Information for Classroom Adoption

John Thomas Biggers (1924–2001) was a major African American artist who inspired countless others through his teaching, murals, paintings, and drawings. He is best known for his murals at Hampton University, Winston-Salem University, and Texas Southern, but the drawings and lithographs that lie behind the murals have received scant attention—until now. Olive Theisen interviewed Biggers during the last thirteen years of his life, and was welcomed into his studio innumerable times. Together, they selected more than one hundred representative works for this volume, some of which have not been previously published.

When the early Spanish and Mexican colonists came to settle Texas, they brought with them a rich culture, the diversity of which is nowhere more evident than in folk art, folk craft, and architecture. This first book-length publication to focus on Texas-Mexican material culture shows the richness of Tejano folk arts and crafts traditions. “An important addition to the study of Mexican-American material culture . . . a valuable tool for future researchers.”—Southwestern Historical Quarterly

Although he retired from active involvement in Neiman Marcus in 1977, the influences of the philosophies of business he developed remain an important part of the training of Neiman Marcus personnel. The New York Times deemed Minding the Store "an opulent story that only an insider could tell!" 

Chicano Education in the Era of Segregation analyzes the socioeconomic origins of the theory and practice of segregated schooling for Mexican-Americans from 1910 to 1950. Gilbert G. Gonzalez links the various aspects of the segregated school experience, discussing Americanization, testing, tracking, industrial education, and migrant education as parts of a single system designed for the processing of the Mexican child as a source of cheap labor. The movement for integration began slowly, reaching a peak in the 1940s and 1950s. The 1947 Mendez v. Westminster case was the first federal court decision and the first application of the Fourteenth Amendment to overturn segregation based on the “separate but equal” doctrine. This paperback features an extensive new Preface by the author discussing new developments in the history of segregated schooling.

The author provides the complete history of the rise and fall of federal bilingual education policy and details how the English-only movement defeated it at the federal level, only to continue the fight state-by-state.

The 2010 U.S. Census data showed that over the last decade the Latino population grew from 35.3 million to 50.5 million, accounting for more than half of the nation’s population growth. The editors of The Roots of Latino Urban Agency, Sharon Navarro and Rodolfo Rosales, have collected essays that examine this phenomenal growth. These essays collectively suggest that political agency can encompass everything from voting, lobbying, networking, grassroots organizing, and mobilization, to dramatic protest. Latinos are in fact gaining access to the same political institutions that worked so hard to marginalize them.

Three Decades of Engendering History collects ten of Antonia I. Castañeda's best articles, including the widely circulated article "Engendering the History of Alta California, 1769-1848," in which Castañeda took a direct and honest look at sex and gender relations in colonial California, exposing stories of violence against women as well as stories of survival and resistance. Other articles included are the prize-winning "Women of Color and the Rewriting of Western History," and two recent articles, "Lullabies y Canciones de Cuna" and "La Despedida." Finally, the volume includes three interviews with Antonia Castañeda.

Perhaps no other industrial technology changed the course of Mexican history in the United States—and Mexico—than did the coming of the railroads. Tens of thousands of Mexicans worked for the railroads in the United States, especially in the Southwest and Midwest. Extensive Mexican American settlements appeared throughout the lower and upper Midwest as the result of the railroad. Only agricultural work surpassed railroad work in terms of employment of Mexicans. In Traqueros, Garcílazo mined numerous archives and other sources to provide the first and only comprehensive history of Mexican railroad workers across the United States, with particular attention to the Midwest.

As the prologue explains, " Cold Anger is a story about a new kind of intervention in politics by working poor people who incorporate their religious values into a struggle for power and visibility. It is about women and men who promote public and private hope, political and personal responsibility, community and individual transformation." The Arizona Daily Star exclaimed: "This may prove to be the year's most thought-provoking book. Anyone jaded by or cynical about the American political process will find reason for renewed hope in reading this volume."

In a rich tapestry of personal journey, commentary, and memoir, Planned Parenthood’s leader affirms every woman’s fundamental human right to control her body, her destiny, her dreams; and inspires readers to see how the world can change—one heartfelt story at a time. Along with dozens of individual, first-person stories of outrage, passion, dedication, endurance, and vision, this book also traces Gloria Feldt’s personal journey from West Texas to activism in the civil rights and women’s movement, culminating in her current standing as the President and Chief Executive Officer of Planned Parenthood Federation and one of the most influential voices in the reproductive freedom movement.

What happens when an expert on grief is faced with the slow decline of her beloved mother? Like A Grief Observed by C. S. Lewis, Singing Mother Home offers an inside look at the struggles of an “expert” in coping with loss. Melba Vasquez, President of the American Psychology Association’s Division on Counseling Psychology, stated: “This is a unique book by a professional who understands the field of loss and grief . . . poignantly heartbreaking.” 

