Gather 'Round: Gatherings in Texas and the Southwest

— Vol. 73: of Publications of the Texas Folklore Society

Published: December, 2025  Pages: 320  Features: Notes. Index.

Compiled by members of the Texas Folklore Society, this collection of pieces that focus on gatherings of all kinds ranges from personal reflections to scholarly analyses. Some authors discuss the place that gatherings have in marking all stages of life, from birth to death, while others consider gatherings based on special interests, such as crafting and music. more... about Gather 'Round: Gatherings in Texas and the Southwest

On the Way to the Sky: Remembering Bob Brookmeyer

— Vol. 20: of North Texas Lives of Musicians Series

Published: June, 2025  Pages: 272  Features: 35 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

In On the Way to the Sky: Remembering Bob Brookmeyer, author Michael Stephans has created a rich, multifaceted paean to jazz icon Bob Brookmeyer, the much-beloved musical genius who passed away in 2011, four days short of his 82nd birthday. more... about On the Way to the Sky: Remembering Bob Brookmeyer

Barbs, Bullets, and Blood: The 1880s Texas Barbed Wire Wars

Published: June, 2025  Pages: 448  Features: 50 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

In 1874 Joseph Glidden patented and manufactured the nation’s first barbed wire, and the next year Henry Sanborn came to Texas selling Glidden’s wire to cattlemen. Sales increased each year, and in 1883 Sanborn sold Texas ranchers one million dollars’ worth of barbed wire, but free-range cattle advocates and homesteaders revolted against the barbed wire fences; more than half of Texas’s counties experienced fence cutting. In the eyes of some Texans, barbed-wire fences stopped cattle drives, interfered with homesteading, and wrecked the state’s economy, but the act of fence cutting precipitated extreme levels of violence between the ranchers and the fence cutters. Fence cutting occurred as far north as Montana, but no state suffered the magnitude of fence cutting and violence as in Texas. more... about Barbs, Bullets, and Blood: The 1880s Texas Barbed Wire Wars

Right Back Where I Started: A Memoir in Music

— Vol. 19: of North Texas Lives of Musicians Series

Published: June, 2025  Pages: 304  Features: 47 b&w illus. Index.

Right Back Where I Started is a musical odyssey of the heart, mind, and spirit, a journey from the innocent Pacific Northwest of the 1960s to China, Slovenia, Italy, Romania, the Middle East, and countless locations in America, crossing paths with the likes of Renee Fleming, Bill Clinton, James Earl Jones, Maya Angelou, and William Shatner. more... about Right Back Where I Started: A Memoir in Music

In the Days of Billy the Kid: The Lives and Times of José Chávez y Chávez, Juan Patrón, Martín Chávez, and Yginio Salazar

Published: May, 2025  Pages: 640  Features: 108 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

The legend of Billy the Kid and the Lincoln County War remains prominent in the annals of American frontier history, but for men like José Chávez y Chávez, Juan Patrón, Martín Chávez, and Yginio Salazar, it was merely one famous epoch in a much broader struggle. The Hispanos of frontier New Mexico spent decades engaging in various forms of resistance against the corruption, exploitation, and violent oppression that frequently plagued their homeland following the conclusion of the Mexican-American War in 1848. more... about In the Days of Billy the Kid: The Lives and Times of José Chávez y Chávez, Juan Patrón, Martín Chávez, and Yginio Salazar

War Studies Journal 2

Published: May, 2025  Pages: 288 

The War Studies Journal is a scholarly venue for those who want to write about the big topics of warfare, strategy, campaigns, battles, theory, military revolutions, and technological change. It is a journal for scholars who wish to read the best of contemporary scholarship and debate military history in a peer-reviewed forum that will appear annually in print and online. The objective of the journal’s editorial board is to publish cutting-edge military history from antiquity to the contemporary period that informs the past, present, and future. The goal is to create a space for the serious discussion of military history, including its diplomatic, strategic, operational, tactical, and technological aspects, both chronologically and thematically. more... about War Studies Journal 2

Chance of Lightning

— Vol. 32: of Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry

Published: April, 2025  Pages: 80 

Chance of Lightning is a precarious love letter that wagers mystery against easy answers and unflinching vulnerability against inevitable misfortune. Sonnets, prose poems, and experiments in lyrical verse create a world of imaginary lottery winners—from a man who invests his windfall in a dove-release business to a woman who tracks down every person she’s ever kissed—and explore themes of birth, death, loss, and survival. more... about Chance of Lightning

The Fifty-Year Texas Road Trip: On Assignment from Earth to Uncertain

— Vol. 2: of Seeing Texas Series

Published: April, 2025  Pages: 224  Features: 228 color, 6 b&w illus.

Ride shotgun with writer-photographer Randy Mallory on his fifty-year road trip exploring the endlessly fascinating people and places of Texas. The fourth-generation Texan spent a five-decade career traveling every part of the Lone Star State on assignments for statewide magazines and tourism agencies. In more than two hundred photos and four reflective essays, his first photo retrospective offers what he found. At the turn of every page—just like the rounding of every bend—there are delightful and surprising places: a thunderhead billowing behind a spinning Ferris wheel, a Volkswagen Beetle hung from a giant oak, a steam-powered riverboat gliding through mossy swamps, and yard art of a pregnant woman playing electric guitar. Meet the proud and diverse people he encountered: an organic farmer with a UFO museum, rural church members at a foot-washing ceremony, an adventurer riding the highway in a wind-powered sail trike, and five US presidents sharing the same stage. more... about The Fifty-Year Texas Road Trip: On Assignment from Earth to Uncertain

Robert E. Howard: The Life and Times of a Texas Author

Published: March, 2025  Pages: 592  Features: 49 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) is most widely known today as the creator of Conan the Cimmerian, more popularly referred to as Conan the Barbarian. However, he also wrote across a wide array of genres for the pulp magazines of the 1920s and 1930s, including westerns, sports stories (boxing), adventures, supernatural horror, and even humor. Howard also created many other popular characters such as King Kull, Bran Mak Morn, Solomon Kane, Steve Costigan, and Breckenridge Elkins. More importantly, he created two specific subgenres of fiction: sword and sorcery (sometimes referred to as heroic fantasy) and weird westerns. more... about Robert E. Howard: The Life and Times of a Texas Author

Fort Worth Characters 2

— Vol. 10: of Texas Local

Published: February, 2025  Pages: 400  Features: 68 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

Fort Worth Characters 2 is a sequel to Fort Worth Characters (UNT Press, 2009) by Richard F. Selcer, the preeminent historian of Fort Worth. This book continues the theme of human-interest stories of twenty-five more characters pulled from Fort Worth history. Some, like Frank James, were already famous when they came to Fort Worth. Others, like “Stutterin’ Sam” Dowell, were “discovered” here before going on to fame and fortune on the national stage. more... about Fort Worth Characters 2

Fiestas in Laredo: Matachines, Quinceañeras, and George Washington’s Birthday

— Vol. 30: of Texas Folklore Society Extra Book

Published: December, 2024  Pages: 352  Features: 27 b&w, 8 color illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

This book celebrates the many types of fiestas found in the border community of Laredo, Texas. Told from an insider’s perspective and blending memoir, ethnography, and a folkloristic analysis, the author explores the meaning of the celebrations for the community. more... about Fiestas in Laredo: Matachines, Quinceañeras, and George Washington’s Birthday

Applied Research Methods in Criminal Justice and Criminology

Published: December, 2024  Pages: 384  Features: 10 figs. Notes. Bib. Index.

The primary objective of this book is to help readers become educated consumers of research. It provides a practical, applied, and user-friendly approach to research methods by consistently applying the concepts learned to real-life examples of research. more... about Applied Research Methods in Criminal Justice and Criminology

Where to Carry the Sound

— Vol. 23: of Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction

Published: November, 2024  Pages: 224 

The stories in Where to Carry the Sound center on characters excavating their own lives: unearthing family secrets, exploring inherited silences, and rediscovering what might have seemed lost to them. Wherever these characters find themselves—including brewing bootleg liquor in Prohibition-era Bombay, finding remnants of a new language at an archaeological dig in Andhra Pradesh, seeking mirages above the Arctic Circle, or setting up an outpost on the moon—each seeks to reconcile a past continually bleeding into the present and to forge a path of belonging to carry them into the future. more... about Where to Carry the Sound

Tubby: Raymond O. Barton and the US Army, 1889-1963

— Vol. 24: of North Texas Military Biography and Memoir Series

Published: November, 2024  Pages: 512  Features: 39 b&w illus. 6 maps. Notes. Bib. Index.

