The Search for Pedro’s Story recreates the life experiences of Pedro Péres, a leather jacket soldier in the Spanish colonial army in eighteenth-century Texas. Each chapter begins with a signpost artifact related to one of Pedro’s roles—soldier, horseman, explorer, guard, spouse, messenger, and cowboy—and ends with a fictional account of an event in Pedro’s life from the findings. The discipline of history usually focuses on heroic deeds and people, but Martinello thinks its methods of detection should also reveal how ordinary people lived. In The Search for Pedro’s Story, fragments of a real life are pieced together from things Pedro knew, including taming a mustang and playing cards. The book suggests how to ask questions, seek sources, and make sense of findings that history, especially the history of the ordinary, demands.

The Search for Pedro’s Story

Literature & Fiction

Martinello, Marian L.

Nesmith, Samuel P.

United States

TCU Press

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Books by Nesmith, Samuel P.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Nesmith, Samuel P.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Search for Pedro’s Story