This is the first book on therapeutic horseback riding meant for both parents and practitioners. Naomi Scott offers information about the amazing results possible with hippotherapy, from recreational riding for individuals with physical and mental disabilities to the competitions some riders enter (and win). Parents and caregivers looking for coverage of a specific special need will find most useful the fourteen case studies included, covering individuals with intrauterine stroke, cerebral palsy, transverse myelitis, Parkinson’s disease, paralysis, sensory integration dysfunction, multiple sclerosis, shaken baby syndrome, sensory damage, stroke, seizures, infantile spasms, Down syndrome, and autism. 

Eleanor Wilner described Merritt, recipient of the Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry, as having “a voice with many musics, sufficiently rich, nuanced and various to express, maintain poise and wrest meaning from the powerful cross-currents in which the heart is torn. I have seldom seen intelligence equal to such a scorching degree of intensity, or mastery of form so equal to passion’s contradictory occasions.” 

"These visionary stories bring us an America that is as phantasmagoric as a Bosch painting come to life, yet as real as the daily news—a land of mega churches, tilt-a-whirls, thoughtful muggers, low-income apartment buildings, Jesus, runaways, lost cities, obese suicidal hikers, drag contests, tornados . . . a land both fragile and tough, heartbroken, and resiliently hopeful. In short, this is an amazing, urgent, vital book, and Kelly Magee is an exciting new literary talent.”—Dan Chaon, author of Among the Missing and You Remind Me of Me

Bernard A. Booker, old Maine codger and unofficial mayor of Ell Pond, knew the right ways to dig an eight-foot hole, build a maple sugar house out of a water heater, and snatch good white granite from other people’s back lots. The wry Yankee woodsman is the subject of Booker’s Point, an oral history-inspired portrait-in-verse. Weaving storytelling, natural history, and the poetry of place, this collection evokes the sensibility of rural New England, meditations on home and elders, and, above all, the pleasures of a good story. 

Winner of the Vassar Miller Poetry Prize, 2010. "The poems in Circles Where the Head Should Be are full of objects and oddities, bits of news, epic catalogues, and a cast of characters hoping to make sense of it all. Underneath the often whimsical surface, however, lies a search for those connections we long for but so often miss, and a wish for art to bridge the gaps. An irresistible book.”—J. D. McClatchy, author of Mercury Dressing: Poems, judge

Winner of the 1994 Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry. Booklist calls it an “elegant, intelligent, witty collection.”

Formerly The Longman Dictionary of Poetic Terms, this updated book is the definitive reference guide to poetry and poetic terms, with more than 1,600 entries on the devices, techniques, history, theory, and terminology of poetry from the Classical period to the present. "A remarkably useful book for poets, for students (and for their professors too) and for libraries."-James Laughlin, poet and publisher, New Directions.

Trained as both a Baptist and a Marine, Flynn writes of reconciling Baptist views (all men are brothers in love) with Marine views (you are a professional killer and you will attack until I say you are dead), injecting humor and acerbic wit throughout.

"Sullen Baptists is a treat for old fans of Robert Flynn."—Amarillo Globe News 

Heart-Diamond describes the author’s experiences growing up on a working cattle ranch in Southeastern New Mexico. As a book written from a woman’s point of view, it offers some unique commentary on the “cowboy” way of life. Library Journal says that it “deserves a wider audience.” 

Trying to make sense of a disordered world, Stefanie Wortman's debut collection examines works of art as varied as casts of antique sculpture, 19th-century novels, and even scenes from reality television to investigate the versions of order that they offer. These deft poems yield moments of surprising levity even as they mount a sharp critique of human folly.

"These poems seem haunted by a mostly nameless melancholia. In the Permanent Collection, however, turns its grim geography of prisons, mortuaries, and tawdry suburbs into something close to classical elegy. 'In sunken rooms,' Wortman writes, 'on scratchy rugs, maybe we’ve never known happiness.' It’s that 'maybe'—the smart hedge—that renders her poems complex, often beguiling, but never without a gesture of redemption. This should be part of any serious poet’s permanent collection."— Chad Davidson, author of The Last Predicta and judge

Inside Tim Johnston’s Irish Girl, readers will find spellbinding stories of loss, absence, and the devastating effects of chance—of what happens when the unthinkable bad luck of other people, of other towns, becomes our bad luck, our town. Taut, lucid, and engrossing, provocative and dark—and often darkly funny—these stories have much to offer the lover of literary fiction as well as the reader who just loves a great story. “It’s dark in here, but brilliant. Tim Johnston is as wise as he is original, and his stories are impossible to forget.”—David Sedaris

A compilation of previously unpublished poems, short stories, essays, and creative nonfiction by writers of African descent from Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana. Mardis’ poem, “Invisible Man” was included in the Pushcart Prize XXIV, and the book includes a short story by Bernestine Singley, editor of “When Race Becomes Real.”

In the nine stories of Let's Do, various calamities strike ordinary Midwesterners, who cope with a mixture of good intentions and ineptitude. Balancing humor with painful clarity, author Rebecca Meacham pulls readers into the lives of characters who struggle with—and more often against—change.

