God Save Texas
A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State
(Sprache: Englisch)
A New York Times Notable Book
National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist
An NPR Best Book of the Year
God Save Texas is a journey through the most controversial state in America. It is a red state, but the cities are blue and among the most...
National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist
An NPR Best Book of the Year
God Save Texas is a journey through the most controversial state in America. It is a red state, but the cities are blue and among the most...
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A New York Times Notable BookNational Book Critics Circle Award Finalist
An NPR Best Book of the Year
God Save Texas is a journey through the most controversial state in America. It is a red state, but the cities are blue and among the most diverse in the nation. Oil is still king, but Texas now leads California in technology exports. Low taxes and minimal regulation have produced extraordinary growth, but also striking income disparities. Texas looks a lot like the America that Donald Trump wants to create.
Bringing together the historical and the contemporary, the political and the personal, Texas native Lawrence Wright gives us a colorful, wide-ranging portrait of a state that not only reflects our country as it is, but as it may become-and shows how the battle for Texas's soul encompasses us all.
Lese-Probe zu „God Save Texas “
OneThe Charms, Such as They Are
Subtle was the word my friend Steve used as we drovethrough a spongy drizzle from Austin to San Antonio ona mild February morning. He was referencing the qualityof the pleasures one might experience from observing the Texaslandscape small ones, requiring discernment although theactual vista in front of us was an unending strip mall hugging acrowded interstate highway. Subtlety is a quality rarely invokedfor anything to do with Texas, so I chewed on that notion fora bit.
There are some landscapes that are perfect for walking, disclosing themselves so intimately that one must dawdle to takethem in; some that are best appreciated in an automobile at areasonable rate of speed; and others that should be flown over asrapidly as possible. Much of Texas I place in this last category.Even Steve admits that Texas is where everything peters out the South, the Great Plains, Mexico, the Mountain West alldribbling to an anticlimactic end, stripped of whatever glory theymanifest elsewhere. But in the heart of Texas there is anotherlandscape that responds best to the cyclist, who lumbers alongat roughly the rate of a cantering horse, past the wildflowers and mockingbird trills of the Hill Country. Our bikes were in the back of my truck. We were going to explore the five Spanish missions along the San Antonio River, which have recently been named a World Heritage Site.
Steve is Stephen Harrigan, my closest friend for many years, a distinguished novelist who is now writing a history of Texas. We stopped at a Buc-ee s outside New Braunfels to pick up some Gatorade for the ride. It is the largest convenience store in the world a category of achievement that only Texas would aspire to. It might very well be the largest gas station as well, with 120 fuel pumps, to complement the 83 toilets that on at least one occasion garnered the prize of Best Restroom in America. The billboards say The Top Two Reasons to Stop at Buc-ee s:
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Number 1 and Number 2, and also Restrooms You Have to Pee to Believe.
But gas and urination are not the distinguishing attractions at Buc-ee s. Texas is or at least the kind of material goods that reify Texas in the minds of much of the world: massive belt buckles, barbecue, country music, Kevlar snake boots, rope signs (a length of rope twisted into a word e.g., Howdy and pasted over a painting of a Texas flag), holsters (although no actual guns), T-shirts (Have a Willie Nice Day), bumper stickers (Don t Mess with Texas), anything shaped like the state, and books of the sort classified as Texana. There is usually a stack of Steve s bestselling novel The Gates of the Alamo as well.
One image on the T-shirts and bumper stickers and whiskey jiggers has become especially popular lately: that of a black cannon over the legend Come and Take It. The taunt has a long history, going back to the Battle of Thermopylae, when Leonidas I, king of Sparta, responded to the demand of the Persian leader, Xerxes, that the Greeks lay down their arms. In Texas, the reference is to a battle in 1835, the opening skirmish of the Texas Revolution, when Mexican forces marched on the South Texas outpost of Gonzales to repossess a small bronze cannon that had been lent to the town for defense against Indians. The defiant citizens raised a crude flag, made from a wedding dress, that has now become an emblem of the gun rights movement. Ted Cruz wore a Come and Take It lapel pin on the floor of the U.S. Senate when he filibustered the health care bill in 2013.
At Buc-ee s, an aspiring Texan can get fully outfitted not only with the clothing but also with the cultural and philosophical stances that embody the Texas stereotypes cowboy individualism, a kind of wary friendliness, superpatriotism combined with defiance of all gover
But gas and urination are not the distinguishing attractions at Buc-ee s. Texas is or at least the kind of material goods that reify Texas in the minds of much of the world: massive belt buckles, barbecue, country music, Kevlar snake boots, rope signs (a length of rope twisted into a word e.g., Howdy and pasted over a painting of a Texas flag), holsters (although no actual guns), T-shirts (Have a Willie Nice Day), bumper stickers (Don t Mess with Texas), anything shaped like the state, and books of the sort classified as Texana. There is usually a stack of Steve s bestselling novel The Gates of the Alamo as well.