Entering West Point from central Oklahoma, Raymond O. Barton’s prowess on the football field and wrestling team earned him the nickname “Tubby,” an appellation used by his friends and fellow officers for the rest of his life. Based on personal letters and documents, this biography explores Barton’s military career from his days as a cadet through thirty-seven years of military service, culminating with his command in World War II of the 4th Infantry Division during the US Army’s campaign in France. From the inside readers have a picture of officership during the intense days of training and expansion on the eve of World War II. Finally, thanks to the discovery of his war diary, we have a close-up view of his senior leadership as he trained in England for the landing on Utah Beach on June 6, 1944. more... about Tubby: Raymond O. Barton and the US Army, 1889-1963

The Bird Cage Theater: The Curtain Rises on Tombstone, Arizona’s National Treasure

Published: October, 2024  Pages: 352  Features: 75 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

Tombstone, Arizona, is forever associated with Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, Doc Holliday, and the legendary OK Corral gunfight that made it a cultural symbol of the Old West. The town’s most iconic and storied original building is the Bird Cage Theater—a stunning example of late nineteenth-century variety theaters that were a staple in entertainment around the globe. The modest interior that was once filled with orchestra music, cigar smoke, laughter and whistles, and cheers and jeers is now an empty canvas for the echoes of the past. more... about The Bird Cage Theater: The Curtain Rises on Tombstone, Arizona’s National Treasure

Nightmare in the Pacific: The World War II Saga of Artie Shaw and His Navy Band

Published: October, 2024  Pages: 288  Features: 25 b&w illus. Maps. Notes. Bib. Index.

Artie Shaw took his clarinet to war, abandoning civilian celebrity to lead World War II’s most colorful navy band on an island-hopping odyssey that raised military morale but brought him into dark waters. more... about Nightmare in the Pacific: The World War II Saga of Artie Shaw and His Navy Band

Murder on the Largo: Henry Coleman and New Mexico’s Last Frontier

— Vol. 23: of A. C. Greene Series

Published: October, 2024  Pages: 240  Features: 27 b&w illus. Map. Notes. Bib. Index.

In western New Mexico in 1905 there rode a notorious outlaw from the Mexican border named Henry Coleman. With a Colt .45 strapped to his hip, Coleman (alias Street Hudspeth from the well-to-do Texas family) came to be either despised as a deceitful rustler and ruthless murderer or admired as a man of honor and great courage, a popular and charismatic cowman who was fast with a gun. No one seemed indifferent. more... about Murder on the Largo: Henry Coleman and New Mexico’s Last Frontier

Warriors for Social Justice: Maria Jiménez of Houston and Mexican American Activists

— Vol. 12: of Al Filo: Mexican American Studies Series

Published: October, 2024  Pages: 352  Features: 16 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

Warriors for Social Justice examines the contributions of Mexican American activists to the nation’s democratic values by concentrating on the activism of Maria Jiménez (1950–2020) in Houston, Texas. Linda J. Quintanilla describes Jiménez’s lifelong battle against injustice, be it racist, sexist, or anti-immigrant animus. The Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride in 2003, only one of her many impressive achievements, delighted her the most. The experience introduced its participants, undocumented immigrants, to historic places and African American activists and descendants from the Civil Rights Movement. more... about Warriors for Social Justice: Maria Jiménez of Houston and Mexican American Activists

The Best American Newspaper Narratives, Volume 11

Published: September, 2024  Pages: 320 

This anthology collects the nine winners of the 2023 Best American Newspaper Narrative Writing Contest at UNT’s Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference. First place winner: Jennifer Berry Hawes for “Captive No More: One SC Man’s Journey to Freedom after Years in Modern-Day Slavery,” about how a white restaurant manager held an intellectually disabled Black man in slavery-like conditions for almost six years (Post and Courier, Charleston, SC). Second place: Andrea Ball and Will Carless for “American Flashpoint: A Drag Show, a Protest and a Line of Guns” (USA Today). Third place: Thomas Curwen for “A World Gone Mad” (Los Angeles Times). more... about The Best American Newspaper Narratives, Volume 11

Globalizing the Lower Rio Grande: European Entrepreneurs in the Borderlands, 1749–1881

— Vol. 2: of Randolph B. "Mike" Campbell Series

Published: September, 2024  Pages: 272  Features: 3 b&w illus. 8 maps. Notes. Bib. Index.

Often obscured in the history of the nineteenth-century US-Mexico borderlands, European-born entrepreneurs played a definitive role in pushing the Lower Rio Grande borderlands into Atlantic markets. Though they were often stymied by mismanagement, notions of ethnic and cultural superiority, and eruptions of violence, these entrepreneurs persistently attempted to remake the region into a modern commercial utopia. more... about Globalizing the Lower Rio Grande: European Entrepreneurs in the Borderlands, 1749–1881

Duval County Tejanos: An Epic Narrative of Liberty and Democracy

— Vol. 9: of Texas Local

Published: September, 2024  Pages: 416  Features: 14 b&w illus. 2 maps. Notes. Bib. Index.

In Texas, to hear the words “Duval County” evokes Archie and George Parr, politics, and corruption. But this does not represent the full truth about this South Texas county and its Tejano citizens. Duval County Tejanos showcases Tejanos engaged in community life: they organized politically, cultivated land, and promoted agriculture, livestock raising, the local economy, churches, schools, patriotic celebrations, and social activities. more... about Duval County Tejanos: An Epic Narrative of Liberty and Democracy

Tracking the Texas Ranger Historians

Published: September, 2024  Pages: 400  Features: Notes. Bib. Index.

The first systematic inquiry into the Texas Rangers did not begin until 1935 with Walter Prescott Webb’s publication The Texas Rangers. Since then numerous works have appeared on the Rangers, but no volume has been published before that covers the various historians of the Rangers and their approaches to the topic. Editors Bruce A. Glasrud and Harold J. Weiss Jr. gather essays that profile individual historians of the Texas Rangers, explore themes and issues in Ranger history, and comprise archival research, biographies, and autobiographies. more... about Tracking the Texas Ranger Historians

Desire to Serve: The Autobiography of Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson

Published: June, 2024  Pages: 464  Features: 35 b&w illus. Notes. Index.

Watch an interview on Fox 4 Here & Now with Cheryl Brown Wattley, author of Desire to Serve more... about Desire to Serve: The Autobiography of Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson

The Colfax County War: Violence and Corruption in Territorial New Mexico

— Vol. 22: of A. C. Greene Series

Published: June, 2024  Pages: 256  Features: 54 b&w illus. 2 maps. Notes. Bib. Index.

When New Mexico became part of the United States, the territory contained 295 land grants, the largest of these being the Maxwell Land Grant. The size and boundaries of the grant were disputed, with some believing that much of the land was public domain. Settlers on this land were fought not only by the land grant owners but also by a group of corrupt politicians and lawyers— known as the Santa Fe Ring (most notably Thomas Catron and Stephen Elkins)—who tried to use the situation for personal profit and land acquisition. more... about The Colfax County War: Violence and Corruption in Territorial New Mexico

Theoria 28: Historical Aspects of Music Theory

Published: June, 2024  Pages: 176 

Theoria is an annual peer-reviewed journal on all aspects of the history of music theory distributed by the University of North Texas Press. It includes critical articles representing the current stage of research and editions of newly discovered or mostly unknown theoretical texts with translation and commentary. Analytical articles on recent or unknown repertory and methods are also published, as well as review articles on recent secondary literature and textbooks. more... about Theoria 28: Historical Aspects of Music Theory

Framing Oak Cliff: A Visual Diary of a Dallas Neighborhood

— Vol. 1: of Seeing Texas Series

Published: May, 2024  Pages: 160  Features: 116 duotone photos.

Listen to an interview on Texas Standard with Richard Doherty, author of Framing Oak Cliff more... about Framing Oak Cliff: A Visual Diary of a Dallas Neighborhood

Felling

— Vol. 31: of Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry

Published: April, 2024  Pages: 80 

This collection is a record of one man’s navigation of loss, addiction, and labor. At once a meditation on the allure of a legacy in self-destruction and a giving over to hope, Felling is an exploration in honesty. Rendered in direct language and through clear eyes, this book, as its title indicates, is concerned with tensions of agency, creation, and destruction— upward and downward motion. more... about Felling

• “Winner, Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry”

The Business of Sustainability in Fashion: Following the Threads

Published: April, 2024  Pages: 320  Features: Notes. Index.

In The Business of Sustainability in Fashion, Iva Jestratijevic has written a book that should be on the reading list of every fashion student, educator, and consumer of fashion. It is unique in its focus on critical and creative thinking surrounding corporate and consumer sustainability while succinctly illustrating how interdependent the challenges of being sustainable are. more... about The Business of Sustainability in Fashion: Following the Threads

The US Eighth Air Force in World War II: Ira Eaker, Hap Arnold, and Building American Air Power, 1942–1943

— Vol. 8: of American Military Studies

Published: April, 2024  Pages: 400  Features: 30 b&w illus. 3 maps. Notes. Bib. Index.

When America entered World War II in 1941, it was first left to the Army Air Forces to take the fight to Germany. In January 1942 the US Eighth Air Force was created and ordered to England, even though it was without men, equipment, or airplanes. This is the story of Brigadier General Ira C. Eaker’s two years with VIII Bomber Command, and later as commander of the Eighth, as he worked to grow it into a force capable of striking German targets from above twenty thousand feet. more... about The US Eighth Air Force in World War II: Ira Eaker, Hap Arnold, and Building American Air Power, 1942–1943

The German Texas Frontier in 1853: Ferdinand Lindheimer’s Newspaper Accounts of the Environment, Gold, and Indians

— Vol. 1: of Randolph B. "Mike" Campbell Series

Published: March, 2024  Pages: 256  Features: 20 b&w illus. 5 maps. Notes. Bib. Index.

