Talk about obnoxious...

[Jester]

Really?  Reviews written by whom, with what agenda?  It is worth pointing out that his book was written in 1969 or so, which puts a couple of decades of political evolution to be treated by others. 

If you want to understand Texas, which perhaps you don't, you'd hardly do better than reading Ferenbach as a point of departure.  No one is "an end all, be all, all things to all people in one book."  Like a lot of places, Texas is a multifaceted enigma, even to people who live here.

Occhi
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Well, Stanley E. Siegel at the University of Houston gives it a fairly positive review, pointing out that he does a "very creditable" job of putting all of Texas' history into one volume. (Quite the volume, too, thumbing through it. 700 pages, yikes!)

So far, so good.

Robert C. Cotner at the University of Texas again is fairly positive overall, but warns that it is not a good work for someone without a background in Texan history (which I don't). It is difficult to distinguish between when he is using someone else's solid research and when he is using his own opinion, since he has neither footnotes nor a bibliography, for style reasons apparently.

Okay, well, that would make me want to read this book after I had another book or two, perhaps more recent (and for the love of god, shorter) than Fehrenbach's.

Lewis L. Gould, hailing again from the University of Texas, gives the book an absolutely savage review, calling his sources outdated, his interpretations flawed, and "serves only to underscore the dangers that await the unwary dilletante..."

Ouch. Well, who knows. He seems to be a credible scholar (google yields a series of books, all seemingly good, although perhaps a deep search would say otherwise), maybe someone just pissed in his cornflakes that morning.

So there you have it. All of the above reviews are scholarly, and from journals that I would trust, although I don't know them as well as perhaps you do. Three reviews, one positive, one which cautions me that it shouldn't be my first book, and a third which throws it to the dogs. Add that into your endorsement, and I have a book that I'd probably read when I have the time, but that I'd like buttressed by other books on the topic first. Hence, I asked you if you knew any. If you can't think of any, I'll hunt some down myself, and then we'll see.

However, his explanation of the 1848 war, which was the event I was referring to, did not contradict my understanding of events, although he was clearly more sympathetic to Polk that I am (or will ever be, most likely). Polk wanted California, and he didn't care if he had to start a war to get it. He manipulated the Texas situation to start a "cult of the victim" war, where he could claim American blood had been spilled on American soil (a dubious proposition at best, and a fraudulent one at worst) and promptly proceeded to conquer what he wanted from Mexico. No surprise, the US' overwhelming military superiority crushed the Mexicans, a treaty was signed, and that was that. If you think that's a perfectly acceptable way to run your international relations, then I doubt we will ever agree on this topic.

-Jester