A review of Big Wonderful Thing: A History of Texas <\/em>by Stephen Harrigan<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Big Wonderful Thing: A History of Texas<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/strong>, Stephen Harrigan<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s compelling new saga, is a big wonderful book. Big? Sure, 829 pages, plus notes and index that take it to 936 pages (University of Texas Press, $35 hardcover). Wonderful? Interesting story after story after story. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Harrigan tells Texas history as a best-selling novelist (The Gates of the Alamo<\/em>) might do it, which means: make it fun to read, focus on people rather than places and dates, and don\u2019t interrupt the narrative with footnotes (provide details at the back of the book).<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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You pick up a 900-page book that weighs more than you\u2019ve been trying to lose for the last several years, and it\u2019s kind of intimidating, like when you were a freshman in college and the professor assigned this \u201coutside reading\u201d that you dreaded opening. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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And, then, you turn to the first page and it\u2019s not about Texas history\u2013at least not the way you\u2019ve always thought about it\u2013but it\u2019s about \u201cBig Tex\u201d at the State Fair and how that is an icon for the Texas we know and love. And it just gets better and better. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Especially when it comes to the twentieth century, which tends to get short shrift in Texas history books. For example, T.R. Fehrenbach\u2019s Lone Star<\/em>, popularly accepted as the modern comprehensive volume of Texas history, concedes only 100 of its 724 pages to Texas in the twentieth century, even in its revised edition in 2000. Harrigan devotes nearly 400 pages\u2013about half the book\u2013to the modern era, beginning with the Spindletop and Sour Lake oil booms and Eastland\u2019s Old Rip horned toad to the birthplace or homestead of four US presidents to world wars, civil rights, football, Texas music, and of course the changing Texas political landscape.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Texas history is a lot more than the Alamo, San Jacinto, the Republic years, statehood and the Civil War, which of course Harrigan covers. Through the years, Texas history has often been white-washed\u2013told from the prevailing Anglo point of view\u2013and Harrigan offers a more balanced perspective without minimizing its heroic nature. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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But the bottom line is not the fairness or the inclusiveness of the book, but its readability. It is fun to read. Harrigan knows how to tell a story that makes the reader look forward to the next one.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Big Wonderful Thing<\/span><\/em> takes its name from a quote by artist Georgia O\u2019Keeffe, who observed: \u201cI couldn\u2019t believe Texas was real \u2026 the same big wonderful thing that oceans and the highest mountains are.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Texas history is that kind of big wonderful thing, as Stephen Harrigan so engagingly reminds us.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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