Review - Forget the Alamo

 

Authors: Bryan Burrough, Chris Tomlinson, and Jason Standford

It would be fair to call this the book the Texas Governor doesn’t want you to read, considering that the Governor and Lt. Governor used muscle to get a presentation cancelled.  It should be donated that neither man actually looks good in the last few chapters.

               Burrough, Tomilson, and Stanford’s book is not a history of the Alamo but more of a history about how the history of the Alamo was used, seen, and abused.  Therefore if you are interested in historiography or folklore, this would be of greater interest to you than say someone who is interested in history in general.  The authors are upfront and direct about how they are using the work of other writers and historians when presenting the outline of the battle.  So to call this “setting the record straight” or even “revisionist history” isn’t actually quite right.  It’s more of presenting the revisionist work of other authors while examining the issues surrounding the telling of the historical record.   The authors, to their credit, are upfront about this.  Critics who saying this book is trying to rewrite the history of the Alamo aren’t correct.  This book draws on books that have already done that to discuss how history is used and abused in society.  IT is a history of the history of the Alamo.

               Forget the Alamo is really about what happened after the battle, how the myth won out over the historical record (the disregarding of the Tejano defenders, the debate over whether it was really an important battle) and looks more at the PR surrounding the Battle and how various people – politicians, Disney and John Wayne among others used the myth for their own ends.

               In other words, if the Battle was so important to Texas why was the site left to ruin for so long?  And in this, the book enters into dealing the Daughter of The Texas Republic, which under the control of some members sounds like another version of the DoC.  In fact, I left the book wanting more of comparison between how the Confederacy in particular the DoC and certain Texas politicians who were Confederates and then used the Alamo myth after the Civil War.  Are the two linked in more than surface ways?

               Of particular interest is the modern analysis of Texas education and how it relates to the Alamo, from including racist cartoons that were used in classrooms to furor over how to teach about the Battle.  In fact, education is an important component, and not just of children, considering the groups that use misinformation to initiate protests, such the UN taking over the Alamo to  the fort being sold to foreigners. 

               It’s hard not looking at what is occurring places like Texas and Florida right now without thinking of this book and how education and politics place  a role.  We have a Texas school who had to find a loophole to have a mask mandate (they are making a mask dress code).  We have a museum that is opening to celebrate the Alamo that may include artifacts that actually aren’t from the Alamo.  We have a Texas governor who believes only heroes should be taught about, and heroes means white people at least according to how the history has been taught.  They feed into each other.  Teach people to distrust history that doesn’t say what you think the myth is only a short step to distrusting science.  Control and limit education, and you control the population.  And this book does a good job of showing that.