Divided We Stand: The Crisis of a Frontierless Democracy

by Walter Prescott Webb

"the rise of America's Fuedal System"

151 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1985

About the author

Webb was raised on the family farm in rural Panola County, Texas. After graduating from Ranger High School in Ranger in Eastland County, he earned a teaching certificate and taught at several Texas schools. He eventually attended the University of Texas at Austin and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1915 at the age of twenty-seven. He worked as bookkeeper in San Marcos and optometrist's assistant in San Antonio, then in 1918 he was invited to join the history faculty at the University of Texas. He wrote his Master of Arts thesis on the Texas Rangers in 1920 and was encouraged to pursue his PhD. After a year of study at the University of Chicago, he returned to Austin, where he began a historical work on the West. The result of this work was The Great Plains, published in 1931, hailed as great breakthrough in the interpretation of the history of the region, and declared the outstanding contribution to American history since World War I by the Social Science Research Council in 1939. He was awarded his PhD for his work on The Great Plains in 1932, the year after its publication.

In 1939-1946 he served as president of the Texas State Historical Association. During his tenure as president, he launched a project to produce an encyclopedia of Texas, which was subsequently published in 1952 as the Handbook of Texas. Webb wrote or edited more than 20 books. One of them, The Texas Rangers (1935) is considered the definitive study of the legendary Texas Rangers and its Captain Bill McDonald.

In 1958 Webb served as president of the American Historical Association.

Webb was killed in an automobile accident near Austin, Texas in 1963.In his honor the University of Texas established the Walter Prescott Webb Chair of History and Ideas. Webb Middle School in Austin, Texas is also named after him

Reviews

[Matt Carpenter · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was really eye opening. It details the history of how the North, after the War between the States, used its power to keep itself the most powerful economic section of the country. He explains how governmental favors went almost solely to the North and how it, in turn, prevented the South and West from growing economically. It is fascinating to read.

The author, Walter Prescott Webb, was a historian at the University of Texas. His most well known book was a history of the Texas Rangers (the law enforcement agency, not the baseball team). Divided We Stand is quite hard to find (I secured it through inter-library loan) and the information presented is not flattering to the powers that be. Nevertheless it tells a vital portion of our history that isn't widely known.

It is somewhat dated (written in the 1930's) so the information isn't recent, but he was explaining how history had led to his particular time so that's to be expected. If you can find the book and are interested in the political and economic events surrounding the post-Civil War period, it will be well worth your time.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

A look at how a decade of post-civil war political control led to over half a century of economic domination by the North over the South and the West. A fascinating premise, backed up with facts and figures, that perhaps deserves an updated edition to see if the identified trends or eighty years ago continued. Historically, the mentioning of Ford and Carnegie and Mellon is expected, but the lesser names of people and companies that have fallen by the wayside are interesting as well. (Snuff was still a major industry in the 1930's - who knew?) Also worth reading in hindsight to see how much the author got right predicatively about political and social trends both in the US and in the world at large...until WWII came along and unbalanced the analysis.