Sam W. Haynes
Autor/a de Unfinished Revolution: The Early American Republic in a British World
Sobre l'autor
Sam W. Haynes is Professor in the Department of History and the Director of the Center for Greater Southwestern Studies at the University of Texas at Arlington.
Obres de Sam W. Haynes
Obres associades
Etiquetat
Coneixement comú
- Altres noms
- 1956-08-17
- Gènere
- male
- Professions
- historian
Membres
Ressenyes
Premis
Potser també t'agrada
Autors associats
Estadístiques
- Obres
- 8
- També de
- 1
- Membres
- 222
- Popularitat
- #100,929
- Valoració
- 4.1
- Ressenyes
- 4
- ISBN
- 22
But he is a university professor and the professoriate is rather liberal/progressive in their scholarship and conclusions. It is currently in vogue (almost de rigueur) to take potshots at D.W.M.s in general, and Texas history in particular. See the terrible and terribly overrated Forget the Alamo. So, I was worried.
But, I shouldn't have been. Unlike the activist/journos who wrote Forget the Alamo, he is a scholar, a good one, and grounds his writing in deep research into primary sources and a thorough reckoning with the secondary sources. There are a few missteps, one glaring, but otherwise, Dr. Haynes has written a great book and contribution to the history of Mexican Texas and the Republic of Texas.
Dr. Haynes gives a well-rounded explication and history of the settlement of Texas and the Texas Revolution through the eyes of a wide cast of characters: Tejanos, Anglos, free Blacks, enslaved Blacks, Indians, the Mexican government, etc. Well-rounded and complete, stripping down some of the mythos that has glommed on to the Texas Revolution (think John Wayne's Alamo, etc.)
Slavery was an issue, yes. But not THE issue. Otherwise, why would the non-slaveholding Tejanos fight for Texas? Haynes is complete here. Sam Houston and others wanted to deal fair with the Indians and Tejanos, but most incoming Anglos couldn't care less. It's a tragic story, and Haynes tells it. He also is sure to put the Texas Revolution into context by discussing these grandsons of 1776, the Jacksonian Era ethos of Whites, and the other revolutions going on in Mexico in the 1830s and 1840s. (It wasn't just White guys in Tejas fighting against the government of Mexico, but Zacatecas and Yucatan and so on.) He doesn't shirk talking about the atrocities committed by the Comanche, for instance, nor the slaveholders or malicious racists who attacked Tejanos. Straight talk all around.
His only misstep is an ill-considered attempt to be too fair to Santa Anna. In an attempt to make him less the cartoon villain of Hollywood (watch Martyrs of the Alamo to start), he tries too hard. From p. 131:
"Even if Santa Anna had opted for a more hands-on approach to governance, he was not a dictator, at least not in the modern sense of the term."
The whitewash continues into the next page.
What? I guess nobody that was a dictator before 1933 wasn't a dictator in the modern sense of the term? I guess Julius Caesar, whose title was DICTATOR, wasn't a dictator. I actually laughed when I read that sentence. Out loud. I can imagine Dr. Haynes brain-storming ways to say "dictator" without saying "dictator" and coming upon "a more hands-on approach to governance."
But, otherwise, it is a great book. I would recommend it to anyone interested in Texas history. I would recommend it for any upper-level undergraduate classes and grad classes on Texas history. I would recommend it for political conservatives and liberals and those who love Texas and those who hate Texas. Decent maps and pictures, though I would have recommended more and better of the latter. Index, extensive (sometimes discursive) endnotes, no bibliography.… (més)