"Meacham's vision is complex, her characters rich and memorable, and the impact of her stories is dazzling."—Erin McGraw, author of The Baby Tree

Ohio Violence starts with scandal: the narrator leads the high school football coach into the cornfields, but as she promises, “nothing happened.” In the fields, in the woods, in the dark water of Ohio, something is happening. Girls disappear, turn on each other. Men watch from the rearview as the narrator hedges, changes her mind, then shows all in this break-out collection of bittersweet and cataclysmic lyrics. Winner of the Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry, 2008.

In his debut collection, Jordan Windholz recasts devotional poetics and traces the line between faith and its loss. Other Psalms gives voice to the skeptic who yet sings to the silence that "swells with the noise of listening." If faith is necessary, this collection suggests, it is necessary as material for its own unmaking. Without a doubt, these are poems worth believing in, announcing, as they do, a new and necessary voice in American poetry.

“A collection of essays arguing for a more interactive and cooperative approach to the teaching, reading, critiquing, and writing of literature. Private Voices, Public Lives is of critical importance to readers, teachers, reviewers and critics. The essays incorporate ideas on current issues of autobiography, women's voice, reader response, diversity, and gender.”—Midwest Book Review

Winner of the Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry, 2005. Michael White’s poetry is unusual for its loving patience in imagining how human predicaments feel. Using a striking variety of measures, his meditations attempt to re-enact the grain of consciousness as it plays out, from elegy to simple joy. 

This unique collection of narratives, essays, and poems includes an original interview with Maya Angelou and pieces by Naomi Shihab Nye, Pat Mora, Rosemary Catacalos, and many others. Each work relates how women have demonstrated courage by taking a risk that has changed their lives—courage as a result of thoughtful choices demonstrating integrity and self-awareness. Each section opens with a description of its organization and the significance of individual pieces. Themes include sustenance for living, faith in the unknown, the courage of choice, the seams of our lives, and crossing borders.

The Black Beach By J. T. Barbarese Winner of the 2004 Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry.

The poems of The Black Beach describe everyday acts like putting children to bed, coaching Little League, and sending a daughter to school, but brood over what may be behind the everyday and how to reach it and talk to it.

"The Black Beach constantly delights with its questing, surprising, and not-easily-satisfied imagination."—Andrew Hudgins, Judge

"Barbarese has an uncanny ability to size up the urban scene, then hallow and harrow it. He wins me over in poem after poem."—Maxine Kumin 

The Perseids, winner of the Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry, is a book which insists that visual contemplation of the world is an act of the soul. These poems render the rich biological detail of landscape with passion and exactitude and describe the mind's dazzling revelations during moments of shifting perspective and scale. 

The first novel in the Lucinda 'Lucy' Richards trilogy, The Train to Estelline takes place as Lucy starts her job as the new school teacher for the White Star school in the Panhandle.

"A truly fine tale of the indomitable human spirit, told in the honest voice of a strong young schoolmarm in early day West Texas."—Larry L. King

"This is one of those books that is easy to get into, hard to get out of. Once started, it is nearly impossible to put down. Once put down, it is not easily forgotten."—Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Powerful and haunting, the ten stories of this debut collection imagine a world where dreams and reality merge, often with dangerous consequences. Michael Hyde explores the relationships between illusion and reality, delusion and clarity, as his characters come to realize that the revelations they wholeheartedly pursue are often not the ones that await them and will move them. “Michael Hyde’s stories are strangely satisfying and satisfyingly strange. They combine the gothic sensibility of Flannery O’Connor and the restrained prose of Raymond Carver. These are tales of love-in-extremis. They should be taken as a tonic before bedtime, to stir up our dreams and awaken our compassion.” 

“Wonderful Girl is a smart, funny collection, by turns poignant, mysterious, terrifying, sexy, often just plain nuts (in a good way!). The characters in these stories are deliciously confused but always in control, if not of their fates, at least of their pets and boyfriends. What strong voices these women have! Contemporary American life has never seemed so threatening and yet so warm, so full of possibility, yet so harrowing. Reading Wonderful Girl is like meeting a dozen new friends, people you instantly fret over, want to know better, want to call and give advice, bring home to meet your folks, people you ultimately love.”—Bill Roorbach, judge and author of The Smallest Color, Big Bend, and Temple Stream

On August 1, 1966, Charles Whitman ascended the University of Texas Tower and committed what was then the largest simultaneous mass murder in American history. He gunned down forty-five people inside and around the Tower before he was killed by two Austin police officers. In addition to promoting the rise of S.W.A.T. teams to respond to future crises, the murders spawned debates over issues which still plague America today: domestic violence, child abuse, drug abuse, military indoctrination, the insanity defense, and the delicate balance between civil liberties and public safety. 

Written by a Texas inmate trained as a reporter, this book gives practical advice on how inmates live, eat, play, work, and die in the Texas prison system. It spotlights the day-to-day workings of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice—what’s good, what’s bad, which programs work and which ones do not, and examines if practice really follows official policy.

