Texas

by James A. Michener

Spanning four and a half centuries, James A. Michener’s monumental saga chronicles the epic history of Texas, from its Spanish roots in the age of the conquistadors to its current reputation as one of America’s most affluent, diverse, and provocative states. Among his finely drawn cast of characters, emotional and political alliances are made and broken, as the loyalties established over the course of each turbulent age inevitably collapse under the weight of wealth and industry. With Michener as our guide, Texas is a tale of patriotism and statesmanship, growth and development, violence and betrayal—a stunning achievement by a literary master.
 
Praise for Texas
 
“Fascinating.”—Time
 
“A book about oil and water, rangers and outlaws, frontier and settlement, money and power . . . [James A. Michener] manages to make history vivid.”—The Boston Globe
 
“A sweeping panorama . . . [Michener] grapples earnestly with the Texas character in a way that Texas’s own writers often don’t.”—The Washington Post Book World
 
“Vast, sprawling, and eclectic in population and geography, the state has just the sort of larger-than-life history that lends itself to Mr. Michener’s taste for multigenerational epics.”—The New York Times

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Historical, Westerns, Novels, American History, Epic

Audiobook

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

James Albert Michener is best known for his sweeping multi-generation historical fiction sagas, usually focusing on and titled after a particular geographical region. His first novel, Tales of the South Pacific , which inspired the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific, won the 1948 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Toward the end of his life, he created the Journey Prize, awarded annually for the year's best short story published by an emerging Canadian writer; founded an MFA program now, named the Michener Center for Writers, at the University of Texas at Austin; and made substantial contributions to the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, best known for its permanent collection of Pennsylvania Impressionist paintings and a room containing Michener's own typewriter, books, and various memorabilia.

Michener's entry in Who's Who in America says he was born on Feb. 3, 1907. But he said in his 1992 memoirs that the circumstances of his birth remained cloudy and he did not know just when he was born or who his parents were.

Reviews

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite a long time ago, I lived in Texas for a while.

That is how I came to understand my distinctly European identity and education. For Texas was different. Very different. I walked to the supermarket with my baby in a stroller. You don't do that in Texas. You take a car. I bought food for a day or two. You don't do that either. You buy for months in advance, loading your giant truck full with groceries. I tried to explore the city centre of Dallas. Well, there is none - not in the European sense of the word. After a couple of weeks in the unbearable heat, I felt strangely out of touch with the world, and lost in translation.

Someone suggested to go on a road trip to the monasteries around San Antonio, to see the roots of Texan culture.

Great advice! On the trip I brought Michener's monumental tale of Texas, spanning the centuries from the Spanish discoveries and settlement over the Alamo to modern oil and real estate empires.

Reading and driving, I began to understand what surrounded me. The stockyards in Fort Worth, the ghost towns to the west of Dallas, the NASA in Houston, the beach in Galveston, the government in Austin, the JFK museum and the Southfork Ranch in Dallas, the beauty of San Antonio and the Spanish monasteries, the harsh nature, the sudden rain that could drown a road, the tornado that cut a garden in half, the HEAT!

I imagine Michener trying to explore Texas to write its history, and the obstacles that he might have encountered. The hard surface of Texas is not offering much of a narrative in the beginning. But Michener's genius lies in the way he imagines the relationship between country and individuals, and their mutual interdependence. Texas is Texas because of individuals who built their lives in the area over the course of 400 years, and the individuals are what they are because they adapted their dreams to the strange country that they inhabited.

To me, stranger in a strange land, the only way to solve the mystery of Texas was to read about its journey towards present times. It made my stay in Texas easier to grasp intellectually and emotionally.

It is a Texas-style brick of a book, but definitely worth reading for whoever is interested in the story of one of the most peculiar places I have ever been.

[Tim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too much blatant racism, KKK glorification, religion and noone nonwhite of value. Oil and longhorns excluded. Nevertheless, the stories around these topics are better written and told than not. Good thing since there are over 1100 pages. 6 of 10 stars

[Michael Finocchiaro · Rating 5 out of 5]

I believe this is one of the first behemoth books I ever read. It was certainly my first Michener book. I remember pretty vividly the anecdotes of the origins of Texas, the standoff at the Alamo, the struggles for independence and the capitulation with generous conditions to Washington. I read it before I moved to Texas back in 93 (I lived in Austin from '93-'95 and LOVED it) and it served as sort of a cultural guide. I know, hard to believe because one does not associate Texas with culture beyond bigots and barbecue, but there is diverse culture there if you know where to look for it, and as a professor at UT, Michener certainly took his time and exhaustively researched this book and uncovered a treasure trove of history and stories.
Two anecdotes:

I recall reading about Texas' oldest church in the small town of Nacodoches which is on the way to Dallas coming from Austin. So on a trip up to see a Rangers game (crappy Dubya-owned stadium with obstructed view for the plebes because of the proliferation of luxury boxes for Bush family cronies) and I stopped in the town of Nacodoches and asked directions to the church. "What church are ya talkin about?" "You know, the old church, like the oldest one in Texas?" "Umm, church you say?" "Yes, an old wooden church built about when Texas joined the Union." "Oh, yeah, well hell, that church burned down last Ji-une if I reckon right. The one that Michener book talks about you say? Yeah, I read sumthin in the paper about that last year. Shame. Well, you have a great day now y'hear."

Back in the halcyon days of having some money and no kids, I went to Hawai'i for a month and had a blast. I didn't like Honolulu much (too many luxury hotels and herds of Japanese tourists with cameras (selfie sticks had not been invented yet but had there been, I would probably have had my eye put out)) and spent most of my time on the Big Island where it turned out I had distant relatives. Anyhoo, when I get back, I read a lot about Japanese Ukiyo-e painting because I am a huge Hiroshige and Hokusai fan, and I read in one of them that one of the largest and most diverse collections of Japanese Ukiyo-e prints is in....the collection that Michener donated to Hawai'i and is in a dedicated building in Honolulu. Argh, missed it :(

Anyway, the book was great and left a long lasting impression and I can highly recommend it.

[Benjamin Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read most of Michener's work, and I rate Texas among the big three, not only in size but in quality. (The other two are Centennial and Chesapeake). I particularly like the way Michener presents the entire history of Texas, and yet focuses on the key aspects of change that make this region so interesting. We see how cotton, cattle, oil, barbed wire, football, etc have changed the very culture of the people of Texas. Each long chapter is another window from which we can see the evolution of the landscape and the people. We see the hearty characters that made Texas what it is today and examine the very heart of the issues which shape the modern day Texan. For all of this, it is a novel, with the sweeping epic qualities of Gone With the Wind or Michener's other great works. Don't let the size stop you. The novel is as big as the state itself, and worth every minute of the ride.

[Thomas Ray · Rating 2 out of 5]

Texas, James A. Michener, 1985, 1096 pp. ISBN 0394541545

Fictionalized history of Texas, 1535 through 1984.

No likeable characters.

