★★★★★ (of 5)

• Full Title: Forget The Alamo: The Rise And Fall Of An American Myth
• Author: Bryan Burrough, Chris Tomlinson, and Jason Stanford
• Year: 2021 (mine was library hardcover)
• Pages: 343*
• Genre: History, Texas, San Antonio
• Publisher: Penguin Press (Penguin Random House)
• ISBN 9781984880093 (hardcover)
• Author’s Wikipedia page (Burrough)
• Author’s Wikipedia page (Stanford)

(* 343 pages does not include maps, introduction, acknowledgements, or index)

 

Even before I read the book, I knew it was going to be good, and probably true, because Texas Lt. Gov. Dannie “Dan Patrick” Goeb is completely against it (almost always a good barometer). And a Kirkus starred review declares that it includes “unnecessary vulgarity” (but also concludes: “An iconoclastic, romping, bull’s-eye volley at an enduring sacred cow—popular history at its most engaging and insightful”). Note: I first heard of the book while driving somewhere and listening to an NPR interview with first-listed author Bryan Burrough.

As the descendant of multiple generations of Texans, and as a two-time resident of the state (during parts of four different decades), I was pretty sure I already knew most of what I wanted to know about the Misión San Antonio de Valero (“The Alamo”): built by the Spanish in the 1700s, attacked by Mexicans (and defended by Texians) in the 1800s, and then existing as a mildly disappointing tourist attraction in the 1900s and 2000s. And as a veteran of seventh grade Texas history class in 1984-85 — not to mention several personal visits to the Alamo — I felt I knew pretty much what happened at the Battle of the Alamo:

“Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, William Barrett Travis, and a bunch of their friends come to Texas to start new lives, suddenly realize they are being oppressed by the Mexican dictator Santa Anna, and rush off to do battle with him at an old Spanish mission in San Antonio. They are outnumbered but fight valiantly and die to a man, buying Sam Houston enough time to defeat Santa Anna at the battle of San Jacinto.”

—page xix

It turns out that most of what I was told, and much of what I remembered, not only didn’t happen but was nearly the opposite of what did happen.

The team of authors who worked on this book are clear that this book isn’t so much a history of the Alamo but rather a historiagraphy — a story of how the Alamo’s history developed and changed over the years. But in the process of that, they do tell the history: from first Spanish explorations of Texas in the 1500s to the Phil Collins (yes, that Phil Collins) controversy and armed protests of our current time. (If you’re already familiar with at least some Alamo lore, you’ll be pleased to note that Ozzy Osbourne’s infamous Alamo encounter is in the book too.) They review how the battle’s story was received and passed on immediately after it happened, and the first stories about it, but also how that story began to grow and change over the years with each new amateurish “history” book and a great number of Hollywood films that perpetuated myths, legends, and harmful stereotypes (all three of which were steadfastly taught in my seventh grade history class). They cover the earliest attempts at revisionism in the latter half of the 20th Century — including this book’s namesake, Olvídate de El Alamo, a 1965 book by Rafael Trujillo Herrera — and the ongoing attempts by Tejanos, Native American groups, and others to force recognition of something beyond the “Heroic Anglo Narrative”, which is basically the antagonist of this book.

For example, one thing that was definitely not mentioned in my Texas history class is that the Texians’ primary beef with Mexico and Santa Anna — which had been boiling over for years — was Mexico’s abolition of slavery in the 1810s and 1820s, which went against every idea of freedom and liberty held by the Anglo-American settlers in northern Mexico (Texas). To make sure this was clear, the newly formed Republic of Texas’ original constitution explicitly legalized slavery. Another thing is how the Alamo’s three greatest heroes turned out to be, in reality, not very good people (nor did they apparently die as heroically as is usually taught). I think the biggest shift in presentation of the story, though, is the subtle reframing: instead of “Texans fighting for freedom from Mexican oppressors”, the more accurate rendering is “Down-and-out Anglo settlers from the U.S. began populating the Texas region of New Spain (later Mexico), refused to obey the country’s laws, and mistakenly believed they were oppressed when that country tried to enforce its laws, starting a war over it.”

None of this is new information in the sense that historians in Texas have pretty much always known it (and imagine what historians in Mexico wrote), but it feels like new information because it goes against the grain of the legend, the movies with John Wayne and Billy Bob Thornton (to be clear, those two were in two separate Alamo movies), and even the mythos that’s usually perpetrated here — and probably elsewhere, but I don’t like to assume that such local trivialities are common knowledge outside of Texas.

I greatly enjoyed the book, with very few reservations. It has an easy going style without sacrificing the accuracy of historic information. It was fun to read and suffered from none of the usual downsides of books about history. And maybe most of all, the point of the book (to shed light on parts of this story that are sadly lacking in the public memory) is well intentioned. If my endorsement isn’t enough, remember that the book has been attacked by people like Dan Patrick.

If there is a downside — and no book is perfect — it’s that the story kind of peters out at the end. That’s not the authors’ fault of course; they wrote the book before the story was over. San Antonio, the state of Texas, and other groups (both public and private) continue to shift and adjust what’s going on at the historic site as it prepares to host a museum filled with artifacts of dubious authenticity donated by Phil Collins.

I will close with the following quotation from the Afterword:

“The Battle of the Alamo in 1836 is an integral part of Texas history, and the myth circled the globe in books, poems, songs, television shows, and movies. What must change, though, is the story we tell about the Alamo. To learn the real lessons of the Texas Revolt, we need to learn the truth about Bowie, Travis, and Crockett. Bowie was a murderer, slaver, and con man; Travis was a pompous, racist agitator and syphilitic lech; and Crockett was a self-promoting old fool who was a captive to his own myth. They can no longer be the holy trinity of Texas, nor can the Alamo be the Shrine of Texas Liberty. But all three men did believe in liberty and self-determination, and Travis was one hell of a letter-writer. They fought for freedom, just not everybody’s freedom. We also need to remember the people intentionally left out of the Alamo myths and legends, like Juan Almonte, the Mexican revolutionary who fought against the Texians to abolish slavery. Or Juan Seguin, the Tejano leader whose fight for federalism was coopted into a secessionist movement by the Texians. If we shift the frame just a little bit, the whole story of the Alamo is transformed. And, frankly, a lot more interesting.”

—page 340

 

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