Customer Reviews

Lone Star Justice: The First Century of the Texas Rangers

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Having just read Utley's second volume on the rangers, Lone Star Lawmen (I read this book when it came out), and found it a worthy sequel to this one, excellent in every way, I decided to see what Amazon readers had said about the first volume, Lone Star Justice. It appears that some folks don't like giving up cherished myth and folklore in favor of real history. And there are one or two who have well-formed PC prejudices against the Rangers, and are equally unhappy when presented with real history; they are like those who condemn an actor for portraying a villain (so to those I say, if you don't like the Rangers, don't take it out on Utley; he's not one, he just tells their story, and it is unfortunate that the truth does not conform to your suppositions). Those readers who appreciate accurate history, well written and meticulously documented, have given Lone Star Justice five stars. So do I. This is an excellent book, rigorously accurate, always interesting, full of dramatic incidents and memorable characters arrayed in their context. If you are interested in the history of Texas, the West, law enforcement, or just a good read, you'll enjoy this book. Better yet, get the set--Lone Star Justice and Lone Star Lawmen, and follow the history from beginning to the present.

For those who know little of the rangers but are western enthusiasts or simply interested in the American West, this is a wonderful action packed rip roaring account of the Texas rangers. The volume spands the time frame from Texas independence in 1836 through to the 1900s. The Mexican war is covered as are conflcits with Mexican bandits, and the Comanches, as well as the norms of frontier justice. This reads like a novel, but brought to you by famed historian Utley its all true and what more the writing is fantastic. This makes a wonderful present.

Seth J. Frantzman

I really and truely enjoyed this book. I actually got it before from my nephew and he said it was a solid histroy of the Texas rangers. Not many people really know exactly how much these brave men influenced Texas and then our country. Everyone hears about how they went after outlaws but in fact these men also pusued the Commanchees and some terrible terrible gangsters. Some say they were too brutal and maybe they were but these were brutal taimes after all. The world we live in is not black and white so when you look at the circimstances they faced my opinion is they were heroes. Read Mr Utley's book - you wont be disappointed.I am Harold McInnes ,maybe your favorite reviewer? Let me know!

I had anticipated the arrival of this book from respected historian Robert Utley for quite some time having been given the heads up it was coming from one of my fellow Texas Ranger enthusiasts. I obtained my copy at the Texas Rangers Museum in Waco (apologies to Amazon.com) when I spotted it among the Texas Ranger logo covered coffee mugs, refrigerator magnates, thimbles, and other tourista gewgaws in the museum gift shop. I gobbled it up immediately and afterwards, like a foray into haute cuisine Chinese, felt hungry for more - much more.

The bibliography and endnotes provide evidence that Utley did a masterful job of research, uncovering even the most obscure reference to the Rangers. In some cases, these endnotes were more interesting than the prose they supported.

I came away feeling he tried to pack too much into this one volume, ending with veneer rather than solidity. There is very little new and much is missing, especially from the early colony and Republic era. John Coffee Hays, Ben McCulloch, and RIP Ford were three interesting early rangers, but there has been enough written about these great Ranger leaders. It is high time for someone with Utley's credentials to focus on telling the stories of the men who rode with these most famous Ranger leaders. The stories of such men as old Rufe Perry, Christopher Acklin, Alsey Miller and Arch Gibson go largely untold yet without them Hays, McCulloch, and Ford would hardly have achieved such success.

Overall the book is very readable but fails to provide the details and motivations of individual rangers I so hoped to see. I give it two stars for the bibliography and endnotes.

My advice is to skip this one and go for the Frederick Wilkins ranger trilogy.

(C) Copyright 2004 Patrick Shannon Clyde Available on Amazon.com with permission of the author. All rights reserved.

Until this book the best book on the Texas Rangers was he Webb book. Utley is a modern historian and those who prefer to live in the past in their culture will be disappointed in this book. It is a modern rendition for modern readers. That is not to say it is weak in research or in bringing the past to life. What I mean is this book is written in the now and doesn't adhere to the old rules of whitewash.

A major benfit of this work is the ointroduction to many of Edmund J. Davis, cast as the worst governor in Texas history. A Reconstruction governor responsible for the formation of the Texas Rangers as a force to enforce Reconstruction policy as he saw it and fight the elements that became the Ku Klux Klan.

