Forget The Alamo: The Rise And Fall Of An American Myth -- By Bryan Burrough, Chris Tomlinson, Jason Stanford

 

As I mentioned in my earlier notes, I doubt seriously that I could ever Forget The Alamo.

The research, plotting, and writing of co-authors Bryan Burrough, Chris Tomlinson, and Jason Stanford in Forget The Alamo might not be easy to forget, either. This book is serious food for thought, further reading, and an Alamo addiction.  Between April 1, 1992, and Dec. 1994, I frequently walked through, and around the Alamo during my newspaper days, sometimes with colleagues, and alone enough to give strong consideration to the old stories, and myths associated with the battle in 1836. This book helps distinguish between fact and fiction, and more related issues are likely to surface in the future. They fought the battle in 1836, but politics and such still roil. 

There's room for personal discovery on these pages, too. And beyond. 

I discovered my somewhat unique middle name shared with an Alamo defender from Mississippi in an unrelated internet search several months ago. Reading this, I learned that I could be of distant relation to the former slave Joe if his biological father was Daniel Boone. My favorite theory, back at the Express-News, centered around the drunken defender theory, in which this bunch of bored time-killers all really were so blasted that they were in no shape to repel a much larger force. Forget The Alamo didn't entirely debunk that possibility, either.

It goes on with many things to consider for other authors, city and state officials, and informed private citizens to learn, and eventually pilot the seemingly never-ending conflicts and controversies. 

Much of the Alamo divides come from the split between fact-seekers, and diehard myth believers. Some just can't let go of images of the drama in movies like John Wayne's 1960 The Alamo, and what proven facts tell us. A lot of this isn't necessarily a rewrite as much as it is an update with new information. We really are in a time of information surfacing, and being shared much faster than ever before. And the lack of new, researched information was part of the problem here.

"... the historian Paul Andrew Hutton marveled in 1986 "Academic historians have thus deserted the field, leaving the battle to the popularizers and propagandists."

The author trio noted the political backlash often hurled at anyone who dared offer any new information, which might differ from Heroic Anglo Narrative. There were also provincial type-casting dangers for serious academics who published anything other than the popularized Historic Anglo Narrative.

Yes, there are also racial inclusion\exclusion issues missing from those earlier versions of the story. Much of the Mexican and San Antonio native perspectives were missing from Heroic Anglo Narrative. Some of the wartime propaganda still survives today in the old narratives. We are 13 years away from the 200th anniversary of the battle.

A previously overlooked British dilemma caught my eye in these pages, too. Slaver-holding was one way for cotton planters to fly from poor to rich at the time. Forget The Alamo noted that Britain was the chief international cotton buyer and user. Ironically, it was also Britain that led the world in the international slavery movement. I presume some good historian will pick that contrast up soon, if not already. 

Plenty happened in these pages to turn my attention back toward The Alamo City. It looks like sporadic related news there, and hopefully more updated Alamo books will appear. Now, I'll be looking.