"While the book is meant to be a primer for those with loved ones in prison, it should be required reading for any attorney involved in criminal law."—Texas Lawyer de Novo Magazine

The field of corrections comprises three distinct areas of study: institutional corrections (jails and prisons), community corrections (probation and parole), and intermediate sanctions (community service, boot camps, intensive supervision programs, home confinement and electronic monitoring, halfway houses, day reporting, fines, and restitution). Caputo explores the background and foundation of intermediate sanctions programs and then describes in clear detail each program and its effectiveness.

This volume collects fourteen articles connecting popular media with academic inquiry, illustrating the connections between the future world of Star Trek and current issues in international law, law and justice, and the American legal system. It makes an ideal text to teach students interdisciplinary academic concepts using a familiar, popular media phenomenon. 

Walking George examines the entire life of George John Beto (1916-1991) and his many achievements in the fields of both education and criminal justice. During his ten-year term as the director of the Texas Department of Corrections, Beto spearheaded many education and reform programs aimed at rehabilitating inmates, such as the Windham school district for educating inmates, the first of its kind at any prison in the United States. 

A fascinating and insightful account of a little known and often misunderstood aspect of African-American culture, American Voudou details the author’s own personal experiences within this system of belief and ritual, along with descriptions and experiences of other people, ranging from those who reject it entirely to ardent practitioners and leaders. Davis raises questions and offers insight into the nature of religion, American culture, and race relations. Library Journal called it “engagingly written.” 

When the early Spanish and Mexican colonists came to settle Texas, they brought with them a rich culture, the diversity of which is nowhere more evident than in folk art, folk craft, and architecture. This first book-length publication to focus on Texas-Mexican material culture shows the richness of Tejano folk arts and crafts traditions.

“An important addition to the study of Mexican-American material culture . . . a valuable tool for future researchers.”— Southwestern Historical Quarterly

This is the first study of roadside crosses and memorials erected in remembrance of death on the highway. They are a meeting place for communication, remembrance, and reflection, embodying ongoing relationships between the living and the dead.

When families gather and tell their stories, they are passing down the “family saga” to the next generation. Herein are stories of feuds, oddball family members, wartime experiences, and significant life events, sure to stimulate all families to remember and share their stories. A Publication of the Texas Folklore Society. 

“Square dancing is friendship set to music,” says author Betty Casey. Whether you’ve done it before or you’re just starting out, this book tells you everything you need to know—85 basic movements used all over the world, the spirited calls unique to square dancing, the costumes and equipment that are best, and music (from “Red River Valley” to “Mack the Knife”) that will set your feet in motion.   

Bill Jason Priest is credited with developing and defining the Dallas County Community College District, transforming the junior college program into a seven-campus district from 1965 to 1981. Drawing from archives and numerous interviews with Priest and his personal and professional associates, Kathleen Krebbs Whitson presents the life of a giant in Texas and community college education. 

Chicano Education in the Era of Segregation analyzes the socioeconomic origins of the theory and practice of segregated schooling for Mexican-Americans from 1910 to 1950. Gilbert G. Gonzalez links the various aspects of the segregated school experience, discussing Americanization, testing, tracking, industrial education, and migrant education as parts of a single system designed for the processing of the Mexican child as a source of cheap labor. The movement for integration began slowly, reaching a peak in the 1940s and 1950s. The 1947 Mendez v. Westminster case was the first federal court decision and the first application of the Fourteenth Amendment to overturn segregation based on the “separate but equal” doctrine. This paperback features an extensive new Preface by the author discussing new developments in the history of segregated schooling.

The author provides the complete history of the rise and fall of federal bilingual education policy and details how the English-only movement defeated it at the federal level, only to continue the fight state-by-state.

"A clearly written, controlled overview of a complicated public policy debate that has extended over four decades and resides squarely inside the multiple ideological debates over American identity, the federal role in education, and multiculturalism and diversity versus Americanism . . . An invaluable tool for researchers."—History: Review of New Books

Originally published in 1979, Geraldine Ellis Watson’s Big Thicket Plant Ecology is now back in print. This updated edition explores the plant biology, ecology, geology, and environmental regions of the Big Thicket National Preserve in East Texas. Watson covers the ecological and geological history of the Big Thicket and introduces its plant life, from longleaf pines and tupelo swamps to savannah wetlands and hardwood flats.

This is the story of how a toxic waste facility affected the citizens of Winona, Texas. Soon after the plant opened nearby, residents started noticing huge orange clouds rising from the facility and an increase in rates of cancer and birth defects in both humans and animals. One resident, Phyllis Glazer, was outraged and organized a grass-roots movement to publicize the problems in Winona, which resulted in the plant’s closure in 1998. During this time, Tammy Cromer-Campbell was on the scene documenting Winona’s story. Using a plastic Holga camera, she created hauntingly distorted images, fifty of which are included in this volume, that are both works of art and testaments to the damage inflicted on the people of a small Texas town by one company’s greed.

