Anyone interested in Texas history will find Jenkins's bibliography indispensable. After fourteen years of research into the more than 100,000 books published on Texas since Cabeza de Vaca's Relación of 1542, Jenkins, formerly an Austin rare book dealer, author, and bibliophile, selected 224 books that he considered essential for any Texas library. The entry on each book provides a substantial critical essay and full bibliographical details on every printing and issue. An additional 1,017 books are discussed and appraised, and an annotated guide to 217 Texas bibliographies is included. This revised edition, now available at a new low price, includes more than 100 changes and additions to the 1983 edition. "I cannot imagine a book collector, or any Texas scholar, without a copy . . . of Basic Texas Books." --Dorman H. Winfrey, former director, Texas State Library

Everyone knows that President George W. Bush is from Texas. But few of us know the role his home state plays in his presidency, and in our country. In this dual biography of man and state, Michael Lind confronts the chief crises of Bush's presidency--the economy, the Middle East, and religious fundamentalism--and traces their roots back to Texas, a state, Lind argues, that yields salient clues to the future course of our country.Widely praised as an iconoclastic and brilliant political observer, Lind, a fifth generation Texan, chronicles the ethnic clash that produced modern Texas, the well-known plundering of the state's natural resources at the hands of its elites, and finally the deep strain of "Old Testament religiosity" which, having originated in Texas, now reaches all over the globe in the form of Bush's foreign policy.In the tradition of Gary Wills's Reagan's America, Made in Texas provides a wholly original cultural history that should change the way we understand not just our president, but our country.

Texas "a whole other country"-a slogan that promotes tourism as much within the Lone Star State as elsewhere-is familiar to native Texans and those adopted sons and daughters who "got here just as quickly as they could." Texas is as varied as East Texas timberland, hundreds of miles of seashore, prairies of the Central and High Plains, and the dry desert of far West Texas. When traveling abroad and asked, "Where are you from?" residents of forty-nine of the United States usually respond, "the USA." Nearly every citizen of the Lone Star State will answer "Texas!" The world encourages such chauvinism. Mass media celebrates and exploits Texas and Texans in television and motion pictures about the Alamo, Texas Rangers, the oil industry, and athletics, to name only a few genre. Texans' pride in their distinctiveness increases when their state is paraded-or satired-and they consciously "pass it on" to succeeding generations. But what does it mean to be a Texan? How did Texas come to be as it is? Texas: A Compact History provides answers to such questions about Texans and Texas. It tells the story of Texas history and provides thoughtful interpretations about the state's development, all with the general reader in mind-in a brief, easily read narrative. ARCHIE P. McDONALD is the author of numerous books dealing with various aspects of Texas history, including Back Then: Simple Pleasures and Everyday Heroes (State House Press, 2005)

In ten impassioned essays, veteran Texas environmental advocates and conservation professionals step outside their roles as lawyers, lobbyists, administrators, consultants, and researchers to write about water. Their personal stories of what the springs, rivers, bottomlands, bayous, marshes, estuaries, bays, lakes, and reservoirs mean to them and to our state come alive in the landscape photography of Charles Kruvand. Allied with the Texas Living Waters Project (a joint education and policy initiative of the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club, the National Wildlife Federation, and the Environmental Defense Fund, among others), editor Ken Kramer joins his fellow activists in a call to keep rivers flowing, to protect wildlife habitat, and to save tax dollars by using water efficiently and sustainability. INSIDE THIS BOOK:Introduction: the Living Waters of Texas—Ken KramerWhere the First Raindrop Falls—David K. LangfordSpringing to Life: Keeping the Waters Flowing—Dianne WassenichHooked on Rivers—Myron J. HessFalling in Love with Bottomlands: Waters and Forests of East Texas—Janice BezansonOn the Banks of the Bayous: Preserving Nature in an Urban Environment—Mary Ellen WhitworthA Taste of the Marsh—Susan Raleigh KaderkaBays and Estuaries of Texas: An Ephemeral Treasure?—Ben F. Vaughan IIIRio Grande: Fragile Lifeline in the Desert—Mary E. KellyLeaving a Water Legacy for Texas—Ann Thomas HamiltonTexas Water Politics: Forty Years of Going with the Flow—Ken Kramer

In 1835, Texas offered young men like John C. Duval a chance for action and glory. That year he and his brother, Burr, the sons of a former governor of Florida, organized a volunteer company called the "Mustangs." Like Davy Crockett, they were fired up "to give the Texans a helping hand on the road to freedom" from Mexican rule. The first chapters of Early Times in Texas lead up to the Goliad Massacre on Palm Sunday 1836, in which Burr (referred to as Captain D?) was killed. John was luckier. After a hair-raising escape from Goliad, he wandered across the countryside, dodging the Mexicans and living by his wits.ø ø The diary that Duval kept during these exciting months was the basis for Early Times in Texas, which was published more than fifty years later, in 1892. In the intervening years he was a Ranger known as "Texas John" and later was recognized as one of Texas's first men of letters, the author of The Adventures of Big-Foot Wallace

NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Looming Tower—and a Texas native—takes us on a journey through the most controversial state in America. • “Beautifully written…. Essential reading [for] anyone who wants to understand how one state changed the trajectory of the country.” —NPR Texas is a red state, but the cities are blue and among the most diverse in the nation. Oil is still king, but Texas now leads California in technology exports. Low taxes and minimal regulation have produced extraordinary growth, but also striking income disparities. Texas looks a lot like the America that Donald Trump wants to create. Bringing together the historical and the contemporary, the political and the personal, Texas native Lawrence Wright gives us a colorful, wide-ranging portrait of a state that not only reflects our country as it is, but as it may become—and shows how the battle for Texas’s soul encompasses us all.

This book is a comprehensive resource for study of virtually all areas common to the day-to-day functions of peace officers. The material in these three volumes is designed and intended to complement performance objectives for the basic peace officer course of study and is organized to follow specific functional areas of minimum peace officer competencies. The format makes them valuable as reference resources and for thoughtful review of the major concerns in law enforcement. They may be used in peace officer training academies and for self-education by officers. Written in nontechnical language, they address the peace officer as a responsible, thinking, influential individual who exercises important discretion in carrying out daily responsibilities. Study aids include a glossary of relevant terms and concepts, a comprehensive index, and extensive review questions.

Originally published in 1963, this edition has been updated through 1993 and includes 141 documents on a broad range of social, cultural and political events which have shaped the history of Texas and often affected the nation.

When is "full sun" not full sun? When you're trying to grow vegetables in Texas. Because a full day of sun here can stress all but the toughest plants. For the rest, "full sun" in Texas means 6 to 8 hours mostly in the morning, and shade in the afternoon. Gardening in Texas has unique challenges, but that doesn't mean you can't grow vegetables here. You just need to know what kind, when, and where. Enter Easy Gardening for Texas, which offers basic information on how to reap a bountiful harvest in the Lone Star State. The book explains the fundamentals of planning, planting, watering, and dealing with pests in the garden. It lists the varieties that grow best in Texas and gives tips for growing, harvesting, and storing them. Included are 224 pages, 351 photos, and information on more than 30 types of vegetables.