lokroma reviewed Forget the Alamo by Bryan Burrough
Review of 'Forget the Alamo' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
"For 150 years, the Heroic Anglo Narrative of the Alamo reigned pretty much unchallenged." The authors are among the Alamo revisionists that challenge the Narrative and describe the people (Disney, Wayne, LBJ, et al.) and events, one succeeding another, back to the battle itself, that contributed to the always expanding myth that belies what writer John Fischer called "the worst military blooper in American history, short of Pearl Harbor."
Burrough, Tomlinson, and Stanford contend that the Alamo was defended by some pretty questionable characters in defense of slavery and land speculation, culminating in the publication in 1968 of Fehrenbach's beloved Lone Star, an unsourced, 757 page "history" of Texas, described by one reviewer as "the legend of the Textosteroned Anglo Male versus Practically Everyone Else".
I found it hard to read the Texas Latinos' stories of harassment by other school children who still accuse them of killing Davy Crockett; …
"For 150 years, the Heroic Anglo Narrative of the Alamo reigned pretty much unchallenged." The authors are among the Alamo revisionists that challenge the Narrative and describe the people (Disney, Wayne, LBJ, et al.) and events, one succeeding another, back to the battle itself, that contributed to the always expanding myth that belies what writer John Fischer called "the worst military blooper in American history, short of Pearl Harbor."
Burrough, Tomlinson, and Stanford contend that the Alamo was defended by some pretty questionable characters in defense of slavery and land speculation, culminating in the publication in 1968 of Fehrenbach's beloved Lone Star, an unsourced, 757 page "history" of Texas, described by one reviewer as "the legend of the Textosteroned Anglo Male versus Practically Everyone Else".
I found it hard to read the Texas Latinos' stories of harassment by other school children who still accuse them of killing Davy Crockett; as well as Latinos virtually unmentioned in many of the Alamo histories, movies, and books cited. Many Texan Mexicans died at the Alamo in defense of the Americans, and the battle of the Alamo happened when Texas was still a territory of Mexico, after all. Ironically, Mexico had banned slavery because it was immoral. The Americans fought to preserve their right to have slaves to harvest the profitable cotton crops of East Texas.
This fascinating book ends with current bickering over attempts to revitalize the Alamo, involving Phil Collins' massive Alamo artifact collection of dubious provenance that some want housed in a museum all of its own, to the political advantage of George P. Bush, who is said to have designs on the White House. Can't make this stuff up.
