The Alamo [Hardcover]

Micheal Lind (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 6, 1997

Michael Lind, a New Yorker staff writer and author of the incendiary account of the resurgent American right in Up from Conservatism and The Next American Nation, where he introduced the much-praised concept of the "overclass," has written an epic poem on one of the greatest events in U.S. history - the defense of the Alamo. Twelve years in the writing, it is a novel in verse by a sixth-generation Texan who is steeped in the lore and myth of the epic battle that was the forerunner of the Mexican War and a symbol of American resolve to fight to the death for independence. This is the first major epic poem to appear in the U.S. since Stephen Vincent Benet's best-selling John Brown's Body, which is still in print today, sixty years after its publication. And it will introduce a new generation of readers to a pivotal moment in our nation's history which has been mythologized but never recreated in such historically accurate fashion. Bringing to life the legendary figures in this drama - Da

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Let me get this straight--a 300-page epic poem about the Alamo, written for the most part in archaic and elevated pentameters? Given the sheer perversity of such a task, Michael Lind is probably as good a choice as any. After all, he was enough of a contrarian to defect from his neoconservative mentors at the height of their influence. So why shouldn't he take a shot at resuscitating the Homeric epic? The result, alas, is pretty tough sledding. Even his best lines have a musty formality to them, as if they'd been dictated by an equestrian statue. And while you have to give Lind credit for packaging an enormous amount of historical information--and for sheer ambition--even the most ardent Davy Crockett fans are going to find it hard to swallow lines such as ". . . Anglo-American/Texans, the majority,/now fear for their security." Not to mention their rhyming dictionaries.

From School Library Journal

YA. The story of the siege of the Alamo, written as an epic poem. The battle is covered from the opening shots to the last-ditch stand of the defenders. Lind brings to life not only the major historical figures such as Davy Crockett, William Travis, and General Santa Ana, but also minor characters ranging from a Mexican infantryman to Susannah Dickinson, wife of one of the American officers, as well as the numerous defenders whose names have been lost. The author closes with a lengthy essay on the history of epic poetry and a glossary that reads as a who's who of the characters mentioned in the poem. Although fictionalized, the poem is meticulously researched and filled with so much detail that it could easily be mistaken for a history book.?Robert Burnham, R. E. Lee High School, Springfield, VA
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 351 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin; 1ST edition (March 6, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395827582
• ISBN-13: 978-0395827581
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.9 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,002,645 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars First-rate, concrete, image-driven poetry., May 23, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Alamo (Hardcover)

The Alamo is a natural subject for an epic poem, though the form has fallen out of favor. Congratulations to Michael Lind, and to his publisher, for taking a chance on such an ambitious project. The poetry is first-rate, concrete, image-driven work that captures the flavor of the battle detail by detail. Laced with wit, and historically informed, I count this as the single best non-academic approach to the subject that I've seen.

5 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars If the "Alamo" took as long to fight as to read., March 11, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: The Alamo (Hardcover)

If the Battle of the Alamo had taken as long to fight as it was to "read", the outcome could have been completely different. After suffering from headaches, hysteria & historical overload in iambic pentameter, surely, the "Anglo boys" (Crockett, Travis, etc.) could have won in order to save future generations the humiliation of reading "history" in prozac prose