Michener writes with worshipful admiration of men who steal, defraud, and murder, in pursuit of their own freedom to do as they will, to others’ cost. (p. 276, 648–649)
Men who casually steal their neighbors’ cattle, then murder those neighbors who return the favor.

The heirs of wealth gained by theft, murder, fraud, and corruption are here at the end of the story. They use their billions to gamble in asset markets—inflating bubbles they know will burst; rushing to get out before the bust; leaving someone else to take the loss; then preying on the holders of distressed assets. (p. 1076)

Michener admires these people. When his billionaire says, “Those who own the country ought to govern it,” Michener in his own voice calls this, “truth.” (p. 1072)

Michener sees the absurdity of empowering the occupant of the big house in a mid-1800s German town, to decide who may and may not marry; and of the king of Spain in the 1500s being the only authority able to grant a missionary a new robe. The ascension of Michener’s vile brand of politics is recreating just such an aristocracy of wealth. Michener is blind to it.

Michener descends to xenophobia, saying bilingual education will make the U.S. “worse than Canada.” (p. 1021) Dozens of times he calls unauthorized workers “illegals” and “wetbacks.” (pp. 914–922, 930, 1022, 1023, 1037, 1050–1055)

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a lover of historical fiction, I knew I would love this book. And, I was not disappointed. I loved how Michener set up this story--a task force has been selected to research the curriculum that will be taught to schoolchildren regarding Texas history, and the history is told through the stories of their families (not the heroes--despite them being mentioned as well).
Michener's research in the affairs of Texas is astounding, and his writing was brilliant throughout. The earlier characters are well defined--you understand why they do the things they do and why they think the way they think. I especially liked the character Otto Macnab--you follow his development from a very young age until his death, and it is quite a ride.
The major characteristics of Texas shine through the novel--the Alamo and the battle for independence are well told, and the shifting beliefs and culture with the discovery of oil is very believable. The sensitive subjects--blatant racism, slavery, religious fighting--are all told through the point of view from whoever's story is being told, and for each there is a counter--someone who believes something completely different. At times, it feels as if Michener is being a little cynical or joking in pointing out some of the hypocrisies that present themselves throughout the story, and I really liked this!
The only complaint I had about the book was the last Task Force meeting. This did not seem like a valid conclusion to such a great masterpiece (although I did think the very last line was fitting), but this one complaint was not enough to hide the fact that he seems to have captured the essence of Texas and of Texans.

[nettebuecherkiste · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars
Im Südwesten von Nordamerika im 16. Jahrhundert. Die Spanier erkunden diese Region von Amerika, weiter im Süden, in Mexiko, herrschen sie längst. Auch die Region westlich und nördlich des Golfes von Mexiko fällt bald unter ihre Herrschaft. Sie nennen sie „Tejas“.

Wie der zeitgenössische Autor Edward Rutherfurd schrieb James Michener während seiner Schaffensperiode von den Vierziger bis zu Beginn der Neunziger Jahre zahlreiche historische Romane, die die Geschichte einer bestimmten Region anhand mehrerer Familiengeschichten schildern. Im Gegensatz zu einigen anderen Büchern, die schon bei der Geologie oder der Tierwelt der Region beginnen, setzt die Handlung von „Texas“ erst kurz nach der Eroberung durch die Spanier ein. Als Rahmenhandlung dient die Bildung einer „Task Force“, die den Geschichtsunterricht an texanischen Bildungseinrichtungen reformieren soll, in der Gegenwart. Teil dieser Task Force sind die Sprösslinge der Familien, die im Laufe des Romans nach Texas gelangen und dort siedeln. Die einzelnen Kapitel, die je einen Zeitabschnitt behandeln, schließen jeweils mit einem Abschnitt der „Task Force“

Während das erste Kapitel noch etwas spröde daherkommt, gelingt es Michener in den Folgekapiteln, interessante und glaubhafte Charaktere zu erschaffen, mit denen man sich teilweise identifizieren kann, was jedoch dadurch eingeschränkt ist, dass die Charaktere Menschen ihrer Zeit sind, deren Haltung zu Indianern und Schwarzen für uns heute verwerflich ist.

Michener schont seine Leser nicht – Grausamkeiten werden in nüchternem Ton und ohne Weichzeichnung geschildert. Ich selbst war schockiert angesichts der entsetzlichen Folter- und Tötungsmethoden, die Michener die vor Ort siedelnden Indianer – Apachen und Comanchen – gebrauchen lässt. Mir war nicht bekannt, dass es sich bei diesen Stämmen um besonders grausame Indianergruppen handelte. Mir ist klar, dass beide Seiten und nicht nur die Amerikaner Massaker anrichteten, aber ich wusste mehr über den Genozid an den Indianern. Ich stelle nicht das Motiv der Indianer infrage, natürlich wehren sie sich gegen die Eindringlinge, aber diese entsetzliche Grausamkeit… sie liegt wohl in der Natur des Menschen. Nichtsdestotrotz gehören die Kapitel, in denen es um Auseinandersetzungen zwischen (US-)Amerikanern und Indianern geht, zu den Highlights des Buches.

Überrascht hat mich, wie knapp der amerikanische Bürgerkrieg beschrieben wird, der erste und zweite Weltkrieg werden gänzlich ausgelassen. Dies ist nachvollziehbar, denn zu diesen Themen gibt es genug andere Literatur. Was für meine Begriffe aber wirklich zu kurz kommt, ist das Kennedy-Attentat, das schließlich in Dallas geschah, und die Person Lyndon B. Johnson, der selbst Texaner war. Überhaupt sind die Kapitel über die neuere Geschichte des Staates die Schwachpunkte des Romans. Zwar informieren die entsprechenden Kapitel recht gut über die weitere Entwicklung von Texas (z. B. den Ölboom), beschränkt sich jedoch zu stark auf wirtschaftliche Aspekte, sodass ich sie regelrecht langweilig fand.

Insgesamt ist „Texas“ jedoch wie andere Bücher dieses Genres eine kurzweilige und vergnügliche Quelle, mit der die Leser etwas über die Geschichte der Region lernen können. Man sollte sich jedoch des enormen Umfangs des Romans bewusst sein, bevor man die Lektüre erwägt.

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Resistance is futile." This was a chore. Honestly. A book nearly as big as the state which, unless you already love it, is somewhat impenetrable and unknowable.

There's a meta-narrative within the book of a liberal family that moves to TX from Michigan and is "in, but not of" yet over a slow battle of attrition, eventually becomes so thoroughly Texan that they end up voting straight Republican while their now baton-twirling daughter marries a hulking Dallas Cowboys lineman and all is just about perfect.

That's what I felt this book was trying to do to me, instead of making me appreciate, understand, or even LIKE Texas--it was trying to convert me. It failed.

The novel never quite succeeded as either history or fiction. The history was shoehorned into the fiction as MAMMOTH exposition dumps and the fiction lacked real drama (despite telling some otherwise interesting tales) because the characters were given some horribly awkward dialogue and due to the aforementioned history dumps.

I knew it was a lost cause when chapters described HS football with the same level of gravitas as the Alamo. I'm out.