This unique book blends cultural ethnography with an illustrated guide to the forest birds of southern Chile and Argentina. Fifty bird species are named in Yahgan, Mapudungun, Spanish, English, and scientific nomenclature, followed by a description, full color photographs, distribution map, habitat and lifestyle, and history in the region. Each entry is augmented further with indigenous accounts of the bird in history and folklore. The book includes two CDs with recordings of birdcalls and their names in four languages, followed by numerous narratives of Yahgan and Mapuche stories about the birds translated directly from interviews with elders of both communities.

Fourteen writers, including Roy Bedichek, John Graves, Stephen Harrigan, Wyman Meinzer, and Naomi Shihab Nye, explore the uniqueness of Texas nature in all the major regions of the state. Pride of Place updates Bedichek's Adventures with a Texas Naturalist by acknowledging the increased urbanization and the loss of wildspace in today's state. It joins other recent collections of regional nature writing while demonstrating what makes Texas uniquely diverse. 

Although spare, sweeping landscapes may appear "empty," plains and prairies afford a rich, unique aesthetic experience--one of quiet sunrises and dramatic storms, hidden treasures and abundant wildlife, infinite horizons and omnipresent wind, all worthy of contemplation and celebration.  In this series of narratives, photographs, and hand-drawn maps, Tyra Olstad blends scholarly research with first-hand observation to explore topics such as wildness and wilderness, travel and tourism, preservation and conservation, expectations and acceptance, and even dreams and reality in the context of parks, prairies, and wild, open places. In so doing, she invites readers to reconsider the meaning of "emptiness" and ask larger, deeper questions such as: how do people experience the world? How do we shape places and how do places shape us? Above all, what does it mean to experience that exhilarating effect known as Zen of the plains?

Texas has a large population who has lived on both sides of the border and created a folkloric mix that makes Texas unique. Both Sides of the Border gets its name from its emphasis on recently researched Tex-Mex folklore. But we recognize that Texas has other borders besides the Rio Grande. We use that title with the folklorist’s knowledge that all of this state’s songs, tales, and traditions have lived and prospered on the other sides of Texas borders at one time or another before they crossed the rivers and became “ours.” A Publication of the Texas Folklore Society. 

This Publication of the Texas Folklore Society examines folklore and its many roles in education. Articles explore teaching in rural school houses in the early twentieth century, academic scholarship in the field of folklore itself, and folklore in the “early years” of day care centers, scout programs, children’s books, and high school. Coverage continues into the college experience, with stories about early Aggies, ghosts on university campuses, and collegiate cowgirls. The book closes with discussions on ways to help improve our memories, a linguistic study of cowboy poetry, and a comprehensive look at folklore studies. 

This Texas Folklore Society Publication explores African-American folkways and traditions from both African-American and white perspectives. Included are descriptions and classifications of different aspects of African-American folk culture in Texas; explorations of songs and stories and specific performers such as Lightnin’ Hopkins, Manse Lipscomb, and Bongo Joe; and a section giving resources for the further study of African Americans in Texas. “It’s hard to pick favorites in this compilation, as all of the selections are worth treasuring. . . . [A] valuable addition to the library.”—Our Texas

Laidley’s letters home to his father in Virginia begin on August 23, 1945, in New York, and end on May 13, 1848, from Mexico City. They reveal the horrors of the battlefield, his low opinion of volunteer soldiers, the jealousy over promotions within the officer corps, and continued concerns over his own physical and spiritual health. 

This is the first broad study to argue that the image of Union prison officials as deliberately negligent and cruel to Confederate prisoners is severely flawed. Once the careful reader disregards unreliable postwar polemics, and focuses exclusively on the more reliable wartime records and documents from both Northern and Southern sources, then a much different, less negative, picture of Northern prison life emerges. While life in Northern prisons was difficult and potentially deadly, no evidence exists of a conspiracy to neglect or mistreat Southern captives. “Gillispie provides an important revision and clarification of our knowledge about Civil War prisons.”—James M. McPherson, author of Battle Cry of Freedom

This is the story of the "other" Houston, Joshua, the slave of Margaret Lea until she married Sam Houston and moved to Texas in 1840. Joshua was unique among slaves: he was taught to read and write, and was allowed to keep money he earned. The story is set in a background of historical details about southern social history before, during, and after the Civil War. 

If White Kids Die describes the author’s gradual maturation as he encountered the other side of legally enforced racism. Harassed by police for being in a white neighborhood with a black coworker, arrested for vagrancy, and prevented from driving by arcane residency laws, Reavis came to understand the frustration with “The System” that fueled the Civil Rights Movement. At the same time, he saw the infighting and strategizing within the Movement that prevented it from living up to his ideals. David J. Garrow, Presidential Distinguished Professor at Emory University School of Law calls it “a valuable and honest addition to the existing literature on white movement volunteers.”