Ferdinand Lindheimer was already renowned as the father of Texas botany when, in late 1852, he became the founding editor of the Neu-Braunfelser Zeitung, a German-language weekly newspaper for the German settler community on the Central Texas frontier. His first year of publication was a pivotal time for the settlers and the American Indians whose territories they occupied. Based on an analysis of the paper’s first year—and drawing on methods from documentary and narrative history, ethnohistory, and literary analysis—Daniel J. Gelo and Christopher J. Wickham deliver a new chronicle of the frontier in 1853. more... about The German Texas Frontier in 1853: Ferdinand Lindheimer’s Newspaper Accounts of the Environment, Gold, and Indians

War Studies Journal 1

Published: March, 2024  Pages: 288 

The War Studies Journal is a scholarly venue for those who want to write about the big topics of warfare, strategy, campaigns, battles, theory, military revolutions, and technological change. It is a journal for scholars who wish to read the best of contemporary scholarship and debate military history in a peer-reviewed forum that will appear annually in print and online. The objective of the journal’s editorial board is to publish cutting-edge military history from antiquity to the contemporary period that informs the past, present, and future. The goal is to create a space for the serious discussion of military history, including its diplomatic, strategic, operational, tactical, and technological aspects, both chronologically and thematically. more... about War Studies Journal 1

What Did You Do Today?

— Vol. 22: of Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction

Published: November, 2023  Pages: 224 

The stories in What Did You Do Today? explore the ordinary and the offbeat as if they were one and the same, asking what it’s like to be alive and what makes us human. With warmth, humor, and wonder, these stories suggest that the past is always alive in the present and that even the most fleeting relationships have the power to change us forever. In these short narratives, nothing is negligible, and all experience is transformative. more... about What Did You Do Today?

Elegant Hungarian Tortes and Homestyle Desserts for American Bakers

— Vol. 6: of Great American Cooking Series

Published: November, 2023  Pages: 248  Features: 16 color and 36 b&w illus. Bib. Index.

When Ella Szabó fled her homeland during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, she never dreamed that someday she would become a member of the US Olympic swimming team, an accomplished baker in America, and the author of a cookbook about Hungarian desserts. But a chance encounter with a fellow Hungarian in Connecticut led to Ella’s becoming the custodian of a collection of heirloom recipes that form the core of this book. more... about Elegant Hungarian Tortes and Homestyle Desserts for American Bakers

Behind the Scenes: Covering the JFK Assassination

Published: October, 2023  Pages: 320  Features: 35 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

On November 22, 1963, the author of Behind the Scenes was a young Dallas Times Herald reporter who sprinted from his newspaper desk to Dealey Plaza minutes after shots were fired at President John F. Kennedy. Thus began Darwin Payne’s close involvement in covering one shocking event after another on this history-making weekend. more... about Behind the Scenes: Covering the JFK Assassination

Music from the Hilltop: Organs and Organists at Southern Methodist University

Published: October, 2023  Pages: 352  Features: 40 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

In Music from the Hilltop, Benjamin A. Kolodziej studies three significant academic musical figures to weave a narrative that not only details the role musical studies played in the development of Southern Methodist University but also relates a history of church music and pipe organs in Dallas, Texas. Bertha Stevens Cassidy (1876–1959), the first organ professor and the only woman on the faculty of the new university, established herself as a leader and veritable dean of the church music community, managing a career of significant performances and teaching. Her student and protégé, Dora Poteet Barclay (1903–1961), broadened the pedagogical horizons for her students. Many of her own students achieved great professional heights as performers and church musicians. more... about Music from the Hilltop: Organs and Organists at Southern Methodist University

My Darling Boys: A Family at War, 1941-1947

— Vol. 23: of North Texas Military Biography and Memoir Series

Published: October, 2023  Pages: 336  Features: 35 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

My Darling Boys is the story of a New Mexico farm family whose three sons were sent to fight in World War II. All flew combat aircraft in the Army Air Forces. In 1973 one of the boys, Oscar Allison, a B-24 top turret gunner and flight engineer, wrote a memoir of his World War II experiences. On a mission to Regensburg, Germany, his bomber, ravaged by German fighters, was shot down. He was captured and spent fifteen months in German stalag prisons. His memoir, the core of this unique book, details his training, combat, and prisoner-of-war experience in a truthful, introspective, and compelling manner. more... about My Darling Boys: A Family at War, 1941-1947

The Best American Newspaper Narratives, Volume 10

Published: September, 2023  Pages: 336 

This anthology collects the ten winners of the 2022 Best American Newspaper Narrative Writing Contest at UNT’s Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference. First place winner: Jason Fagone, “The Jessica Simulation: Love and Loss in the Age of A.I.,” about one man’s attempt to still communicate with his dead fiancée (San Francisco Chronicle). Second place: Jenna Russell, Penelope Overton, and David Abel, “The Lobster Trap” (The Boston Globe and Portland Press Herald). Third place: Jada Yuan, “Discovering Dr. Wu” (The Washington Post). more... about The Best American Newspaper Narratives, Volume 10

Two Counties in Crisis: Measuring Political Change in Reconstruction Texas

— Vol. 8: of Texas Local

Published: September, 2023  Pages: 256  Features: 5 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

Two Counties in Crisis offers a rare opportunity to observe how local political cultures are transformed by state and national events. Utilizing an interdisciplinary fusion of history and political science, Robert J. Dillard analyzes two disparate Texas counties—traditionalist Harrison County and individualist Collin County—and examines four Reconstruction governors (Hamilton, Throckmorton, Pease, Davis) to aid the narrative and provide additional cultural context. more... about Two Counties in Crisis: Measuring Political Change in Reconstruction Texas

Write and Communicate Like a Professional

Published: August, 2023  Pages: 288  Features: 11 b&w illus. Index.

Write and Communicate Like a Professional is for the introductory technical writing student seeking to improve their writing and communication. The book covers how to improve professional style and tone, develop professional documents, work in teams, and plan and execute multiweek projects. It also includes various types of professional writing—such as letters, texts, handbooks, reports, agendas, press releases, and newsletters—while focusing on those communication forms used most often: emails, memos, and short reports. more... about Write and Communicate Like a Professional

Archive Activism: Memoir of a "Uniquely Nasty" Journey

Published: August, 2023  Pages: 288  Features: 40 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

For more information about Archive Activism, visit https://archiveactivism.com/. more... about Archive Activism: Memoir of a "Uniquely Nasty" Journey

Duty to Serve, Duty to Conscience: The Story of Two Conscientious Objector Combat Medics during the Vietnam War

— Vol. 21: of North Texas Military Biography and Memoir Series

Published: May, 2023  Pages: 288  Features: 40 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

For more information about Duty to Serve, Duty to Conscience, visit https://jamesckearney.com/. more... about Duty to Serve, Duty to Conscience: The Story of Two Conscientious Objector Combat Medics during the Vietnam War

Cedar: The Life and Music of Cedar Walton

— Vol. 18: of North Texas Lives of Musicians Series

Published: May, 2023  Pages: 400  Features: 55 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

Grammy Award–winning pianist, bandleader, and composer Cedar Walton (1934–2013) is a major figure in jazz, associated with a variety of styles from bebop to funk and famous for composing several standards. Born and raised in Dallas, Walton studied music in Denver, where he jammed with musicians such as Charlie Parker and John Coltrane. In 1955, Walton moved to New York, immediately gaining recognition from notable musicians and nightclub proprietors. When Walton returned to the U.S. after serving abroad in the Army, he joined Benny Golson and Art Farmer’s Jazztet. Later, he became both pianist and arranger for Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. Next, he worked as part of Prestige Records’s house rhythm section, recording with numerous greats and releasing his own albums. more... about Cedar: The Life and Music of Cedar Walton

The Weekly War: How the Saturday Evening Post Reported World War I

Published: April, 2023  Pages: 336  Features: 32 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

An elite team of reporters brought the Great War home each week to ten million readers of The Saturday Evening Post. As America’s largest circulation magazine, the Post hired the nation’s best-known and best-paid writers to cover World War I. The Weekly War provides a history of the unique record Post storytellers created of World War I, the distinct imprint the Post made on the field of war reporting, and the ways in which Americans witnessed their first world war. The Weekly War includes representative articles from across the span of the conflict, and Chris Dubbs and Carolyn Edy complement these works with essays about the history and significance of the magazine, the war, and the writers. more... about The Weekly War: How the Saturday Evening Post Reported World War I

• Honorable Mention, 2023 Tomlinson Book Prize

Storm Swimmer

— Vol. Number Thirty: of

Published: April, 2023  Pages: 90 

In poems that celebrate survival and renewal, Ernest Hilbert summons the ageless conflict between human affection and the passing of time, recognizing that all we love must eventually disappear. Tender poems of fatherhood weigh against unsettling explorations of natural dangers and intimations of bodily harm. From porn sets to seedy gun ranges and heavy metal tribute nights in crumbling theaters, Hilbert’s eye roves over the desolation and beauty of contemporary America, all the while feeling the irresistible pull of water—what Melville called “the ungraspable phantom of life.” more... about Storm Swimmer

• Winner, Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry

Death and Life in the Big Red One: A Soldier's World War II Journey from North Africa to Germany

— Vol. 22: of North Texas Military Biography and Memoir Series

Published: March, 2023  Pages: 400  Features: 19 b&w illus. 5 maps. Notes. Bib. Index.