[Rachel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I finally finished it. Not quite history, not quite fiction, this book was... well, historical fiction. And it really taught me why I don't like historical fiction. Many of the made-up historical "facts" are pointless, the characters are one-dimensional, and everything about Texas has to make it into the plot, no matter how unrelated. Armadillos... football... hunting... Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders... chicken-fried steak.

That said, there were reasons I kept reading this 1096-page behemoth. Since moving to Texas three years ago, I have become curious about Texas history and culture, and this book familiarized me with both, and gave me perspective on the character and political views of Texans. It had just enough plot to keep me reading, on a cheap level. But that's about it. Some of the sentiments, while perhaps true in the minds of many Texans, had no place in a historical work:

"[Scottish descendants:] would govern India and South Africa and New Hampshire, and wherever they went they would leave schools and hospitals and libraries, for they were the seeds of greatness and of civilization." p. 269

"When it seemed that Santa Anna... was about to trap the fleeing Houston and his entire ragtag of defenders, one of those romantic miracles occurred which still convince Texans that God is on their side."

"The slave, Cobb reflected, lived well, under the loving care of kind masters." p. 592

"Around the world, in all times and places, whenever men go on an ethical rampage they feel that they must discipline women. 'Your dresses are too short.' 'You tempt men.' 'Your behavior is salacious.' 'You must be put in your proper place.' This stems, of course, from the inherent mystery of women, their capacity to survive, their ability to bear children, the universal suspicion that they possess some arcane knowledge not available to men. Women are dangerous, and men pass laws to keep them under restraint..." p. 853

Um, may I propose that it actually stems, of course, from the inherent agressiveness of men and their need to feel superior to women? I mean, whose perspective are we coming from here? Sometimes Michener expresses such sentiments as thoughts of the characters, but sometimes they come from the anonymous narrator. It is clear that such quotes, while hopefully not representing the attitudes of Michener or of modern Texans, represent primarily the attitudes of white male Texans throughout Texas history. Yes, there is positive discussion about women, Indians, slaves, and Mexicans, but the unseen narrator is decidedly a white male. This aspect of the book left me with a bad taste in my mouth.

All in all, I would prefer to read my history from a history book. But the Alamo chapter was great.

[Brian Fagan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Michener wrote Texas in 1985. It is organized around a series of gatherings in which an academic, Dr. Travis Barlow, and several prominent Texans of important lineage, convene to publish a recommendation on how Texas history is to be taught in Texas schools, so as to raise a generation of Texans who appreciate their state's heritage. Between their panel discussions, at which experts are invited to speak, the history of Texas is played out in Michener's usual way, with a combination of actual and imagined characters.

The chapters consist of these topics:

1. Spanish explorers, 1500's
2. Spanish missions, 1700's
3. Melting pot of South Texas, 1700's
4. Southeast Texas settlers from Tennessee & Kentucky, early 1800's
5. Influx of criminals. Protestant roots, early 1800's
6. The Alamo & other Mexico / US battles, 1830's
7. Independent nation. Comanche. German immigrants, 1840's
8. Texas Rangers. Mexican War, 1840's
9. Cotton & the slave issue. The Civil War, 1850's & 60's
10. Comanche vs. settlers. Buffalo Soldiers, 1870's
11. Cattle ranching, 1880's & 90's
12. Cotton. Protestant churches. Ku Klux Klan. Oil. High school football, 1900's - 1920's
13. Mexican immigrants. County pride. Quail hunting. Real estate investment, 1930's - 60's
14. Multi-market losses. Mexican-American community in South Texas. Higher education, 1980's

I've ranked the Michener novels that I've read, in order of my enjoyment:

1. Centennial (Colorado)
2. Mexico
3. Tales of the South Pacific
4. The Covenant
5. Alaska
6. Chesapeake
7. Texas

This is the ranking of these particular Micheners by Goodreads readers:

1. Centennial
2. Chesapeake and The Covenant
4. Alaska
5. Texas
6. Tales of the South Pacific
7. Mexico

[Danny · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my favorite book by Mitchner. I read it right before we took our family to Texas to San Antonio to see the Bomans, to Austin to see Debby and Len, and to Houston to visit Doug and Diana. It affected me emotionally. Especially the accounts of the first settlers along the Red River, and how they survived on pecans the first winter after crop failure.
When I actually visited the Alamo and San Jacinto I got choked up and every time I saw one of those huge Lone Star flags, or saw the blue bells growing along the freeway, I felt a part of something grand.

[John Devlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as good as covenant, and the hokey present day meetings are all just a bit much…had this been the only Michener I read I’d be unlikely to read another…but it’s the fifth or so…

Essentially a dozen novellas following the Texan epoch through families of all creeds and ethnicities…

[Garrett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kind of hard to get through. Very dense stuff. There are some jewels in here, and the way he choose to structure the book is very interesting: the story within the story.

Well, after about 2 years I have finally managed to complete this one.

The first third was very hard to get through (remember that the entire book was over 1300 pages). The middle part was really pretty good and enjoyable. The last third was just OK. I read the final two thirds in 4 months. However, I only read it here and there when I was in the mood.

I'm not sure how to rate this book. Is it a historical? Is it historical fiction? What is the author's angle of vision/slant on this? How accurate were the accounts? I really don't have anything to base or judge these questions.

So, I'll forego my usual analysis of character, setting, plot, and conflict. Instead, I just want to talk about my reactions.

Obviously, I have trouble getting into it. The most interesting time period for me was the late 1700s to early 1800s. I grew to admire the spunk of some of the people he wrote about. Some I detested even though they were praised in the book. I think the early part of the book was so difficult for me to get through because nothing seemed important or to matter. There didn't seem to be a point - no overarching message or topic (except, of course, Texas).

I can say, after reading this, that I am glad that I've never lived in Texas and I will definitely not consider it in the future (which may have been the opposite effect from what the author or other Texans would anticipate). Sure, some of the history was compelling and interesting. But, I can't say that I felt proud of the accomplishments of Texas. Maybe it's the hauteur, maybe it's the forbidding landscape, maybe it's the provincialistic nature of the people there. I just know that the author did not paint a captivating enough picture for this reader.

Would I recommend it? Not really. If you are interested, listen to the abridged audio - it will be less painful to get through.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first picked up Michener's Texas because I am a fan of Edward Rutherfurd. Both authors tell the story of a specified place through the interlocking stories of certain families through the ages, a method which I usually enjoy. This novel then, is meant to be a fictional narrative of Texan history. Michener examines important events like the battle at the Alamo and the Civil War and factors like religion, the immigration of various different ethnic groups, oil and American football and examines how they affected the Texan spirit.

At first I thought I was reading an okay, fairly slow book. About halfway through I realised I was really enjoying it. This was despite usually not liking the characters. Being English and someone who has hardly ever seen a gun in real-life some of the stories and personalities made me feel almost like I was reading about an alien species. I think I am meant to feel like that as well.

