texians are told by their decendents.