Joe Olexa enlisted in the US Army in December 1940, figuring that if he was going to be in a war, he might as well start training. Assigned to the 1st Infantry Division, nicknamed “The Big Red One,” he served in Company L of its 26th Infantry Regiment for the next four years. Along the way he trained with the division in maneuvers in the United States; shipped to England in 1942; landed at Oran, Algeria, in the Operation Torch landings of November 1942; and fought in Tunisia, Sicily, Normandy, Belgium, and Germany. more... about Death and Life in the Big Red One: A Soldier's World War II Journey from North Africa to Germany

The Dallas Story: The North American Aviation Plant and Industrial Mobilization during World War II

— Vol. 16: of War and the Southwest Series

Published: March, 2023  Pages: 416  Features: 25 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

Listen to an interview on The Bookmark with Terrance Furgerson, author of The Dallas Story more... about The Dallas Story: The North American Aviation Plant and Industrial Mobilization during World War II

Foundations of the Information and Knowledge Professions

Published: February, 2023  Pages: 209  Features: Bib. Index. Open Access

The evolution of the information and knowledge professions was shaped over time by key technological advances and innovations, such as the invention of papers, the development of the printing press, the computer, the Internet, and the World Wide Web. Foundations of the Information and Knowledge Professions covers topics deemed essential for students at the graduate and undergraduate level who are seeking to join the profession. The authors cover key developments from the Library of Alexandria through contemporary libraries and digital technological platforms. more... about Foundations of the Information and Knowledge Professions

Eagles Overhead: The History of US Air Force Forward Air Controllers, from the Meuse-Argonne to Mosul

— Vol. 7: of American Military Studies

Published: February, 2023  Pages: 368  Features: 36 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

US Air Force Forward Air Controllers (FACs) bridge the gap between air and land power. They operate in the grey area of the battlefield, serving as an aircrew who flies above the battlefield, spots the enemy, and relays targeting information to control close air support attacks by other faster aircraft. When done well, Air Force FACs are the fulcrum for successful employment of air power in support of ground forces. Unfortunately, FACs in recent times have been shunned by both ground and air forces, their mission complicated by inherent difficulty and danger, as well as by the vicissitudes of defense budgets, technology, leadership, bureaucracy, and doctrine. more... about Eagles Overhead: The History of US Air Force Forward Air Controllers, from the Meuse-Argonne to Mosul

Man with the Killer Smile

— Vol. 13: of North Texas Crime and Criminal Justice Series

Published: November, 2022  Pages: 320 

Listen to an interview on The Bookmark with Mitchel P. Roth, author of The Man with the Killer Smile more... about Man with the Killer Smile

There Is Only Us

— Vol. 21: of Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction

Published: November, 2022  Pages: 192 

The eight stories of speculative fiction in There Is Only Us explore themes of loneliness, connectedness, and selfhood. Each one is an act of intimacy—an altered world shown through the lens of a close relationship. Brothers, sisters, lovers, mothers, and daughters come together in myriad constellations, often so that one character can make a body-altering choice of extreme proportions. In a variety of forms—from a satirical retelling of Noah’s Ark to a sister drama revolving around naked mole rats—There Is Only Us presents a series of escalating scenarios, intimate and yet absurd, that ask, how much can you change and still be you? more... about There Is Only Us

• Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction 2022

Soul Serenade: King Curtis and His Immortal Saxophone

— Vol. 17: of North Texas Lives of Musicians Series

Published: October, 2022  Pages: 352  Features: 36 b&w photos. Notes. Bib. Index.

Listen to a conversation between Timothy Hoover and Chuck Berry: An American Life author RJ Smith. more... about Soul Serenade: King Curtis and His Immortal Saxophone

The Best American Newspaper Narratives, Volume 9

Published: September, 2022  Pages: 208 

This anthology collects the nine winners of the 2021 Best American Newspaper Narrative Writing Contest at UNT’s Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference. First-place winner: Greg Jaffe and his three-part series on the pandemic, beginning with “The Pandemic Hit and This Car Became Home for a Family of Four” (The Washington Post). Second place: Hannah Dreier with “The Worst- Case Scenario” (The Washington Post). Third place: Leonora LaPeter Anton, Kavitha Surana, and Kathryn Varn with “Death at Freedom Square” (Tampa Bay Times). more... about The Best American Newspaper Narratives, Volume 9

Our Stories: Black Families in Early Dallas

— Vol. 7: of Texas Local

Published: September, 2022  Pages: 320  Features: 22 b&w illus. Map. Notes. Index.

Our Stories: Black Families in Early Dallas enlarges upon two pub¬lications by the late Dr. Mamie McKnight’s organization, Black Dallas Remembered—First African American Families of Dallas (1987) and African American Families and Settlements of Dallas (1990). Our Stories is the history of Black citizens of Dallas going about their lives in freedom, as described by the late Eva Partee McMillan: “The ex-slaves purchased land, built homes, raised their children, erected their educational and religious facilities, educated their children, and profited from their labor.”” more... about Our Stories: Black Families in Early Dallas

Billy the Kid: El Bandido Simpático

Published: July, 2022  Pages: 736  Features: 70 b&w illus. 3 Maps. Notes. Bib. Index.

In the annals of American western history, few people have left behind such lasting and far-reaching fame as Billy the Kid. Some have suggested that his legend began with his death at the end of Pat Garrett’s revolver on the night of July 14, 1881, in Fort Sumner. Others believe that the legend began with his unforgettable jailbreak in Lincoln, New Mexico, several months prior on April 28, 1881. Others still insist his legend began with the publication in 1926 of Walter Noble Burns’s book, The Saga of Billy the Kid. more... about Billy the Kid: El Bandido Simpático

For the Sake of the Song: Essays on Townes Van Zandt

Published: June, 2022  Pages: 256  Features: Notes. Bib. Index.

After he died, Townes Van Zandt found the success that he sabotaged throughout his short life despite the release of sixteen brilliant albums. Since his death, numerous albums both by and in honor of him have been released and many critical articles published, in addition to several books (including Robert Hardy’s A Deeper Blue by UNT Press). more... about For the Sake of the Song: Essays on Townes Van Zandt

Rimsky-Korsakov’s Harmonic Theory: Practical Manual of Harmony, Its Sources, History, and Traditions

Published: June, 2022  Pages: 288  Features: 76 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

Rimsky-Korsakov’s Harmonic Theory is the first comprehensive study of his concept of harmony that also traces the history of tonal relationships. Larisa P. Jackson describes and examines Rimsky-Korsakov’s distinctive harmonic theory using his Practical Manual of Harmony as a basis, and places it in historical context of nineteenth-century music theory. She explores in great detail a concept of tonal relationships, fundamental to Rimsky-Korsakov’s view of harmony, and relates this to ideas by German theorists of the period and the Russian theoretical tradition. more... about Rimsky-Korsakov’s Harmonic Theory: Practical Manual of Harmony, Its Sources, History, and Traditions

The Art of Trumpet Teaching: The Legacy of Keith Johnson

— Vol. 16: of North Texas Lives of Musicians Series

Published: May, 2022  Pages: 256  Features: 28 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

Keith Johnson retired in 2014 from the University of North Texas, where he was Regents Professor of Trumpet and was honored with the Distinguished Teaching Professor award. Johnson wrote more than thirty articles, two pedagogical texts, and two method books. During his career, he presented masterclasses at universities and conservatories throughout the United States and worldwide. more... about The Art of Trumpet Teaching: The Legacy of Keith Johnson

King Fisher: The Short Life and Elusive Career of a Texas Desperado

Published: May, 2022  Pages: 320  Features: 46 b&w illus. 2 maps. Notes. Bib. Index.

America’s Wild West created an untold number of notorious characters, and in southwestern Texas, John King Fisher (1855– 1884) was foremost among them. To friends and foes alike, he insisted he be called “King.” He found a home in the tough sun-beaten Nueces Strip, a lawless land between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande. There he gathered a gang of rustlers around him at his ranch on Pendencia Creek. For a decade King and his gang raided both sides of the Rio Grande, shooting down any who opposed them. Newspapers claimed King killed potential witnesses—he was never convicted of cattle or horse stealing, or murder. more... about King Fisher: The Short Life and Elusive Career of a Texas Desperado

Door to Remain

— Vol. Number Twenty-Nine: of

Published: April, 2022  Pages: 90 

“There are some poets we admire for a mastery that allows them to tell a story, express an epiphany, form a conclusion, all gracefully and even memorably— yet language in some way remains external to them. But there are other poets in whom language seems to arise spontaneously, fulfilling a design in which the poet’s intention feels secondary. Books by these poets we read with a gathering sense of excitement and recognition at the linguistic web being drawn deliberately tighter around a nucleus of human experience that is both familiar and completely new, until at last it seems no phrase is misplaced and no word lacks its resonance with what has come before. Such a book is Austin Segrest’s Door to Remain.”— Karl Kirchwey, author of Poems of Rome and judge more... about Door to Remain

• Winner, Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry

They Kept Running

— Vol. Number Twenty: of

Published: April, 2022  Pages: 240 

They Kept Running takes its title from a story about three women running in a national park in the Arizona desert, where they are warned to watch out for mountain lions and the heat, but where the real threat they encounter is men in a jeep. This collection of fifty-seven small stories catalogs the lives of women and girls as they grapple with the hazards of navigating the human world. more... about They Kept Running

• Winner, Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction

A Military History of Texas

— Vol. 15: of War and the Southwest Series

Published: March, 2022  Pages: 448  Features: 26 b&w illus. 4 maps. Notes. Bib. Index.