I really enjoyed some chapters, in particular The Mission and The Fort. However you don't always find out what happens to all the characters - in particular the female characters - for example Franziska Allerkamp Macnab and Emma Larkin Rusk. Either that or I blinked and missed it. I would have liked to find out more about what happened to the family of Mordecai Marr as they could have made an interesting example of an Hispanic-American family as compared to the all-Hispanic family of the post-Benito Garzas. I think there could have been more Native American and black viewpoints and stories as well. The weakest parts of the book were the chapters set in the twentieth century as it becomes harder to make an adventure out of arrogance, optimism and greed in times within many reader's memories.

Overall, I would recommend this book. In view of political events which post-date this book I found it particularly enlightening. I wonder what Michener would have thought, but we will never know as he passed away in 1997.

[Grump · Rating 4 out of 5]

TEXAS
This book was so long I had to take notes so I would remember what happened. Below is a basic summary of the whole thing. It spans from the 1500s Mexico till just up after the 1984 election. Essentially there are a bunch of different things that make Texas what it is today: Mexico, cotton, shooting people, willful ignorance, oil and ranching money and the baby Jesus. According to the book everyone is basically super rich and successful unless they’re Mexican. And most of them are somewhat to extremely unlikeable assholes. But there is a charm to the land, a romantic narrative that’s undeniable. By the end I was envying Texas as much as I was annoyed with it.

SUMMARY:  
So there’s task force assembled by the governor of Texas to agree up on the definitive and all-encompassing history of Texas. The task force pretty much agrees that the history is broken up into a bunch of digestible parts.

Part 1: A kid in southern Mexico hears from a crazy naked guy that there are some cities of gold up north. Then he and some Spanish priest guys and explorers go up there and find out it’s a dump. That dump turns out to be Texas. There’s also some long scenes about how it was frowned up upon for real Spaniards to marry mestizos.

Part 2: A few padres try to make a go of it in Texas and start San Antonio with ranching and dancing. The Spanish crown sends in some people from the Canary Islands seemingly to punish them for being too uppity. Essentially the mission system establishes the beginnings of modern settlement. Then the apaches kill everyone. Oh and also irrigation.

Part 3: People are still really hung up on who’s gonna marry whom. Spanish people from Spain want their daughters to marry other Spanish Spaniards but there’s not enough of them and it’s shitty. But there are some decent French dudes from New Orleans and some Spanish guys who were born in Mexico that might cut the mustard. The hottest woman in what will become San Antonio goes down the Camino Real to go dude sniffin’. She falls for a French guy who gets killed by the Comanche. Then an American Guy shows up he’s missing a tooth and is ready to kick ass at the drop of a hat. He wants to set up shop in Tejas because he sees is as being a good place to trade with the US in the near future. He tries to marry the hot chick but then ends up going for a richer chick which makes the grandpa of the hot chick mad. The two have a duel and gramps dies. The hot chick marries this Garza dude and he hauls off and knocks the American guy on his ass.

This book contains excessive use of the word ‘dour.’

Part 4: It’s now the 1800s and a family from Tennessee is making their way down to Tejas via Louisiana, which is now part of the US. Along the way they meet a drunken Irish priest. The family is super hung up on getting some land of their own. The priest says they have to be catholic to get into Tejas and get land. No Methodists allowed. So they convert but then when they get there are confined to Nacogdoches and are told they can’t have any land. They take off with the drunk priest in search of Steve Austin’s colony. The shit is still Mexico but they let Steve Austin sell land to Americans in his colony. The wife of the family is a hardass and the kid is a big puss. They shoot a lot of Indians. Mexico decides to outlaw slavery but then Steve Austin is like, “we need slavery to grow, y’all!” Tennessee boy and his Mexi friend Garza head back to Tennessee to sell some land and get money. Puss boy doesn’t wanna join because he’s a big puss.  Dad meets Sam Houston in Tennessee who’s the king shit there until he gets disgraced and has to leave for trying something pervy with his young wife. Then Tennessee Dad dies from cholera on his way back to Tejas. There’s a brief interlude where the present day committee learns about Methodists and how they came to Texas to be super religious AND hypocritical which is why Texas likes to claim a moral uprightness while at the same time being pro-slavery and having lots of murderers and degenerates.

Part 5: This chapter starts out about more people from Tennessee coming down to Texas and that the influential ones were Irish but then jumps to early 1800s Scotland and goes on about the MacNabs and their smart kid and how Catholics are just the worst. The MacNab kid decides he doesn’t want to go to school and do Presbyterian stuff and wants to steal people’s livestock instead so he goes to Northern Ireland and pisses a bunch of people off. His type are now called Scots-Irish and they like to drink and steal stuff and hate authority. Pretty soon he moves to America with his son who hears about Texas and becomes jazzed. There are conflicting rumors about what happens when you get to Texas. Is there a bunch of free land? Kinda sorta. Shady scrip salesmen try to rip our Scotsmen off by selling bogus guarantees. MAcNab decides to walk down to Texas from Cinci while droving a bunch of cattle with his kid and a woman dog named Betsy. But then they sell their cattle make it to Texas with another Scots-Irish guy and try to scoop up some land. They end up marrying Mexican girls and the son takes to Texas life like stink on a stinky person. One of the Scots gets busted for livestock thieving and it’s made clear Mexican dudes, even if they’re solid horse-cow-farm people, love to whoop on their women. And that’s OK right now. So is slavery. People are pretty gung ho about one’s right to slave up even though not many folks actually do. Then we jump back to the present and there’s a discussion about whether the people that settled in Texas from the US were criminals or deadbeats or dumbasses or actually really awesome, cream-of-the-crop Americans. Jury is still out but folks have opinions and site various sources. The book is starting to use the name ‘Quimper’ more often, which sounds vaguely vaginal but in a fun weekend/boating sense.

Part 6: Mexico’s pissed about people in Texas doing their own thing. They’ve got this on-again-off-again ruler named Santa Anna who loves to kick ass and he rides up to Bexar aka San Antone to fuck the rebels up and that’s just what he does. The Mexican guy who’s the descendent of the kid from Part 1 and whose sisters have been married to the Scots-Irishmen from Part 5 sides with the Mexicans because he’s Mexican and is sick of Yankees coming down to Texas acting like they own the fuckin’ place. The two Scots die fightin’ the Mexes. Campbell at the Alamo. And MacNab at the massacre of Goliad. Lots of white dudes get straight up shot by Santa Anna’s men. The MacNab kid though escapes and he’s fuckin’ pissed. So he goes off to join up with Sam Houston who sounds like a bad motherfucker that can outsmart Santa Anna a fuck him right in his proverbial ass. And he does. Houston’s company, which is filled with whiny bitches who doubt his command, retreats and retreats until Santa Anna’s supply lines are stretched to long then they beat the ever-lovin’ shit out them at San Jacinto. The MacNab kid, Otto is his name, kills a bunch of Mexicans and spares the Garza dude from getting his throat cut.  The Quimper kid randomly captures Santa Anna himself even though he’s still kind of a little bitch. Houston uses the general as a hostage and gets the Mexican armies to go back to Mexico and calls Tejas Texas and says it’s its own country now. There was also a French guy who kicked a lot of ass too called Lamar.