No published work examines General Henry H. “Hap” Arnold’s role in depth during the Pacific War of 1944-1945, in the context of planning for the destruction of Japan. In this new study, Herman S. Wolk, retired Senior Historian of the U.S. Air Force, examines the thinking of Hap Arnold, Commanding General, Army Air Forces (AAF), during World War II. Specifically, Wolk concentrates on Arnold’s leadership in crafting the weapons, organization, and command of the strategic bombing offensive against Japan, which culminated in Japan’s capitulation in the summer of 1945, ending the Pacific War.

In Command Culture, Jörg Muth examines the different paths the United States Army and the German Armed Forces traveled to select, educate, and promote their officers in the crucial time before World War II. Muth explores the paradox that in Germany officers came from a closed authoritarian society but received an extremely open minded military education, whereas their counterparts in the United States came from one of the most democratic societies but received an outdated military education that harnessed their minds and limited their initiative. Command Culture clearly explains the lack of audacity of many high ranking American officers during World War II, as well as the reason why so many German officers became perpetrators or accomplices of war crimes and atrocities or remained bystanders without speaking up. Those American officers who became outstanding leaders in World War II did so not so much because of their military education, but despite it.

"Crossing the Pond" is a term Native Americans used to describe the process of being transferred overseas for military duty. This was both an event and a duty taken quite seriously by tribal members, who participated in every aspect of wartime America. The Wyoming History Journal states: “This solidly researched study provides a good overview of the World War II era of American Indian history.” 

“This work is quite different and is unique in that it chronicles the internment of the only Japanese-American combat soldier captured during the Pacific campaign of World War II. Frank "Foo" Fujita, a Texan who served with the ‘Lost Battalion’ of the 36th Infantry Division, was captured during the defense of Java in early 1942.”—Southwestern Historical Quarterly

“The book itself is based on a journal Fujita secretly kept while in captivity . . . [A]n excellent first-person account, one which will add greatly to the existing literature.”—Journal of Military History

James “Jim” Davis piloted a B-24, as part of the 8th Air Force, on nearly thirty missions in the European Theatre during World War II. He flew support missions for Operations Cobra and Market Garden and numerous bombing missions over occupied Europe in the summer and fall of 1944, attacking enemy airfields, airplane factories, railroad marshalling yards, ship yards, oil refineries, and chemical plants. While he and his crew survived without serious injuries, they witnessed the destruction of many of their friends’ planes and experienced serious damage to their own plane on several occasions. 

Overcoming a troubled and poverty-stricken childhood to eventually win top college scholarships, Collins made it to the top of every ladder she climbed. She joined the Navy in 1942. As a pioneer among female commissioned officers, she was in a unique position to observe not only how Navy women overcame discriminatory obstacles, but also how the Navy came to depend on women as an essential component of its standard operations. She retired in 1962 at the rank of captain, the highest rank a woman could then hold. 

Pacific Blitzkrieg closely examines the planning, preparation, and execution of ground operations for five major invasions in the Central Pacific (Guadalcanal, Tarawa, the Marshalls, Saipan, and Okinawa). The commanders on the ground had to integrate the U.S. Army and Marine Corps into a single striking force, something that would have been difficult in peacetime, but in the midst of a great global war, it was a monumental task. Yet, ultimate success in the Pacific rested on this crucial, if somewhat strained, partnership and its accomplishments. Pacific Blitzkrieg explores the combat in each invasion to show how the battles were planned, how raw recruits were turned into efficient combat forces, how battle doctrine was created on the fly, and how every service remade itself as new and more deadly weapons continuously changed the character of the war.

Rattler One-Seven puts you in the helicopter seat, to see the war in Vietnam through the eyes of an inexperienced pilot as he transforms himself into a seasoned combat veteran. At the age of twenty, Chuck Gross spent his 1970-71 tour with the 71st Assault Helicopter Company flying UH-1 Huey helicopters. He inserted special operations teams into Laos and participated in Lam Son 719, a misbegotten attempt to assault and cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail, during which his helicopter was shot down and he was stranded in the field.

This is a complete history of the 1st Infantry Division’s cavalry unit fighting in Operation Desert Storm. Stephen A. Bourque and John W. Burdan III served in the 1st Infantry–Bourque in Division Headquarters, Burdan as the Operations Officer of the 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry. Based on extensive interviews and primary sources, Bourque and Burdan provide the most in-depth coverage to date of a battalion-level unit in the 1991 war, showing how the unit deployed, went into combat, and adapted to changing circumstances.

General Thi fought for twenty-five years in Vietnam until Saigon fell in 1975, serving with the Vietnamese National Army and commanding the Army Corps Task Force along the Demilitarized Zone. Here he provides a rare and valuable insight into the Vietnam War.

“Thi strongly counters the prevailing ‘American’ view that the Republic of Vietnam’s government and military were hopelessly corrupt and ineffective. Not everyone will agree with General Thi’s viewpoint, but everyone will have to factor it into his own analysis of the Vietnam War.”—John Carroll, Lamar University

Edited by Peter B. Lane and Ronald E. Marcello. 

