{"id":842,"date":"2018-12-31T14:17:06","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T14:17:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=842"},"modified":"2018-12-31T14:17:06","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T14:17:06","slug":"lone-star-book-reviewsby-michelle-newby-nbcccontributing-editor-88","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=842","title":{"rendered":"Lone Star Book ReviewsBy Michelle Newby, NBCCContributing Editor"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/span>Michelle Newby<\/span> is a reviewer for Kirkus Reviews<\/span> and Foreword Reviews, <\/span>writer, blogger at TexasBookLover.com, member of the Permian Basin Writers’ Workshop advisory committee, and a moderator for the Texas Book Festival. Her reviews appear in Pleiades Magazine, Rain Taxi, Concho River Review, Mosaic Literary Magazine, Atticus Review, The Rumpus, PANK Magazine,<\/span> and The Collagist.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lone Star Book Reviews
of Texas books appear weekly
at LoneStarLiterary.com<\/a><\/span><\/h1>\n
\n

<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/a><\/span>TEXAS HISTORY<\/p>\n

Edited by Victoria Ramirez, with introduction by Victoria Ramirez and Jan Bullock<\/span><\/p>\n

Seeing Texas History: The Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

University of Texas Press<\/p>\n

Hardcover, 978-1-4773-1089-4, 160 pgs., $40.00<\/p>\n

November 29, 2016<\/p>\n

\u201cSeeing and engaging with original evidence of the past informs our understanding of Texas and makes meaning of the present.\u201d<\/p>\n

The late, great Bob Bullock, lieutenant governor of Texas<\/span> from 1991 to 1998, began discussing the idea of a Texas state history museum in 1995: \u201cAs great as this state is, we have no state museum in our state capital, a magnificent museum where our history can be properly displayed.\u201d As happened so often, Bullock wished it, and it was done. One of his last public appearances was at the groundbreaking ceremony for the museum in April of 1999. Sadly, he did not get to see his pride and joy open to the public in 2001.<\/p>\n

Seeing Texas History: The Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum,<\/span> edited by Victoria Ramirez,<\/span> the museum\u2019s director, with an introduction by Ramirez and Jan Bullock, <\/span>is a coffee-table format book celebrating fifteen years of original artifacts on display and special exhibitions at the official state history museum of Texas. From high art and pop culture, to folk crafts of daily living and marvels of scientific frontiers, more than eighty color plates of sumptuous, uncannily high-definition images on heavy, glossy stock reflect \u201cthe richness, diversity, and complexity of the state,\u201d from before we were Hispania Nova, through independence and statehood, to the wonders of NASA and integrated circuits (which won Jack Kilby a Nobel Prize in physics in 2000).<\/p>\n

Seeing Texas History<\/span> is divided into six sections: Empires 2000 BCE\u20131800, Struggle for Independence 1819\u20131846, Gone to Texas 1850\u20131902, From Land to Air 1905\u20131935, Modern Texas 1936\u20131968, and To the Moon and Beyond 1969\u20132012. More than two thousand original artifacts (lent from more than eight hundred sources, both private and institutional), have been displayed in the museum\u2019s galleries. Highlights include a tool made from a rabbit jaw (2000 BCE), a second edition of Cabeza de Vaca\u2019s memoir (1555), Davy Crockett\u2019s violin (1819), a leopard-print vest belonging to Sam Houston (1840), a Comanche hunting bow (1850), chaps from a King Ranch vaquero (1870), Pancho Villa\u2019s saddle (1913), the trophy for the Texas Western NCAA men\u2019s basketball championship of 1966 (the first team with an all-African American starting lineup), the first artificial heart (1969), Barbara Jordan\u2019s hand-notated keynote speech from the Democratic Convention of 1976, and Stevie Ray Vaughan\u2019s guitar (1973).<\/p>\n

More than fifty special exhibitions have been hosted at the museum over the years, bearing titles such as \u201cIt Ain\u2019t Braggin\u2019 If It\u2019s True.\u201d Perhaps most famously, the public got to watch experts reconstruct La Belle,<\/span> one of La Salle\u2019s ships, the wreckage of which was found in Matagorda Bay three hundred years after she sank (La Belle<\/span> is now permanently at anchor in the atrium of the museum\u2019s first-floor gallery). Seeing Texas History<\/span> showcases many of the artifacts found on board.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor most visitors [to the Bullock], it is the people of Texas that make for a vibrant state, reminding us that behind every artifact is an individual who conceptualized, made, used, and imbued the object with significance.\u201d Seeing Texas History<\/span> does justice to the history of Texas, and to the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum. It belongs on every Texan\u2019s coffee table, and would make a splendid gift for your favorite Texas history fan. Bob Bullock would be proud of his namesake, and of this beautiful book.<\/p>\n

* * * * *<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michelle Newby is a reviewer for Kirkus Reviews and Foreword Reviews, writer, blogger at TexasBookLover.com, member of the Permian Basin Writers’ Workshop advisory committee, and a moderator for the Texas Book Festival. Her reviews appear in Pleiades Magazine, Rain Taxi, Concho River Review, Mosaic Literary Magazine, Atticus Review, The Rumpus, PANK Magazine, and The Collagist. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}