Comprehensive in scope, A Military History of Texas provides the first single-volume military history of Texas from pre-Columbian clashes between Native American tribes to the establishment of the United States Space Force as the newest branch of the nation’s military in the twenty-first century. Loyd Uglow ties the various engrossing aspects of Texas military history into one unified experience. more... about A Military History of Texas

Identified with Texas: The Lives of Governor Elisha Marshall Pease and Lucadia Niles Pease

Published: March, 2022  Pages: 432  Features: 15 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

Identified with Texas is the first published biography of Texas Governor Elisha Marshall Pease (1812-1883), presented by historian Elizabeth Whitlow as a dual biography of Pease and his wife, Lucadia Niles Pease (1813-1905). Pease volunteered to fight in the first battle of the Revolution at Gonzales, and he served with the Texan Army at the Siege of Bexar. Pease served in the first three state legislatures after Texas joined the Union in 1845, was elected governor in 1853 and re-elected in 1855, and returned to the governorship as an interim appointee from 1867 to 1869 during Reconstruction. His achievements in all these positions were substantial. more... about Identified with Texas: The Lives of Governor Elisha Marshall Pease and Lucadia Niles Pease

Passionate Nation: The Epic History of Texas

Published: February, 2022  Pages: 672  Features: 36 b&w illus. Bib. Index.

Utilizing many sources new to publication, James L. Haley delivers a most readable and enjoyable narrative history of Texas, told through stories—the words and recollections of Texans who actually lived the state’s spectacular history. From Jim Bowie’s and Davy Crockett’s myth-enshrouded stand at the Alamo, to the Mexican-American War, and to Sam Houston’s heroic failed effort to keep Texas in the Union during the Civil War, the transitions in Texas history have often been as painful and tense as the “normal” periods in between. Here, in all of its epic grandeur, is the story of Texas as its own passionate nation. more... about Passionate Nation: The Epic History of Texas

• Winner of the T.R. Fehrenbach Book Award

A Girl Named Carrie: The Visionary Who Created Neiman Marcus and Set the Standard for Fashion

Published: January, 2022  Pages: 184  Features: 72 color and b&w illus.

Along with her brother, Herbert Marcus Sr., and her husband A.L. Neiman, Carrie Marcus Neiman co-founded in 1907 the famed Neiman Marcus department store in Dallas, Texas. She played an integral role in the store’s success, despite having three strikes against her: she was a woman, she was Jewish, and she was divorced. Yet with impeccable taste and exemplary manners, she traveled as a buyer to New York in the 1920s (without a man!) and, as author Jerrie Marcus Smith says, “was nobody’s pushover.” This beautiful, full-color book tells the full story of this remarkable woman. more... about A Girl Named Carrie: The Visionary Who Created Neiman Marcus and Set the Standard for Fashion

The Bell Ringer

— Vol. 11: of Al Filo: Mexican American Studies Series

Published: November, 2021  Pages: 224  Features: 15 b&w illus.

This is the story of Victor Rodriguez, star track athlete and San Antonio educator. From his earliest days in South Texas in the 1940s he broke many barriers. As a football player and track star he set records and won trophies at Edna High School, at Victoria College, and at North Texas State College. At each stage of his education, he often found himself the only Mexican American in his group. more... about The Bell Ringer

Rare Integrity: A Portrait of L. W. Payne, Jr.

— Vol. 29: of Texas Folklore Society Extra Book

Published: November, 2021  Pages: 172  Features: 1 b&w illus. Notes. Index.

Leonidas Warren Payne, Jr. (1873-1945), counted Robert Frost among his friends and a member of the inner circle of poets who embraced him and sought his advice. He altered forever the perception of Texas when he created the Texas Folklore Society that continues to record, publish, and promote Texas history, myth, music, and customs. He guided J. Frank Dobie back into The University of Texas fold, where Dobie produced his finest work and established a voice for Texas literature. L. W. Payne, Jr., influenced generations of American school children through his anthologies that became basic English textbooks. more... about Rare Integrity: A Portrait of L. W. Payne, Jr.

John B. Denton: The Bigger-Than-Life Story of the Fighting Parson and Texas Ranger

— Vol. 6: of Texas Local

Published: October, 2021  Pages: 256  Features: 6 b&w illus. 5 maps. Notes. Bib. Index.

Denton County and the City of Denton are named for pioneer preacher, lawyer, and Indian fighter John B. Denton, but little has been known about him. He was an orphan in frontier Arkansas who became a circuit-riding Methodist preacher and an important member of a movement of early settlers bringing civilization to North Texas. After becoming a ranger on the frontier, he ultimately was killed in the Tarrant Expedition, a Texas Ranger raid on a series of villages inhabited by various Caddoan and other tribes near Village Creek on May 24, 1841. more... about John B. Denton: The Bigger-Than-Life Story of the Fighting Parson and Texas Ranger

Proud Warriors: African American Combat Units in World War II

— Vol. 6: of American Military Studies

Published: October, 2021  Pages: 352  Features: 31 b&w illus. 2 maps. Notes. Bib. Index.

During World War II, tens of thousands of African Americans served in segregated combat units in U.S. armed forces. The majority of these units were found in the U.S. Army, and African Americans served in every one of the combat arms. They found opportunities for leadership unparalleled in the rest of American society at the time. Several reached the field grade officer ranks, and one officer reached the rank of brigadier general. more... about Proud Warriors: African American Combat Units in World War II

Texas Ranger Captain William L. Wright

Published: September, 2021  Pages: 416  Features: 32 b&w illus. 3 maps. Notes. Bib. Index.

William L. Wright (1868–1942) was born to be a Texas Ranger, and hard work made him a great one. Wright tried working as a cowboy and farmer, but it did not suit him. Instead, he became a deputy sheriff and then a Ranger in 1899, battling a mob in the Laredo Smallpox Riot, policing both sides in the Reese-Townsend Feud, and winning a gunfight at Cotulla. more... about Texas Ranger Captain William L. Wright

Times Remembered: The Final Years of the Bill Evans Trio

— Vol. 15: of North Texas Lives of Musicians Series

Published: September, 2021  Pages: 256  Features: 35 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

Read Joe La Barbera’s interview with Bob Hecht for Jerry Jazz Musician. more... about Times Remembered: The Final Years of the Bill Evans Trio

Dirty Eddie’s War: Based on the World War II Diary of Harry “Dirty Eddie” March, Jr., Pacific Fighter Ace

— Vol. 20: of North Texas Military Biography and Memoir Series

Published: August, 2021  Pages: 352  Features: 37 b&w illus. 13 maps. Notes. Bib. Index.

Dirty Eddie’s War is the true account of the war-time experiences of Harry Andrew March, Jr., captured by way of diary entries addressed to his beloved wife, Elsa. Nicknamed “Dirty Eddie” by his comrades, he served as a member of four squadrons operating in the South Pacific, frequently under difficult and perilous conditions. Flying initially from aircraft carriers covering the landings at Guadalcanal in August 1942, he was one of the first pilots in the air over the island and then later based at Henderson Field with the “Cactus Air Force.” When he returned to combat at Bougainville and the “Hot Box” of Rabaul, the exploits of the new Corsair squadron “Fighting Seventeen” became legendary. more... about Dirty Eddie’s War: Based on the World War II Diary of Harry “Dirty Eddie” March, Jr., Pacific Fighter Ace

The Ranger Ideal Volume 3: Texas Rangers in the Hall of Fame, 1898–1987

Published: July, 2021  Pages: 864  Features: 36 b&w illus. Map. Notes. Bib. Index.