Part 7: Texas is a country and now the people there are doing a lot of fiddlin’ around with how to run it. The Quimper kid and Otto MacNab have some land and are gonna get rich off it. A bunch of counties are named after the guys that fought or died in the confrontations with Mexico in the previous part. Xavier (the Campbell guy), Lamar, Fannin, Houston, Harrison, Bowie, Travis and Rusk. One of the big problems is that Texas doesn’t have any money. The U.S. can’t give them any because they’re having a financial panic of their own and when the Texians as they’re called now try to print their own, it’s shitty and worthless. So some folks try to issue private currency backed in with their own property: land, boats, cattle and “n****r slaves.” Another problem is Mexicans, including Garza, who keep coming back trying to say some of the land is there. So the Texas Rangers are established and Otto MacNab joins up and they kill a bunch of Mexicans.  They also kick the shit out of some cherokees but then the comanches come in. They ride horses and give zero fucks. Comanches kill a lot of white people and there’s now a concerted attempt at a vice versa. Meanwhile the Texians, as they call themselves now, talk a lot about education but aren’t really into it and also invent pecan pie.  

Then it switches to Germany where people are having a rough go at it due to harsh winters that are causing crop failures.  Broke Germans are hearing good things about Texas. So a family named Allerkamp moves there with nothing on a shitty boat. One of them, Ernst, rides with the Texas Rangers for an expedition and meets Otto MacNab who has the hots for his sister. The sister has the wets for MacNab in return. The German family is super industrious and builds a saw mill and sews popular bonnets. Their other son goes back to the bay they arrived at and helps build the port of Indianola. Benito Garza is a sought after bandito. Eventually Texas is admitted to the USA by president Polk.

Then we’re back in the present talking about how Texas has a bunch of different land types: wasteland desert, plains, hills, forests, and plantation-y places. The task forces people all shit on the narrator for not owning a ranch because one of the key things about being Texan is to own some of Texas.  

Part 8: President Polk wants some more land so he sends Zachary Taylor down to Texas to grab some more of Mexico. He wants everything clear down to Panama but they end up settling for the Nueces Strip. In order to do it they need the help of the Texans whom every body from up north thinks are piles of shit because they wear dusters and play by their own rules. Santa Anna is still around and loses a leg and this is important to Mexicans. Also the Commanche are fucking everybody up while the men are away fighting with Mexico. Otto MacNab becomes quite the baddass and will literally shoot anyone. He ends up marrying the German girl. Garza is still a big time bandito.

Part 9: Cotton is a big deal in Texas so they’re pumped about slavery. When people up north start saying it’s bad they get their collective snatch in an uproar. This cotton family from South Carolina and Georgia bring their slaves and shit to Texas and set up a giant successful plantation so they’re naturally predisposed to succession and “preservin’ our way of laff!” They ally themselves with Yancy Quimper who is still held in high regard and has proclaimed himself a general. He’s generally a fuckstick and a shitbag. The Germans who’ve made nice lives for themselves and their community without slaves are against slavery because they left an oppressive place and don’t think they should set up a slave state in their new home. For this the pro-slave people hate them and kill them. Sam Houston keeps saying he wants to preserve the union. Pro-slave assholes hate him for that. Basically the pro-slave people are the worst people ever and just can’t fathom doing their own work or that enslaving people isn’t the most moral course of action. They are so stoked about owning people that they’re willing to go to war for it. MacNab and the Rangers ride against the Union because I guess he’s a dick now too. But the South doesn’t win and the slaves are free. Then in in the present the task force argues with people whether Texas is considered a smart state. It’s not. But they argue that it’s a powerful one. And it is. The task force discusses the influence of the deep southern immigrants (Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, etc.) on Texas culture. All agree that Texas is replete with southern culture (chivalry, limited women’s rights, okra, etc.) but is not a southern state.

Part 10: The Civil war is over. Some people are still bitter. There’s an Indian problem. President Grant thinks the best thing is to send down Pennsylvania Quakers to befriend the Indians and tame them. Texans think that’s a pile of shit and are basically right when the Commanche go nuts and start raidin’ and rapin’ and cuttin’ folks’ dicks n tits off. Eventually the Texans convince the Quakers that the Commanche are animals and start kicking their asses. They also finally kill Garza and thus end his career of bandito-ing. The Commanche had kidnapped a little girl, Emma Larkin, who they raped and burned the ears and nose off of. She gets rescued and is later married to the main Quaker guy, Rusk, who inherits all her land. Good move.

In the present, it’s communicated that black people really didn’t get a fair shake from history. Turns out they did a lot of fighting (as buffalo soldiers and whatnot) but Texas whites are racist as shit.

Part 11:  Rusk and Larkin are trying to build their ranch into a town. They meet a travelling salesman who introduces them to barbed wire which will keep their valuable cattle from wandering off. To pay for the fence they have to put their whole ranch in hock to the bank. Bankers later turn out be parasites who cheat people out of their land. Fencing shit off pisses off other ranchers who don’t have their own waterin’ holes so Texans start doing what they do best besides being racist, they shoot each other. Eventually one of the slave-owner guys from Part 9, who is now a senator, passes some laws saying rich ranchers need to share shit but the laws aren’t super enforceable. Texans are prone to fighting with each other which leads to shooting each other. One feud starts because a guy has a shitty brother so his good brother shoots a judge whose family and friends get pissed and start fighting back and after a bit a bunch of people get killed. Eventually MacNab the Ranger comes in and forces a truce but then the judge’s people bring in a hired gun and the good brother (who’s actually an asshole) gets shot. Then MacNab dies getting shot by the same hired gun who then gets killed by more Rangers. Rule of law!

The widow of MacNab goes to visit her brother in Indianola. A hurricane comes and destroys everything. She survives.

The Rusks have the shittiest kid ever. He’s a surly fatass and who shits on his ma for being kidnapped by Commanche when she was a kid. He really sucks and his dad is a huge puss so his ma puts him on a cattle drive where he shoots two people in Dodge City. The cowboys bring him home and everyone determines that he is truly a fat piece of shit.

The community decides to build a courthouse and hires a fancy pants architect who brings in some Italian stonecutters. The people of Larkin/Fort Garner don’t care for the Italians because they’re papists. One of the Italians falls for a local girl but she’s such a bitch he carves a statue of her puss and it gets put on the courthouse. She leaves town and he blows his brains out afterward.

In the present the Task force gets a panel of people who feel the urge to impress upon them that nothing bad ever happened in Texas as well as a bunch of weird apologist, racist, bible thumping shit. “Don’t say women did anything besides have kids. Make sure people know our slavery was the good kind. Don’t talk about Mexican contribution. Don’t talk about Jews or Chinamen or labor unions. Let’s ban dancing while we’re at it. Make sure Texas is seen as absolutely perfect and white and everything outside of it is a den of homo commie satan filth, amen.” (These sound like the people that lobby for public funding to build a creation museum.) Then a meteorologist shows up and talks tornadoes, ‘huricuns’ (evidently Galveston had a motherfucker of a huricun at the turn of the century), and blue northers. Boogity!

