Texas Past: Enduring Legacy

Writer Andrew Sansom and photographer Wyman Meinzer turn their reflection on the forces of history that have shaped the state and its inhabitants. Waves of immigrants have given Texas her uniquely layered heritage, and these words and images capture that marvelous ebb and flow. Cabeza de Vaca walked a completely alien land just a few miles from the transformed coastal prairie where NASA launched Neil Armstrong and other latter-day adventurers toward the moon. An ancient Panhandle quarry of arrowhead flint can be seen as the inventive forerunner of corporate Dow, which launched its industrial empire by extracting magnesium from the brine of the Gulf of Mexico. Spanish missions, the Indian wars, the cattle-ranching barons, Spindletop and the other great oil discoveries - the themes are familiar, but the perspective and insights of this book are amazingly fresh and new. Texas Past is a celebration of titanic struggles and richly intermingled cultures, and its pages voice a rousing call to protect and preserve these tangible treasures for generations of Texas still to come.