Established in Waco in 1968, the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum honors the iconic Texas Rangers, a service that has existed, in one form or another, since 1823. Thirty-one individuals—whose lives span more than two centuries—have been enshrined in the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame. They have become legendary symbols of Texas and the American West. more... about The Ranger Ideal Volume 3: Texas Rangers in the Hall of Fame, 1898–1987

The Best American Newspaper Narratives, Volume 8

Published: June, 2021  Pages: 320 

This anthology collects the ten winners of the 2020 Best American Newspaper Narrative Writing Contest at UNT’s Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference. First place winner: Christopher Goffard, “Detective Trapp” (Los Angeles Times) is about a complicated murder investigation and its human impact. Second place: Annie Gowen, “Left Behind: American Farm Families in Crisis during Trump’s Trade War” (The Washington Post) tells about a despairing farmer’s suicide and aftermath. Third place: Jennifer Berry Hawes and Stephen Hobbs, “It’s Time for You to Die” (Post & Courier) presents a gut-wrenching drama of America’s deadliest episode of prison violence. more... about The Best American Newspaper Narratives, Volume 8

Theoria 27: Historical Aspects of Music Theory

Published: June, 2021  Pages: 196 

Theoria is an annual peer-reviewed journal on all aspects of the history of music theory. It includes critical articles representing the current stage of research, and editions of newly discovered or mostly unknown theoretical texts with translation and commentary. Analytical articles on recent or unknown repertory and methods are also published, as well as review articles on recent secondary literature and textbooks. Back issues are available from Texas A&M University Press. more... about Theoria 27: Historical Aspects of Music Theory

Recovering an Irish Voice from the American Frontier: The Prose Writings of Eoin Ua Cathail

Published: May, 2021  Pages: 288  Features: 19 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

Recovering an Irish Voice from the American Frontier is a bilingual compilation of stories by Eoin Ua Cathail, an Irish emigrant, based loosely on his experiences in the West and Midwest. The author draws on the popular American Dime Novel genre throughout to offer unique reflections on nineteenth-century American life. As a member of a government mule train accompanying the U.S. military during the Plains Indian Wars, Ua Cathail depicts fierce encounters with Native American tribes, while also subtly commenting on the hypocrisy of many famine-era Irish immigrants who failed to recognize the parallels between their own plight and that of dispossessed Native peoples. These views are further challenged by his stories set in the upper Midwest. more... about Recovering an Irish Voice from the American Frontier: The Prose Writings of Eoin Ua Cathail

Beneath Missouri Skies: Pat Metheny in Kansas City 1964-1972

— Vol. 14: of North Texas Lives of Musicians Series

Published: May, 2021  Pages: 288  Features: 30 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

The New Yorker recently referred to Pat Metheny as “possibly the most influential jazz guitarist of the past five decades.” A native of Lee’s Summit, Missouri, just southeast of Kansas City, Metheny started playing in pizza parlors at age fourteen. By the time he graduated from high school he was the first-call guitarist for Kansas City jazz clubs, private clubs, and jazz festivals. Now 66, he attributes his early success to the local musical environment he was brought up in and the players and teachers who nurtured his talent and welcomed him into the jazz community. more... about Beneath Missouri Skies: Pat Metheny in Kansas City 1964-1972

Every Lash

— Vol. 28: of Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry

Published: April, 2021  Pages: 92 

This collection’s title-as in tether, strike, eyelash, welt-is a nod to the fluidity of language and the foolish penchant we have for naming things, including ourselves. The poems refuse to navigate, choosing instead to face head-on the snares of gender, patriarchy, and parenting. In the closing environmental poems of farewell, the speaker regains communion with nature through the aging body. more... about Every Lash

• Winner of the Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry, 2020

Changing Perspectives: Black-Jewish Relations in Houston during the Civil Rights Era

— Vol. 5: of Texas Local

Published: March, 2021  Pages: 432  Features: 19 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

Changing Perspectives charts the pivotal period in Houston’s history when Jewish and Black leadership eventually came together to work for positive change. This is a story of two communities, both of which struggled to claim the rights and privileges they desired. Previous scholars of Southern Jewish history have argued that Black-Jewish relations did not exist in the South. However, during the 1930s to the 1980s, Jews and Blacks in Houston interacted in diverse and oftentimes surprising ways. more... about Changing Perspectives: Black-Jewish Relations in Houston during the Civil Rights Era

War in the Villages: The U.S. Marine Corps Combined Action Platoons in the Vietnam War

— Vol. 5: of American Military Studies

Published: March, 2021  Pages: 272  Features: 26 b&w illus. 2 maps. Notes. Bib. Index.

Listen to Ted N. Easterling’s interview discussing War in the Villages on the Military History Inside Out podcast hosted by Cris Alvarez. more... about War in the Villages: The U.S. Marine Corps Combined Action Platoons in the Vietnam War

Fort Worth Stories

— Vol. 4: of Texas Local

Published: February, 2021  Pages: 320  Features: 50 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

Fort Worth Stories is a collection of thirty-two bite-sized chapters of the city’s history. Did you know that the same day Fort Worth was mourning the death of beloved African American “Gooseneck Bill” McDonald, Dallas was experiencing a series of bombings in black neighborhoods? Or that Fort Worth almost got the largest statue to Robert E. Lee ever put up anywhere, sculpted by the same massive talent that created Mount Rushmore? Or that Fort Worth was once the candy-making capital of the Southwest and gave Hershey, Pennsylvania, a good run for its money as the sweet spot of the nation? more... about Fort Worth Stories

A Biscuit for Your Shoe: A Memoir of County Line, a Texas Freedom Colony

— Vol. 28: of Texas Folklore Society Extra Book

Published: November, 2020  Pages: 288  Features: 40 b&w illus. Index.

A Biscuit for Your Shoe captures the lore of a community which began as a freedom colony west of Nacogdoches in East Texas, through the eyes of Beatrice Upshaw. The book is a memoir, but it shares more than merely family memories of significant events. It tells of beliefs, home remedies, folk games, and customs, as well as the importance of religion and education to a community of like-minded people. The narrative is a rich source of colloquial language and proverbial sayings that help define a group of people and their strong sense of place. more... about A Biscuit for Your Shoe: A Memoir of County Line, a Texas Freedom Colony

Some People Let You Down

— Vol. 19: of Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction

Published: November, 2020  Pages: 192 

The nine stories in Mike Alberti’s debut collection shine a sharp light on small-town American life —not the Arcadian small towns of yesteryear, but the old mill towns hanging on after the mill has stopped running, the deserted agricultural communities in the middle of vast industrial farms, places where bad luck has become part of the weather. But even in these blighted, neglected landscapes, the possibility of renewal always presents itself: there is hope for these places and the characters who inhabit them. In these fresh, innovative stories, some people let you down, but some people don’t. more... about Some People Let You Down

Scouting with the Buffalo Soldiers: Lieutenant Powhatan Clarke, Frederic Remington, and the Tenth U.S. Cavalry in the Southwest

— Vol. 19: of North Texas Military Biography and Memoir Series

Published: October, 2020  Pages: 480  Features: 14 color and 36 b&w illus. Map. Notes. Bib. Index.

On a hot summer’s day in Montana, a daring frontier cavalry officer, Powhatan Henry Clarke, died at the height of his promising career. A member of the U.S. Military Academy’s Class of 1884, Clarke graduated dead last, and while short on academic application, he was long on charm and bravado. Clarke obtained a commission with the black troops of the Tenth Cavalry, earning his spurs with these “Buffalo Soldiers.” more... about Scouting with the Buffalo Soldiers: Lieutenant Powhatan Clarke, Frederic Remington, and the Tenth U.S. Cavalry in the Southwest

Tall Walls and High Fences Officers and Offenders, the Texas Prison Story

— Vol. 12: of North Texas Crime and Criminal Justice Series

Published: October, 2020  Pages: 608  Features: 96 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

Tall Walls and High Fences is the first comprehensive history of Texas prisons, written by a former law enforcement officer and an officer of the Texas prisons. Bob Alexander and Richard K. Alford chronicle the significant events and transformation of the Texas prison system from its earliest times to the present day, paying special attention to the human side of the story. Within these pages are stories of prison breaks, bloodhounds chasing escapees, and gunfights. Inside the walls are deadly confrontations, human trafficking, rape, clandestine consensual trysts, and tricks turned against correctional officers. more... about Tall Walls and High Fences Officers and Offenders, the Texas Prison Story

Living in the Shadow of a Hell Ship: The Survival Story of U.S. Marine George Burlage, a WWII Prisoner-of-War of the Japanese

— Vol. 18: of North Texas Military Biography and Memoir Series

Published: September, 2020  Pages: 256  Features: 41 b&w illus. 5 maps. Bib. Index.

U.S. Marine George Burlage was part of the largest surrender in American history at Bataan and Corregidor in the spring of 1942, where the Japanese captured more than 85,000 troops. More than forty percent would not survive World War II. His prisoner-of-war ordeal began at Cabanatuan near Manila, where the death rate in the early months of World War II was fifty men a day. Sensing that Cabanatuan was a death trap, he managed to get transferred to the isolated island of Palawan to help build an airfield for his captors. more... about Living in the Shadow of a Hell Ship: The Survival Story of U.S. Marine George Burlage, a WWII Prisoner-of-War of the Japanese

Firearms of the Texas Rangers: From the Frontier Era to the Modern Age

Published: August, 2020  Pages: 640  Features: 182 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

From their founding in the 1820s up to the modern age, the Texas Rangers have shown the ability to adapt and survive. Part of that survival depended on their use of firearms. The evolving technology of these weapons often determined the effectiveness of these early-day Rangers. John Coffee “Jack” Hays and Samuel Walker would leave their mark on the Rangers by incorporating new technology which allowed them to alter tactics when confronting their adversaries. The Frontier Battalion was created at about the same time as the Colt Peacemaker and the Winchester 73—these were the guns that “won the West.” more... about Firearms of the Texas Rangers: From the Frontier Era to the Modern Age

The Earps Invade Southern California: Bootlegging Los Angeles, Santa Monica, and the Old Soldiers' Home

Published: July, 2020  Pages: 304  Features: 79 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

Most readers of the Wild West know Wyatt Earp, Virgil Earp, and Morgan Earp for the famous shootout on the streets of Tombstone, Arizona. But few know the later years of the close-knit Earp family, which revolved around patriarch Nicholas Earp, and their last push at a major monetary coup in Los Angeles. more... about The Earps Invade Southern California: Bootlegging Los Angeles, Santa Monica, and the Old Soldiers' Home

Snapshots and Short Notes: Images and Messages of Early Twentieth-Century Photo Postcards

Published: June, 2020  Pages: 304  Features: 400 color illus. Bib. Index.