This is a refreshing and interesting work on the taming of the old west.

The book is not only quite detailed in the description of the exploits of the early Texas Ranges, it maintains the air of education without the normally associated dullness or boredom found in many textbooks.
Mr. Utley paints a straight-forward, no-holds approach to telling the facts as he has found them. Gone are the visions that our hero's of old are without fault, quite the opposite, you find that our hero's from this era are simply common men with some interesting virtues and a belief that right is right. It would be rather refreshing to find some of this level or morals in today's society.
The book is an excellent read. One any Texican-file will find quite interesting.

I thought this was an excellent telling of the Rangers early history. It is not an especially beefy volume so it is somewhat condensed, but if you are looking for a more modern account than Prescot Webb's excellent Texas Rangers written around 1935, Utley is a great choice.

Some reviews claim that he was unfair in how he presented the Rangers but I hold the opposite view. I think Utley went out of his way to be as fair and objective as he personally could. After reading Lone Star Justice I feel I have a balanced understanding of how things went down.

Also, it was a fun read. Being accurate doesn't mean the telling was dry or dull. He managed to get in some whooping and gunsmoke along with some entertaining anecdotes.

Another important part of this book that hasn't been mentioned is the very excellent collection of photos and drawings and art work of the early Rangers. Glossy pictures of Rangers out in the bush in camp with their horses, Winchesters and Colt revolvers, or posing with their fellow Rangers so you can see plainly what they wore and how they looked. There is this one photo of Rip Ford that is just priceless. He is facing the camera with his hat in hand. He is wearing a buckskin coat and on a narrow belt, each stuffed into their massive holsters, are a pair of Walker revolvers. You would not want to mess with this guy!

If you are looking for an historical overview of the Texas Rangers during their infancy and coming of age, I think Lone Star Justice will fill the bill nicely.

The problem with this book, aside from the fact that it's just a rehash of the last dozen or so Ranger histories, is Utley's bizarre fascination with racism: namely, all Texas Rangers are evil racists whose actions can only be explained by racism. Case in point:

Rangers are after a Mexican bandit who killed a Ranger. They find two mexicans and try to halt them, whereupon the two take off, then ambush and kill a Ranger. Utley breaks in and says, Oh that's okay. They were scared that the racist rangers would have hung them.

The Brownsville incident, where the black Army troops shoot up the town? Utley concurs that they probably did it--but, the town was full of racists, so they were justified.

Every single event involving the Rangers in this book is written off as racist fervor. This PC attitude, frankly, is just sickening.

Only in the last few pages does Utley mention that we should keep an open mind about the subject; but by then, the reader has probably thrown the book away in disgust, or come out of it thinking the Texas Rangers were the militant wing of the KKK.

This work is a chronology of events in the history of the Texas Rangers, but I didn't find it very engaging. There is detailed background that leads up to significant events, the locations and individuals involved, but what actually happened is often only marginally enacted. Following many of these events, the reader is left with a superficial understanding of what took place. And while the bibliography is extensive, I doubt all of it was accessed. Missing are accounts from diaries, journals, past interviews, even newspapers of the period to add depth and color. This is history written in a library. It will introduce you to the major players and many events, but I imagine its been done better elsewhere. I thought the recent publication date would unveil newer detail or revelation. Not so. Many of these events could be looked at with less than sympathetic enthusiasm. These were men confronting dangerous situations in a violent era. With courts and legal apparatus often in the hands of the "bad guys," the Rangers often reverted to summary justice and dragged in the corpse. Mr. Utley cautions the reader not to judge the actions of those days of warring Indian tribes, vigilantes, overt prejudice, and gun-toting outlaws in light of today's standards. That's a liberal dose of constraint to ask. In a curious final chapter, A Summing Up, the author advises that others covering the same ground as himself might draw different conclusions, but that is the nature of history. It seems somewhat self-deprecating, and rightfully so.

I am not sure what I read. Whatever it was, it was not what the title asserted. Thin and vaccous, the history is not grappled with. The reader is left with the feeling that the author pulled back from his subject matter.

Everything is big in Texas, especially our tall tales. Whopper telling is a prideful art form. No where is it practiced to perfection better than in the telling of how this great state came to be. Separating fact from myth and outright fiction is a very difficult thing to do even for a respected historian like Robert M. Utley. At best this book is the most general of overviews. You will find nothing new here.