This book pairs eminent military historians and veterans discussing key military engagements and themes, from World War II to the present. Inside are such illustrious names in military history as David Glantz (Soviet warfare in WWII), Robert Divine (decision to use atomic bomb), George Herring (Johnson as commander-in-chief), and Brian Linn (comparing occupation in Philippines 1899-1902 with current occupation in Iraq). Within each military period in question is a veteran’s narrative account, giving an “I was there” perspective of the war being discussed. 

“Stimpson provides an opportunity for readers to view rural life in Texas during the Depression and its aftermath. Thoughtful readers will quickly realize that the black family of that time and place had a stability often overlooked today. Stimpson’s almost Biblical cadence further enriches the reading, as does the imagery used to call up emotional response to the good times and the bad that mark his life.”—School Library Journal.

In Spartan Band (coined from a chaplain’s eulogistic poem) author Thomas Reid traces the Civil War history of the 13th Texas Cavalry, a unit drawn from eleven counties in East Texas. The cavalry regiment organized in the spring of 1862 but was ordered to dismount once in Arkansas. The regiment gradually evolved into a tough, well-trained unit during action at Lake Providence, Fort De Russy, Mansfield, Pleasant Hill, and Jenkins' Ferry, as part of Maj. Gen. John G. Walker's Texas division in the Trans-Mississippi Department. 

This is the first-ever complete history of the Light Crust Doughboys, the "official music ambassadors of the Lone Star State" and trailblazers in western swing with Bob Wills and Milton Brown. Includes an audio CD with thirty Doughboys tunes. "This is the most definitive work on the beginning and evolution of western swing music and the history of the Light Crust Doughboys that I have seen."—James Blackwood, nine-time Grammy winner. "As valuable to the casual fan as to any student of Texana."—Rick Koster, Dallas Morning News

In this collection of seventeen original essays, Randolph “Mike” Campbell’s colleagues, friends, and students offer a capacious examination of Texas’s history—ranging from the Spanish era through the 1960s War on Poverty—to honor Campbell’s deep influence on the field. Focusing on themes and methods that Campbell pioneered, the essays debate Texas identity, the creation of nineteenth-century Texas, the legacies of the Civil War and Reconstruction, and the remaking of the Lone Star State during the twentieth century. Featuring some of the most well-known names in the field—as well as rising stars—the volume offers the latest scholarship on major issues in Texas history, and the enduring influence of the most eminent Texas historian of the last half century. 

Edited by John W. Storey and Mary L. Kelley.Standard histories of Texas traditionally focus on political, military, and economic topics, with emphasis on the nineteenth century. Twentieth-Century Texas: A Social and Cultural History offers a much-needed corrective. Written with both general and academic audiences in mind, the fourteen essays herein cover American Indians, Mexican Americans, African Americans, women, religion, war on the homefront, music, literature, film, art, sports, philanthropy, education, the environment, and science and technology in twentieth-century Texas.

While there is wide scholarship on the Texas Revolution, there is no comparable volume on the role of women during that conflict. Most of the many works on the Texas Revolution include women briefly in the narrative, such as Emily Austin, Suzanna Dickinson, and Emily Morgan West (the Yellow Rose), but not as principal participants. Women and the Texas Revolution explores these women in much more depth, in addition to covering the women and children who fled Santa Anna’s troops in the Runaway Scrape, and examining the roles and issues facing Native American, black, and Hispanic women of the time. Whether Mexican loyalist or Texas patriot, elite planter or subsistence farm wife, slaveholder or slave, Anglo or black, women helped settle the Texas frontier and experienced the uncertainty, hardships, successes, and sorrows of the Texas Revolution.

This is a bilingual edition of never-before published early Californio memoirs of Spanish soldiering and mission work. The primary voice is that of eighty-three-year-old Don Jose Maria Amador, a former “Forty-Niner” during the California Gold Rush and soldado de cuera at the Presidio of San Francisco, who tells of reconnoitering expeditions against the indigenous populations of California. In addition to Amador’s memoir, a friend from Mission Santa Cruz, Lorenzo Asisara, also describes the harsh life and mistreatment the Indians faced from the priests. 

In Sea la Luz, Juan Francisco Martínez tells the story of Protestant mission work among the Spanish speaking of the Southwest throughout the nineteenth century. By 1900, about 150 Spanish-speaking Protestant churches with more than five thousand adult members existed in the region. They were rejected by their own people because they were Protestants, but Anglo American Protestants did not readily accept them either because they were Mexican. 

Erickson’s articles and essays have been published in Texas Highways, Livestock Weekly, The Dallas Morning News, The Dallas Times Herald, and American Cowboy. Some are essays in which Erickson views contemporary life through the lens of cowboying. But all of them are vintage master storyteller John Erickson, told with humor and thoughtfulness. The Dallas Morning News called it “a finely crafted collection of articles and essays on the topics he knows best: ranching and cowboying.”