Part 12: This part opens with people arguing whether 1900 or 1901 should be the true turn of the century. The Quaker Rusk guy thinks it should be 1901 and everybody else calls him a heretic. When 1901 comes around he celebrates and gets trampled to death by a horse.

Boll Weevils show up and eat the old slavery supporters’ cotton, forcing them to move to Waxahachie where it doesn’t rain as much. Boll Weevils like rain. And corn.

Politics is examined and shown to be totally corrupt with people ferrying Mexicans over the border and getting them to vote fraudulently. Republicans and Democrats are equally shitty.

Then it switches to Baptist revival preachers who come to town to make everything suck.  They hate dancing and entertainment and sound like they really fucking suck and my be big contributors to the state’s religious backwardness today. Fuck ‘em. In fact the town starts feeling so super upright that there’s a resurgence of the Klan, yay! And they make sure the blacks and the jews move out. Then they murder a guy for living with a woman he’s not married to even though they aren’t banging and she’s gross. And who’s the leader of it all? The fat fucking Rusk piece of shit kid.

Then the best thing happens that made me almost say fuck these people and their shitty state: A dude comes to town and gets bullwhipped by fatass Rusk and his klansmen and THEN goes to Rusk afterwards to tell him that there’s oil on some land he has the mineral rights to. Awesome. Fortune smiles on the shitty in Texas!

One the Cobb plantation people is convinced to run for senate after winning a minor battle in church defending girls who went to a school dance. So … he has to figure out the proper way to be corrupt and rig some votes.

Rusk gets super rich and becomes obsessed with high school football and spends a bunch of money to fill his local team with 22-year-olds.

Also his ma helps preserve the Texas Longhorn cattle breed before dying.

Back in the present, the task force learns that the Texas character is based on three things: the ranch, the oil well and Friday night football.

(The rest won't fit in the provided space.)

[Gary K Bibliophile · Rating 3 out of 5]

For my fifth annual 'Michener December' I picked out a Texas size novel in 'Texas'. Nearly 1500 pages long and a monster sized book. My previous Michener stories started with Hawaii (my birth state), Alaska (never been there... but want to go), Centennial (a timeless classic – that somehow I never got around to reviewing... shame on me), and The Source (a great story about the turbulent Middle East and the Jewish people). To spice things up – the last time around I went outside the U.S. with The Source. I thought I would return there this year.

Texas fits right in with my... (self imposed) 'Year of Long Books' where I have tried to include many more high page count books than I normally would. The whole reason I created 'Michener December' to begin with was because by December I usually hit my book goal.. and I wanted to get to one of those monster sized books on my TBR I had been avoiding. Texas fit right into this theme. I think I have 15 books this year of 800 pages or longer.. so mission accomplished. But was it a good book?

Yes... qualified. It was good, but not great – I'm grading Michener against Michener here. If you've never read him before he has an interesting take on historical fiction. A lot of writers of the genre inject their own characters into the narrative... either around actual persons or as minor players alongside them. That's nothing new. Michener tends to tell these epic and sweeping multigenerational stories. The characters he creates have children that build to the continuity of the story. Often times these offspring are quite different from their ancestors. Where you might be rooting against one character in one section you will be cheering on their grandchild later on. He makes it interesting that way. He also builds these constructs taking bits and pieces from actual historical persons – with his creations an amalgamation of contemporary individuals.

In 'Texas' he actually had a section at the beginning specifically listing all the fictional from non-fictional characters for our benefit. I generally assumed in his other books that if I hadn't heard of the characters... they probably were fictional. Nevertheless, I would often google a lot of the history behind the events to figure out who they were based on. I could tell from the intro section that this one featured considerably more actual people which got me excited right away.

Then I got into the story... The way JM told this one was from the POV of a fictional 'task force' of individuals trying to build a narrative for the unique way Texas began as part of Mexico.. and later it's own nation.. then a state of the U.S... well – until that Civil War thing... then back to a state. The members of the task force were mostly descended from characters we meet along the way. Interesting idea, but I found most of the parts with the task force were boring and not altogether necessary. It's of little interest to me that the descendant of the murderous KKK member who later became an oil magnate and multi-millionaire.. donated and founded a sports museum... umm... whatever.

The historical fiction part starts with the Spanish colonizing what is today Mexico and gradually moving north. I thought this part was pretty interesting really The part with the Auto-da-fé reminded my of Mel Brooks' History of the World Part I ( Auto-da-fé what's an Auto-da-fé? it's what you oughtn't to do but you do anyway... of course). The Auto-da-fé of course was not nearly as fun as Mel makes it out to be – with yet another example of religion-gone-wild trying to purify everyone to your brand. The story went on for some time with the Spanish missionaries trying in vain to convert the indigenous peoples to Catholicism. I didn't think about the fact that so few of the missions exist in Texas because they were under such heavy attack... contrasting to California where many such historical structures can be seen today (and were not nearly as vulnerable).

Enter the Texians... later to become Texans. I found it interesting that in order to acquire land anyone who traveled there had to convert to Catholicism (and often times had no intention of practicing). Everyone “Remember(s) the Alamo”, but I didn't recall the details about the massacre at Goliad or the blunders that led to it. That part was pretty good. Michener portrays Santa Anna as a very intelligent and capable leader – if not somewhat full of himself (I read this chapter about the same time I went to see the film 'Napoleon' and Santa Anna called himself the Napoleon of the West. ). The legend of the 'Yellow Rose of Texas' was interesting (if not somewhat embellished from my looking things up). I thought the capture of Santa Anna after the Battle of San Jacinto might have been exaggerated as well, but it didn't see too far off the mark.

The lead up the to Civil War didn't offer too many surprises to me.. with Texas being pro-slavery. What did surprise me was that after the war concluded they were so anti-Republican and anti-Lincoln... with (as claimed in the narrative anyway) newspapers not saying anything positive (or even Neutral) about Lincoln until 1902. Since modern Texas is pretty much an all red state... this is quite a change.

There's a fair amount of pages covered to the evolution of the ranches. Some of this was overlap material from Centennial (like the changes brought about because of barbed wire). One thing I found interesting was the importance of the Ogallala Aquifer. As a resident of Nebraska – I know about the aquifer. What I didn't know is that it extends into 8 states and reaches as far south as Texas... impacting the state's ability to grow many of its crops.

When I read Hawaii and Alaska – both of these stories had interesting bits about the first two world wars. I must say I was disappointed here... I figured something interesting would have intersected Texas. He kind of glossed over it as 'we lost many good people over there' and left it at that. During that time period they spent a lot of time going over Texas politics and immigration issues with Mexico. I found it quite interesting that the language talking points used and challenges brought up sound almost exactly like what is talked about today. It seems like absolutely no progress has been made and this was written in 1985.