Snapshots and Short Notes examines the photographic postcards exchanged during the first half of the twentieth century as illustrated, first-hand accounts of American life. Almost immediately after the introduction of the generic postcard at the turn of the century, innovations in small, accessible cameras added black and white photographs to the cards. The resulting combination of image and text emerged as a communication device tantamount to social media today. more... about Snapshots and Short Notes: Images and Messages of Early Twentieth-Century Photo Postcards

The Best American Newspaper Narratives, Volume 7

Published: June, 2020  Pages: 288 

This anthology collects the winners of the 2019 Best American Newspaper Narrative Writing Contest at UNT’s Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference. First place winner: Eli Saslow, “It Was My Job, and I Didn’t Find Him” (The Washington Post), narrates the life of a former officer at the Parkland high school shooting. Second place: Elizabeth Bruenig, “What Do We Owe Her Now?” (The Washington Post), is the story of a high school rape victim who received no justice. Third place: Hannah Dreier, “The Disappeared” (ProPublica), follows a mother who lost her teenage son to gang violence. more... about The Best American Newspaper Narratives, Volume 7

Theoria 26: Historical Aspects of Music Theory

Published: June, 2020  Pages: 196 

Theoria is an annual peer-reviewed journal on all aspects of the history of music theory. It includes critical articles representing the current stage of research, and editions of newly discovered or mostly unknown theoretical texts with translation and commentary. Analytical articles on recent or unknown repertory and methods are also published, as well as review articles on recent secondary literature and textbooks. Back issues are available from Texas A&M University Press. more... about Theoria 26: Historical Aspects of Music Theory

Conducting Opera: Where Theater Meets Music

Published: May, 2020  Pages: 336  Features: 25 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

Conducting Opera discusses operas in the standard repertory from the perspective of a conductor with a lifetime of experience performing them. It focuses on Joseph Rescigno’s approach to preparing and performing these masterworks in order to realize what opera can uniquely achieve: a fusion of music and drama resulting in a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. more... about Conducting Opera: Where Theater Meets Music

Country Cop: True Tales from a Texas Deputy Sheriff

— Vol. 11: of North Texas Crime and Criminal Justice Series

Published: May, 2020  Pages: 464  Features: 20 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

The deputy sheriff or sheriff of a county often is perceived as the lone officer protecting the citizens of a small town. Country Cop is the riveting story of one such deputy sheriff, Barry Goodson, and his experiences with the Parker County Sheriff’s office in the 1990s and early 2000s in North Texas. Goodson puts the reader in his patrol car to vicariously share what it is like to be in county law enforcement. He reveals his officer’s skills, which include the ability to identify an offender immediately, to assess that offender’s immediate intent (apparent or not), and to decide on proper action. more... about Country Cop: True Tales from a Texas Deputy Sheriff

Instructions for Seeing a Ghost

— Vol. 27: of Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry

Published: April, 2020  Pages: 112 

Listen to an interview with author Steve Bellin-Oka on Big Blend Radio, discussing Instructions for Seeing a Ghost and his 2019 National Parks poetry residency. more... about Instructions for Seeing a Ghost

• Winner of the Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry

Bob Bilyeu Camblin: An Iconoclast in Houston's Emerging Art Scene

Published: April, 2020  Pages: 320  Features: 80 color and 20 b&w illus. Bib. Index.

Born in Ponca City, Oklahoma, Bob Camblin (1928-2010) was an artist, first and foremost. He earned his BFA and MFA degrees from the Kansas City Art Institute. His studies were followed by a Fulbright Fellowship that allowed him a year’s stay in Italy. Returning to the USA, he held teaching positions at the Ringling Museum, the University of Illinois, Detroit Mercy, and the University of Utah before moving to Houston in 1967 to teach at Rice’s new art department. He was active in Houston during the late 1960s through the 1980s, collaborating with Earl Staley and Joe Tate on many projects, including “happenings” on the beach in Galveston. His career led him to creative undertakings all over the world. Throughout his lifetime he constantly experimented with various art media. He remained open to new ideas and new techniques until his death in Louisiana in 2010. more... about Bob Bilyeu Camblin: An Iconoclast in Houston's Emerging Art Scene

Hope for Justice and Power: Broad-based Community Organizing in the Texas Industrial Areas Foundation

Published: March, 2020  Pages: 360  Features: 25 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

Texas-based affiliates in the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF)—built on ideas, principles, and actions from the late Saul Alinsky—offer a strong, mature organizing model compared with other community organizations. In Hope for Justice and Power, Kathleen Staudt examines the twenty-first-century activities of the Texas IAF in multiple cities and towns around the state, drawing on forty years of academic teaching and on twenty years of active leadership experiences in the IAF. She identifies major contradictions, tensions, and their resolutions in IAF organizing related to centralism versus local control, reformist versus radical goals, stable revenue generation, greater gender balance in leadership, and evolving IAF principles. more... about Hope for Justice and Power: Broad-based Community Organizing in the Texas Industrial Areas Foundation

Obstinate Heroism: The Confederate Surrenders after Appomattox

— Vol. 4: of American Military Studies

Published: March, 2020  Pages: 504  Features: 24 b&w illus. 18 maps. Notes. Bib. Index.

Despite popular belief, the Civil War did not end when Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox, Virginia, in April 1865. The Confederacy still had tens of thousands of soldiers under arms, in three main field armies and countless smaller commands scattered throughout the South. Although pressed by Union forces at varying degrees, all of the remaining Confederate armies were capable of continuing the war if they chose to do so. But they did not, even when their political leaders ordered them to continue the fight. Convinced that most civilians no longer wanted to continue the war, the senior Confederate military leadership, over the course of several weeks, surrendered their armies under different circumstances. more... about Obstinate Heroism: The Confederate Surrenders after Appomattox

Forging the Star: The Official Modern History of the United States Marshals Service

Published: March, 2020  Pages: 560  Features: 38 b&w photos. Notes. Bib. Index.

U.S. Marshal Service Historian David S. Turk joins History Personified to discuss his new book, Forging the Star: The Official Modern History of the United States Marshal Service. more... about Forging the Star: The Official Modern History of the United States Marshals Service

Texas Ranger Lee Hall: From the Red River to the Rio Grande

Published: February, 2020  Pages: 432  Features: 35 b&w illus. 3 maps. Notes. Bib. Index.

Jesse Lee Hall (1849-1911) was one of many young men seeking a new life following the Civil War, when he left North Carolina to find adventure in Texas. After a stint as a deputy sheriff and a Sergeant-at-Arms in the House of Representatives, he joined Captain Leander McNelly’s Texas Ranger Special State Troops in 1876. This was the career move that he had needed as he soon found enough action in South Texas. more... about Texas Ranger Lee Hall: From the Red River to the Rio Grande

Contested Policy: The Rise and Fall of Federal Bilingual Education in the United States, 1960-2001

— Vol. 1: of Al Filo: Mexican American Studies Series

Published: February, 2020  Pages: 176  Features: Notes. Bib essay. Index.

Bilingual education is one of the most contentious and misunderstood educational programs in the country. It raises significant questions about this country’s national identity, the nature of federalism, power, ethnicity, and pedagogy. In Contested Policy, Guadalupe San Miguel, Jr., studies the origins, evolution, and consequences of federal bilingual education policy from 1960 to 2001, with particular attention to the activist years after 1978, when bilingual policy was heatedly contested. more... about Contested Policy: The Rise and Fall of Federal Bilingual Education in the United States, 1960-2001

Journal of Schenkerian Studies 12

Published: December, 2019  Pages: 240 

The Journal of Schenkerian Studies is a peer-reviewed journal published annually by the Center for Schenkerian Studies at the University of North Texas. The journal features articles on all facets of Schenkerian thought, including theory, analysis, pedagogy, and historical aspects. Back issues can be obtained from Texas A&M University Press. more... about Journal of Schenkerian Studies 12

A Boyhood Dream Realized: Half a Century of Texas Culture, One Newspaper Column at a Time

— Vol. 27: of Texas Folklore Society Extra Book

Published: November, 2019  Pages: 352  Features: 20 b&w illus. Index.

This collection of columns from the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal is Texas Folklore Society Extra Book #27. The editorial columns included herein tell stories, and tell about telling stories. They also reflect boyhood dreams… and foolishness, fears, beliefs, customs, traditions, and sometimes things that are no longer part of our culture but we wish were. All reflect what was—and for many, still is—important. If “the traditional knowledge of a culture” is how we define what folklore is, this volume provides an intimate look at the folklore of Lubbock, Texas, and the greater area of the South Plains. more... about A Boyhood Dream Realized: Half a Century of Texas Culture, One Newspaper Column at a Time

From Texas to Tinian and Tokyo Bay: The Memoirs of Captain J. R. Ritter, Seabee Commander during the Pacific War, 1942-1945

— Vol. 17: of North Texas Military Biography and Memoir Series

Published: November, 2019  Pages: 240  Features: 12 b&w illus. 6 maps. Notes. Bib.

