Customer Reviews

The History of Texas

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I read the book while preparing for my teacher certification exam. My professional training is in History and I have had my share of dry, boring books, but this one literally put me to sleep. I used to read few pages before going to bed, a sure way to cure insomnia.

The textbook is just a collection of facts, dates and names. There is no cause-and-effect line in the book, not even an attempt to draw some conclusions. Instead, it reads like a statistician report. If memorizing the dry numbers is your thing, go for it. For the rest of us, who are trying to actually understand and make some sense out of the past, stay away from this book. You will get your basics in, but it will not make you think or encourage you to seek more information.

This is my textbook for my college Texas History class, and I hate it. As others have said, it definitely lacks organization. In other words, it sucks. Please don't read it unless you're assigned to it like I am.

I had a high school history teacher who taught like this book reads. She just wrote facts down on the overhead and had the students copy. No exposition, no narrative. Just bland facts.

Thank God for the history books that read like the great storytellers tell them. Sadly, this isn't one of them. Steer clear of this one.

If you've ever read anything by De Leon--master of the term "White Supremecy"--then you know what he's capable of. And, unfortunately, his grubby little fingers were all over this book; which--again, unfortunately--is used as a college textbook. Therefore all evil in Texas leads back to one thing--the white man. Boo!

That aside, it's little things that add up. Such as stating for a fact that Crockett was executed after the The Alamo fell. There is no opposition statement.

That may not seem like much, but this isn't yet another history; this is a textbook, used to teach our future leaders. Any hedging of facts, no matter how subtle, should not be tolerated.