An important chapter in the history and folklore of the West is how women on the cattle frontier took their place as equal partners with men. The cowboy may be our most authentic folk hero, but the cowgirl is right on his heels. This Spur Award winning book fills a void in the history of the cowgirl. Arizona Highways says: “It is a pleasure from start to finish.” 

Three Decades of Engendering History collects ten of Antonia I. Castañeda's best articles, including the widely circulated article "Engendering the History of Alta California, 1769-1848," in which Castañeda took a direct and honest look at sex and gender relations in colonial California, exposing stories of violence against women as well as stories of survival and resistance. Other articles included are the prize-winning "Women of Color and the Rewriting of Western History," and two recent articles, "Lullabies y Canciones de Cuna" and "La Despedida." Finally, the volume includes three interviews with Antonia Castañeda.

This anthology collects the twelve winners of the 2013 Best American Newspaper Narrative Writing Contest, run by the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference. The event is hosted by the Frank W. Mayborn Graduate Institute of Journalism at the University of North Texas. The contest honors exemplary narrative work and encourages narrative nonfiction storytelling at newspapers across the United States.  First place winner: Eli Saslow, "Into the Lonely Quiet" (Washington Post), follows the family of a 7-year-old victim of the December 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, six months after the shooting.  Second place: Eric Moskowitz, "Marathon Carjacking" (Boston Globe), is the story of "Danny," who was carjacked by the suspects of the Boston Marathon bombing three days after the bombing.  Third place: Mark Johnson, "The Course of Their Lives" (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel), an account of first-year medical students as they take a human dissection course.

Runners-up include Christopher Goffard, "The Manhunt" (Los Angeles Times); Stephanie McCrummen, "Wait--You Described It as a Cloudy Feeling?" (Washington Post); Michael M. Phillips, "The Lobotomy Files" (Wall Street Journal); Aaron Applegate, "Taken Under" (Virginian-Pilot); Meg Kissinger, "A Mother, at Her Wits' End" (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel); Michael Kruse, "The Last Voyage of the Bounty" (Tampa Bay Times); Shaun McKinnon, "Alone on the Hill" (Arizona Republic); Mike Newall, "Almost Justice" (Philadelphia Inquirer); and Sarah Schweitzer, "Together, Despite All" (Boston Globe).

This book examines 43 great concerti and discusses, in detail, the technical, aural, rehearsal, and intra-personal skills that are required for “effortless excellence.” Maestro Itkin wrote this book for conductors first encountering the concerto repertoire and for those wishing to improve their skills about this important, and often understudied, literature. Often misunderstood is the fact that both the physical technique and the score study process require a substantially different and more nuanced approach than with the major symphonic repertoire. In short, this is the book that Itkin wished had been available when he was a student and young professional.

Brusilow’s tumultuous relationships with Pierre Monteux, George Szell, and Eugene Ormandy shaped his early career. Under Szell, Brusilow was associate concertmaster at the Cleveland Orchestra until Ormandy snatched him away to make him concertmaster in Philadelphia, where he remained from 1959 to 1966. But he was unsatisfied with the violin. Even as concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra, he felt the violin didn’t give him enough of the music. He wanted to conduct. He formed chamber groups on the side; he conducted summer concerts of the Philadelphia Orchestra. The price was high: it ruined his father-son relationship with Ormandy. Brusilow turned in his violin bow for the baton and created his own Philadelphia Chamber Symphony. Next he took on the then-troubled Dallas Symphony Orchestra. Unhappy endings repeat themselves in his memoir—and yet humor dances constantly around the edges. Musicians need it.

Bill and Jean Eckart were stage designers and producers at the peak of the musical, and their designs revolutionized Broadway productions. An Eckart set became part of the performance on stage, equal at times to an actor. They were best known for their designs for Damn Yankees (1955); Once Upon a Mattress (1959), in which Carol Burnett made her Broadway debut; and Mame (1966) with Angela Lansbury. Andrew B. Harris uses production stills and the Eckarts’ sketches from every show they worked on to illustrate (with more than 500 color illustrations) the magic behind an Eckart design.

This is the first study of roadside crosses and memorials erected in remembrance of death on the highway. They are a meeting place for communication, remembrance, and reflection, embodying ongoing relationships between the living and the dead.

This is the first study of roadside crosses and memorials erected in remembrance of death on the highway. They are a meeting place for communication, remembrance, and reflection, embodying ongoing relationships between the living and the dead. 

As the prologue explains, " Cold Anger is a story about a new kind of intervention in politics by working poor people who incorporate their religious values into a struggle for power and visibility. It is about women and men who promote public and private hope, political and personal responsibility, community and individual transformation." The Arizona Daily Star exclaimed: "This may prove to be the year's most thought-provoking book. Anyone jaded by or cynical about the American political process will find reason for renewed hope in reading this volume."

A collection of articles forming a handbook of information on Metropolitan Universities, their unique mission and characteristics. It addresses the questions and concerns of faculty, students, administrators, state educational policy makers, and mayors or city managers, all of whom are involved in institutions located in or near the urban center of a metropolitan area.