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Gary Clayton Anderson's The Conquest of Texas is unlike any other book I have reviewed in these pages, but it may well be the most important. The subtitle gave me my first inkling of the book's broader relevance: Ethnic Cleansing in the Promised Land, 1820 - 1875. But as I got deeper into the book, it became clear to me that the frightening connections of its themes to the realm of today's world politics were far from superficial. The author's depth of research and even handedness builds the case that the Texas Ranger version of the region's past is an ideological fabrication that masks a history of systematic racial violence and ethnic warfare. What frightens me more deeply, of course, is not that the mythology of Texas is a lie (I wasn't attached to it in the first place), but that this mythology, which was used to effectively cover up ethnic cleansing for over a hundred years, might be successfully repurposed on the global scale. The world's greatest imperial power, its client states, and its corporate allies, have a swaggering Texas wannabe at the helm and the American Texas Ranger metaphor is all too apt and popular. If like me you are struggling to understand the place of our work in these historic times, then you must read this book.
Posted: 1/17/06; 7:43:50 PM # |
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