One image on the T-shirts and bumper stickers and whiskey jiggers has become especially popular lately: that of a black cannon over the legend Come and Take It. The taunt has a long history, going back to the Battle of Thermopylae, when Leonidas I, king of Sparta, responded to the demand of the Persian leader, Xerxes, that the Greeks lay down their arms. In Texas, the reference is to a battle in 1835, the opening skirmish of the Texas Revolution, when Mexican forces marched on the South Texas outpost of Gonzales to repossess a small bronze cannon that had been lent to the town for defense against Indians. The defiant citizens raised a crude flag, made from a wedding dress, that has now become an emblem of the gun rights movement. Ted Cruz wore a Come and Take It lapel pin on the floor of the U.S. Senate when he filibustered the health care bill in 2013.
At Buc-ee s, an aspiring Texan can get fully outfitted not only with the clothing but also with the cultural and philosophical stances that embody the Texas stereotypes cowboy individualism, a kind of wary friendliness, superpatriotism combined with defiance of all gover
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Autoren-Porträt von Lawrence Wright
LAWRENCE WRIGHT is a staff writer for The New Yorker, a playwright, and a screenwriter. He is the best-selling author of the novel, The End of October, and ten books of nonfiction, including Going Clear, God Save Texas, and The Looming Tower, winner of the Pulitzer Prize. He and his wife are longtime residents of Austin, Texas.
Bibliographische Angaben
- Autor: Lawrence Wright
- 2019, 368 Seiten, 15 Abbildungen, Maße: 12,8 x 20,3 cm, Kartoniert (TB), Englisch
- Verlag: VINTAGE
- ISBN-10: 0525435905
- ISBN-13: 9780525435907
- Erscheinungsdatum: 06.01.2020
Sprache:
Englisch
Pressezitat
A New York Times Notable Book An NPR Best Book of the YearBeautifully written. . . . Essential reading [for] anyone who wants to understand how one state changed the trajectory of the country. NPR
Compelling. . . . Timely. . . . There is a sleeping giant in Texas, and Wright captures the frustration and the hope that reverberate across the state each time it stirs. The Washington Post
Superb. . . . An elegant mixture of autobiography and long-form journalism. The New York Times Book Review
Terrific. . . . Valuable and often provocative. . . . Wright s words could speak for both Texas and America. The Dallas Morning News
Vivid . . . Affectionate and genial . . . Capture[s] the full range of Texas in all its shame and glory . . . An illuminating primer for outsiders who may not live there but have a surfeit of opinions about those who do . . . It s a testament to Wright s formidable storytelling skills that a reader will encounter plenty of information without ever feeling lost. The New York Times
Important, timely, and riveting. . . . Wright, a lifelong Texan and acclaimed author, knows his way around the state s contradictions, from its wild borderlands to its craziest legislators. New York
A godsend . . . . Brilliant analysis. . . . Wright s treatment flows impressionistically from one topic to the next . . . introducing myriad characters in a cascade of crystalline sketches. Newsday
The most entertaining and edifying nonfiction book I ve read so far this year . . . [Wright] is a rare beast: an elegant writer and a fearless reporter, with a sense of humor as dry as the plains of west Texas. Mary Ann Gwinn, The Seattle Times
At once a piece of journalism, a love letter to a place and a memoir.. . . [Wright] writes about his state with the fervor, knowledge, and ambivalence that comes from deep-seated familiarity. The Wall Street Journal
Wright s
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affectionate, eye-opening, and, at times, rueful love letter to his native state . . . This is Texas in all its fascinating outrageousness. The Christian Science Monitor
The reader comes away with an idea that the state is a place of competing melodies: a bit of Austin country, a few measures of Roy Orbison, a riff from Buddy Holley and, for [Wright], maybe a stanza of Home on the Range. The Boston Globe
Wright tames his sprawling subject matter with concise sentences and laser-precise word choice . . . Gives readers a front-row seat to the battle within the Texas GOP between business-oriented conservatives, led by House Speaker Joe Straus, and the social-conservative wing headed up by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. Houston Chronicle
Both celebratory and melancholy. . . . The grand scale of Texas, and the sheer range of its places and people Houston to El Paso, the Panhandle to the Valley is inevitably compelling to any writer, and Wright is happy just trying to get his arms around it all. Austin Chronicle
The reader comes away with an idea that the state is a place of competing melodies: a bit of Austin country, a few measures of Roy Orbison, a riff from Buddy Holley and, for [Wright], maybe a stanza of Home on the Range. The Boston Globe
Wright tames his sprawling subject matter with concise sentences and laser-precise word choice . . . Gives readers a front-row seat to the battle within the Texas GOP between business-oriented conservatives, led by House Speaker Joe Straus, and the social-conservative wing headed up by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. Houston Chronicle
Both celebratory and melancholy. . . . The grand scale of Texas, and the sheer range of its places and people Houston to El Paso, the Panhandle to the Valley is inevitably compelling to any writer, and Wright is happy just trying to get his arms around it all. Austin Chronicle
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