{"product_id":"sketches-of-the-five-states-of-texas","title":"Sketches of the Five States of Texas","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWhen veteran columnist A. C. Greene turns his eyes on Texas, he sees a variety of experiences and a scope of history that fascinate the rest of us. Under its annexation terms, Texas is allowed to divide itself into as many as six states. While that is not ever likely to happen, Greene masterfully shows that several cultural states \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003edo\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e exist within the one political entity of Texas—and have throughout the state’s history.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eGreene has a wide-ranging curiosity about the “facts” of Texas history: what lies behind them, what quirks of human nature they reveal, how the people who lived them might have experienced them, roads not taken, and why things have come to be as they are. His historical writing has helped make Texas’ past accessible and even interesting to the public for over forty years. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eSpotlighting individuals, places, and events that make for distinctiveness, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eSketches from the Five States of Texas\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e features oddities and little-known facts that present a kind of “history-within-history.” Several sketches look at inventions or innovations, such as plows and Other pieces focus on historic moments: the first long distance telephone service; the last messenger from the Alamo. Transportation is a theme that runs through this book: trains, planes (including a box-kite contraption), early automobiles and roads, and steamboats, ice boats, and war boats. Place names get attention, too: peculiar names, unexpected sources, and long-lost places. Naturally, the wars of Texas are also covered: the Revolution, the Indian wars, the Civil War, and the Texas Navies.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Sequoyah Branham","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47750759514243,"sku":null,"price":15.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0610\/7270\/3619\/files\/1F50B863-3E38-4AD1-890F-26D18301B130.jpg?v=1785526372","url":"https:\/\/sequoyahbranham.com\/products\/sketches-of-the-five-states-of-texas","provider":"Sequoyah Branham","version":"1.0","type":"link"}