Speaking of 1985... I would have thought that some of the racist language might have softened a bit. I understand when characters in the distant past use slurs, but the more recent ones in the book did as well. The 80's was pretty bad about that kind of thing, but I still thought it was a bit excessive.

In Centennial I found that Michener had a pretty balanced look at Native Americans and the white settlers. In Texas he takes the stand that the primary antagonists – the Comanche – were quite bad. Like most other Native Americans they were suffering one injustice after another by the encroaching settlers – whether it be the Spanish from the South or the Americans from the East. They fought back more violently than most tribes – and there several examples of their cruelty in the book. Had I not read Centennial I might have thought this was just 'rewriting history' and making the settlers look like saints... Maybe they were that cruel?? I will have to research that further elsewhere.

Another thing I found interesting... and one of the few things that intersected the 'task force' was the discussion on censoring the unsavory parts of Texas' past from history books in the public school system. The arguments used back in the 80's to pretend the ill treatment of Indians, Mexicans, and blacks didn't happen. Coupled with 'slavery wasn't a big deal in the state'... it sounds a lot like what is happening today... 40 years later. Nothing has changed really.

So like I stated above.. I'm rating Michener against Michener to come up with the 3 star rating. I enjoyed the book, but it wasn't my favorite of his. There were several thrilling parts in each of the other four that I read – as well as many memorable characters. In this case – I didn't find much of it to be that exciting – and I don't know that a year or two from now I will remember the character names either. I think I would have been better served to read a non-fiction book about the history of Texas this time around. It was still good though – just not my favorite. I think next year I might try out Michener's Chesapeake. ( I have about 11 months to decide 😀 )

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is the reason I’ve read so few others this year. At 1322 pages (and small type), it beats "Atlas Shrugged" as the longest novel I’ve ever read. It’s a sweeping epic of 850 years of Texas history that’s part "Lonesome Dove" and part "One Hundred Years of Solitude." It begins in 1535 with Coronado leading the first Europeans from Ciudad de México into what would become Texas on a quest to discover the Seven Lost Cities of Gold, and ends in the mid 1980s with a longhorn auction and the art museums of Fort Worth.

Generations of various fictional families weave in and out of the narrative - the Garzas, Quipmers, Rusks, Allerkamps, Cobbs and Macnabs - usually representing some Texas archetype: the Spanish loyalist, the cowboy, the transplanted Southerner, the German immigrant, etc. Every 200 pages or so could be a novel in itself; some chapters begin in Scotland, Germany, and antebellum South Carolina, with 100 or so pages dedicated to descriptions and narratives before the characters immigrate to Texas.

If Michener were able to update this book, he’s surely include things like the Bushes, Ross Perot, the continued immigration debate to the degree that Texas could eventually become a solid blue state, and probably even the San Antonio Spurs dynasty.

Michener has written eponymous novels about "Alaska," "Hawaii," "Chesapeake," "Iberia," "Caribbean" and "Poland," as well as one on Jews and Jerusalem called "The Source." If they’re as well-researched, captivating and epic as "Texas," I’m going to have to read them as well.

[Peter Dawson · Rating 5 out of 5]

1,500 pages of brilliance. 4.5

[texast · Rating 4 out of 5]

FINALLY! It took me so long to read this book. I mean, it's a big one. Weighs five freakin' pounds. Anyway, I really loved this book up until they started talking about Texas football (more than halfway through). I skimmed over that part, most of the bits about Houston real estate, and some of the randomness toward the very end. The last section of the book didn't feel that cohesive to me, while the rest of the sections addressed very specific subjects like war, immigration, politics, slavery, farming, etc.

As a native Texan, I grew up learning a pretty one-sided view of Texas history. This book tells both/all sides, and it's fascinating. I am surprised by how much I enjoyed it. My favorite part is about the armadillo:

"How beautiful, how mysterious the armadillos were when one took the trouble to inspect them seriously, as Mr. Kramer did. They bespoke past ages, the death of great systems, the miracle of creation and survival; they were walking reminders of a time when volcanoes peppered the earth and vast lakes covered continents. They were hallowed creatures, for the had seen the earth before man arrived, and they had survived to remind him of how things had once been."

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Michener, as always, is long on tooth, but in "Texas" he broke up the time periods very nicely, by reverting to a modern day committee formed to research Texas history and propose guidance for the teachings of Texas history. So, for the breaks in time, you come back to characters you know and which are still being developed. The interesting twist is that the committee members are decedents of those you read about in the historical fiction. The book covers 1540 AD through 1983 AD. Michener points out in an introduction where history is factual and where the stories are fiction. Was fun to go back to that introduction after I finished the book.

At 1400 pages, classify "Texas" as a tome. This was first published in 1985.

[Janith Pathirage · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the book of the year for me so far. Such a well researched, entertaining historical fiction novel. I have been reading this book for a very long time. Indeed, it was the largest book I read this year. The history of Texas told by generations of fictional characters, from the 16th century to late 1900s. One can only imagine the scope of this juggernaut of a book. It felt like traveling back in time and coming back to 2021. You come across 100s of interesting characters. Among them, Native Americans, Texas Rangers, Oilmen, Ranchers, Mexicans, Football players etc.. This is the 5th James Michener book I had to give a 5 star rating. This Pulitzer Price winning author hasn't let me down so far. Michener typically used to take about 5-10 years to write a novel and he used to read about 200 books per each book he wrote. This man is a true legend!



Texas is a unique state in the US with a unique personality. This novel has all the info one needs to learn about the state and its history. And it's an unbiased record. Michener doesn't take sides, he just tells the story and let the readers decide where and with whom they want to stand.

This is a photo of the illustrated - hardcover edition of Texas. It really looks fantastic. Just imagine having a 1000+ page book with illustrations..

[Di Richardson · Rating 4 out of 5]

After finishing Hawaii several months ago, I decided I would like to read more (maybe all?) of Michener’s books. But I have to tell you, to pick up and finish one of these is no small feat. But so worth the time! This time out I chose Texas, birthplace of my maternal grandfather. This, like other Michener books, is multigenerational. This one started in mid 1500’s with the conquistadors. It covered topics from prejudice, slavery, war, politics, Indian relocation, longhorn cattle, oil, football…and so much more. These seem like such diverse topics, but Michener is a masterful storyteller. He drew such a clear picture of the attitude of those that have claimed Texas as their own, an attitude that clearly prevails to this day. I cannot say there were not sections that seemed a little slow, but this is the story of a state…not a single family or an individual industry. It truly deserves to be called epic.

[Ebookwormy1 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this years ago, before I had encountered a "Texan" or had any idea what it meant to be one! : ) The story is rich and vibrant, classic Michener. Not only was the story enjoyable, I think I benefited from the knowledge when I did meet the real thing -- (Texans) later in life!

[Laura Jean · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think Michener did a good job of tackling the various ethnic groups as well as the entire historical and geographic scope of Texas. He covers armadillos, the immigration issues and Texas football as well as the Comanche, Texas Rangers and other more historic things I assumed he'd include.

[Tammy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very long. This fourth time of reading this book, I chose to read in segments. Basically, it's the history of Texas told in the form of stories along several family lines. A keeper.

[Isaac Clemente ríos · Rating 1 out of 5]

Crap. This is what happens when a writer wants to be informative and places history upon story.

Undeveloped characters and boring recall of history.

[Googoogjoob · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a very difficult book to give a star ranking. James Michener was an excellent author, and every book he wrote was readable and engaging. This is true even of this novel, his longest (1,096 pages in the hardcover), but I feel like this book is sort of a misfire in terms of artistic effect. There are a lot of things I could say about Texas, and I made a bunch of notes on it as I read it, but I'll try to keep this short.

The biggest problem with Texas is that Texas (the state itself, which is essentially the protagonist of this novel) is terrible. The novel, Texas, is broadly sympathetic to the story of the state, Texas, but Michener is either unable or unwilling to lie or gloss over the worse aspects of the state enough to make the story sympathetic to anyone who is not already emotionally invested in the state, and the parts where he does try to spin things in a way flattering to Texas are mostly just uncomfortable and ineffective.

To start with the latter point: the Spanish, and then Mexican, governments, are presented as uniformly corrupt and incapable of effectively governing Mexico itself, let alone Texas, to make the Texas Revolution and then the Mexican-American War seem more palatable; and, worse, Native Americans are portrayed as pretty uniformly violent and barbarous, and totally hostile to diplomacy or civilization. There are a few Mexican (and Hispanic Texan) characters, but they are curiously underdeveloped, even though several of them have stories that must be more interesting than the stories of some of the protagonists of the book. There is only one Native character who receives any development at all, and he is portrayed as cruel and exploitative and locked into his futile attempt to preserve his barbarous way of life.

The successive protagonists of the book, spanning 1540 until 1985, are not really much better. They're portrayed sympathetically, but it's a problem when even the most sympathetically-portrayed characters are violent jackasses who murder strangers in cold blood, or KKK members, or murder countless innocent Mexican civilians, or are real estate speculators driven by greed; no matter how sympathetic the characters are shown to be, it's impossible, at least for me, to actually embrace and identify with the experiences of these people, given the profound ugliness of their souls. As in other Michener epics, the characters who are the best people often die abruptly and ignominiously, while the wicked or unscrupulous thrive; however, it's a problem when my reaction to the swift shocking deaths of the "good" characters is relief, because they aren't that much better than the "bad" ones.

Texas itself, as the real main character of the book, is deeply unsympathetic. Every one of the states of the USA has sordid aspects to its history which you cannot honestly ignore, but reading this book one gets the inexorable feeling that Texas is the most sordid of all- that Texas is a vile edifice built on a foundation of, and lastingly shaped by, genocide, racism, slavery, injustice, and violence; and further, that Texans as a people are characterized by being dim, petty, hypocritical, short-sighted, reactionary, anti-intellectual, greedy, and parochial.

The latter is not (uniformly) true in real life, of course, but it's the impression you get from this novel, given the repeated (three or four times over, depending on how you count) cycle the novel depicts: well-meaning white people emigrate to Texas; they work hard and try to be decent people; they are succeeded by their children, who become hateful monsters of human beings. One must conclude that Texas itself exerts a powerful, malign influence on humans who grow up there, turning them into the worst possible versions of themselves.

Jubal and Mattie Quimper immigrate to Stephen Austin's colony from Tennessee and set up an honest business, a ferry and inn; they are succeeded by their son Yancey, who is a coward filled with genocidal hatred for natives, a chickenhawk who aggressively pushes for Texas to secede from the Union and then murders innocent Texan civilians who disagree with this, and a grasping conman who cheats a veteran out of his lucrative business and makes a fortune on it.

Finlay Macnab immigrates to Texas from Scotland, via Ireland and Baltimore. He (bigamously) marries a Mexican woman to secure land in Mexican Texas, then dies in the Revolution. His son Otto becomes a Texas Ranger who is consumed with race-hatred for Mexicans, and who extrajudicially murders dozens of Mexican civilians in the disputed Nueces Strip.

Earnshaw Rusk is a Quaker from Pennsylvania who tries to make peace with the Indians; he is cruelly disillusioned by the natives' cruelty and lies, and marries a much-abused white woman who had been kidnapped, mutilated, and serially raped by the Indians he tried to pacify. They make an honest living ranching. Their son, Floyd, is another paranoid coward of a man, who as a teen murders two men in cold blood in a confused Oedipal rage; later he founds a chapter of the KKK and runs all black people, all Jewish people, and many Catholics out of the town his parents founded. Then he gets rich off oil, and cons his neighbors to secure ever-more oil, and uses his oil riches to sponsor massive cheating on the part of the local high school football team, because having the winning high school football team is a cause that induces religious mania in Texans, I guess.

After all this, there are a few little seeds of hope in the last chapter, showing, in the scions of these family lines, awakening social consciences and appreciations of art and nature, but that's 1,000 pages in; the novel ends with the latest Rusk, with encouragement from the latest Quimper, appointing the latest Macnab (his son-in-law) as director of a museum of sports art he is founding (after "comically" calling up Tom Landry to ensure Macnab is not gay)- but that's after nearly 1,100 pages of the grinding awfulness of these characters and their ancestors, and it's too little, too late.

[Simon Robs · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is my 3rd Michener read, the others so long ago I forget except the titles. Texas is a big state with a big history that is amenable to whopper size telling too and JM is at it here as he traverses 4-plus centuries of border(s) type contrast and conflict which even now, maybe moreso than ever a reflection of shifting dynamics coursing for inexorable change.

Michener uses narrative characters past and present, lineage some factual some not, all aimed at the various Texas expansion from exploration through mid-80's real estate boons and broke. He separates long chapters each with a special focus that make up the kaleidoscope of Texas, some of these issues are as relevant today as hundreds of years ago. It's a big long travelogue of years chockfull of colorful personalities and lore, myths, legends. The Texas Rangers.

Well, I had a negative reading experience with a book (recently) mostly lauded and so, enjoying this book, its thickness of scope and straightforwardness of prose for me, is just better, I 'got' what was there for getting and left with a smile and some questions to ponder. Ya'll.

[Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a LONG'un! Thankfully I chose the Kindle edition, so I wasn't carrying around 10lbs of book.

I enjoyed the majority of this book, but didn't particularly care for the Task Force interludes between chapters. Also, I felt that the last chapter ran a little long for me. I think I enjoyed reading Centennial a bit better than Texas, but this was still a great read regardless.

One really gets a good sense of Texas character after reading this book (assuming the representation is accurate) so it did the job it set out to do. Also, it satisfied my "his-fic fix" with plenty of 1800s western migration, money-hungry bastards, southern aggression, Indian fights, horrendous tortures, shootings, burnings, and War. There was so much to offer, which is why I love books like these.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25/5 Audiobook. Pack a lunch. This book is a beast. The historical fiction story of Texas from 1500-present day. I enjoyed this and learned an awful lot about Texas. Oil, money, and football! If you can’t get it in Texas, you don’t need it!