This is the story of J. R. Ritter (1902-1994), a civil engineer from Texas who became a U.S. Navy Seabee officer during World War II. For his memoir he preserved personal papers, letters, photos, and other items, many of which are reproduced in this book. His narrative is edited and annotated by his grandson, Jonathan Templin Ritter. more... about From Texas to Tinian and Tokyo Bay: The Memoirs of Captain J. R. Ritter, Seabee Commander during the Pacific War, 1942-1945

Orders of Protection

— Vol. 18: of Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction

Published: November, 2019  Pages: 160 

In abuse situations, people can go to court for orders of protection. But in these twelve stories, people also seek protection from various demons in unusual ways — by impersonating famous musicians, cooking pet chickens, marching in parades, shooting at coyotes, calling lost dogs, and more. The characters don’t always find their way to safety or even survival, but somehow optimism prevails anyway. Set in Illinois, these subtly linked stories explore circumstances and emotions through details that stay with you far beyond the last page. more... about Orders of Protection

Adolphe Gouhenant: French Revolutionary, Utopian Leader, and Texas Frontier Photographer

— Vol. 3: of Texas Local

Published: October, 2019  Pages: 464  Features: 30 b&w illus. 2 maps. Notes. Bib. Index.

Adolphe Gouhenant tells the story of artist, revolutionary, and early North Texas resident Francois Ignace (Adolphe) Gouhenant (1804-1871). Gouhenant was selected by well-known Icarian communist Etienne Cabet to lead an advance guard from France to settle a utopian colony in North Texas. The community, beset by hardships, ultimately scapegoated Gouhenant, accused him of being a French agent, and expelled him. He then journeyed first to Fort Worth to teach the federal soldiers French and art, and next to Dallas, where he founded the town’s first arts establishment in the 1850s. Gouhenant set up shop as a daguerreotypist and photographed the town’s early residents. His Arts Saloon was the scene of many exhibitions and dances but ultimately became the high stake in a nasty battle among Dallas’s leading citizens, setting legal precedent for Texas homestead law. more... about Adolphe Gouhenant: French Revolutionary, Utopian Leader, and Texas Frontier Photographer

From the Halls of the Montezumas: Mexican War Dispatches from James L. Freaner, Writing under the Pen Name "Mustang"

— Vol. 14: of War and the Southwest Series

Published: October, 2019  Pages: 576  Features: 31 b&w illus. 3 maps. Notes. Bib. Index.

James L. Freaner was one of America’s first war correspondents covering General Winfield Scott’s campaign during the Mexican War. His letters appeared in newspapers under the byline “Mustang,” and his reports from the front included publication of complete casualty lists (long before official reports became public), detailed battle descriptions, and observations on postwar Mexico. Freaner’s greatest contribution was persuading Nicholas P. Trist, negotiator with Mexico, to ignore his recall and conclude a peace treaty that added California, Nevada, Utah, and other territory to a growing country. more... about From the Halls of the Montezumas: Mexican War Dispatches from James L. Freaner, Writing under the Pen Name "Mustang"

Classic Keys: Keyboard Sounds That Launched Rock Music

Published: September, 2019  Pages: 416  Features: 421 color illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

Listen to Alan Lenhoff’s interview on WYSO’s Book Nook with Vick Mickunas. more... about Classic Keys: Keyboard Sounds That Launched Rock Music

The Devil's Triangle: Ben Bickerstaff, Northeast Texans, and the War of Reconstruction in Texas

Published: September, 2019  Pages: 240  Features: 12 b&w illus. 7 maps. Notes. Bib.

“This book provides a well-researched, exhaustive, and fascinating examination of the life of Benjamin Bickerstaff, a desperado who preyed on blacks, Unionists, and others in northeastern Texas during the Reconstruction era until armed citizens killed him in the town of Alvarado in 1869. The work adds to our knowledge of Reconstruction violence and graphically supports the idea that the Civil War in Texas did not really end in 1865 but continued long afterward.” —Carl Moneyhon, author of Texas after the Civil War: The Struggle of Reconstruction more... about The Devil's Triangle: Ben Bickerstaff, Northeast Texans, and the War of Reconstruction in Texas

The Other Toscanini: The Life and Works of Héctor Panizza

— Vol. 13: of North Texas Lives of Musicians Series

Published: September, 2019  Pages: 320  Features: 28 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

The Other Toscanini is the only book in English about the Argentine conductor and composer Héctor Panizza (1875-1967). Known all over the world by his Italian name —Ettore— the maestro was in fact born in Buenos Aires and developed an astonishing international career, becoming music director of, successively, Covent Garden, la Scala (where he conducted alongside Arturo Toscanini), Teatro Colón, and the New York Metropolitan Opera. At the Met between 1934 and 1942, he was in charge of the Italian repertoire and started the first radio broadcasts, whose recordings are his most well-known. He conducted widely in Europe and the Americas and devoted part of his energies to composing, recording, and organizing musical institutions. Now virtually forgotten, Panizza’s name is being revived in this definitive biography, which describes both his life and his legacy, strongly associated with that of the great Arturo Toscanini. more... about The Other Toscanini: The Life and Works of Héctor Panizza

A Wyatt Earp Anthology: Long May His Story Be Told

Published: August, 2019  Pages: 912  Features: 33 b&w illus. 2 maps. Bib. Index.

Wyatt Earp is one of the most legendary figures of the nineteenth-century American West, notable for his role in the gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. Some see him as a hero lawman of the Wild West, whereas others see him as yet another outlaw, a pimp, and failed lawman. more... about A Wyatt Earp Anthology: Long May His Story Be Told

• 2019 WWHA Six-Shooter Award for Best Book on Wild West History

The Cornett-Whitley Gang: Violence Unleashed in Texas

— Vol. 21: of A. C. Greene Series

Published: July, 2019  Pages: 320  Features: 19 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

During the late 1880s, the Cornett-Whitley gang rose on the Texas scene with a daring train robbery at McNeil Station, only miles from the capital of Texas. In the frenzy that followed the robbery, the media castigated both lawmen and government officials, at times lauded the outlaws, and indulged in trial by media. At Flatonia the gang tortured the passengers and indulged in an orgy of violence that earned them international recognition and infamy. Private enterprises, such as Wells Fargo, the railroads, and numerous banks, joined forces with law enforcement to combat them. Lawmen from cities and counties combined with federal marshals and the Texas Rangers to further cement what would become the “brotherhood of the badge.” These efforts succeeded in tracking down and killing or capturing a good number of the gang members. more... about The Cornett-Whitley Gang: Violence Unleashed in Texas

Military History of the West, Vol. 48

Published: June, 2019  Pages: 102 

The Military History of the West is a peer-reviewed journal focused on scholarly study of western US military history, including the Mississippi Valley and all states west of that line. The journal features articles on the Texas Revolution, the Mexican War, frontier military service, the Civil War, the Indian Wars, the Spanish-American War, Mexican border service, and the Texas National Guard in the twentieth century, including its service in World War I and World War II. more... about Military History of the West, Vol. 48

Theoria 25: Historical Aspects of Music Theory

Published: June, 2019  Pages: 196 

Theoria is an annual peer-reviewed journal on all aspects of the history of music theory. It includes critical articles representing the current stage of research, and editions of newly discovered or mostly unknown theoretical texts with translation and commentary. Analytical articles on recent or unknown repertory and methods are also published, as well as review articles on recent secondary literature and textbooks. Back issues are available from Texas A&M University Press. more... about Theoria 25: Historical Aspects of Music Theory

The Best American Newspaper Narratives, Volume 6

Published: June, 2019  Pages: 392 

This anthology collects the eleven winners of the 2018 Best American Newspaper Narrative Writing Contest at the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference, an event hosted by the Frank W. Mayborn Graduate Institute of Journalism at the University of North Texas. more... about The Best American Newspaper Narratives, Volume 6

A Life in Music from the Soviet Union to Canada: Memoirs of a Madrigal Ensemble Singer

— Vol. 12: of North Texas Lives of Musicians Series

Published: May, 2019  Pages: 448  Features: 50 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

A Life in Music from the Soviet Union to Canada: Memoirs of a Madrigal Ensemble Singer - Sound Files on Digital Library. more... about A Life in Music from the Soviet Union to Canada: Memoirs of a Madrigal Ensemble Singer

Minding the Helm: An Unlikely Career in the U.S. Coast Guard

— Vol. 14: of North Texas Military Biography and Memoir Series

Published: May, 2019  Pages: 304  Features: 28 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

As a boy growing up in New York City, Kevin P. Gilheany had two dreams: to join the Coast Guard and to play the bagpipes. But by the time he finished high school he was overweight, had a drinking problem, and couldn’t swim. Undeterred by the doubts of the folks at home, he decided to enlist in the Coast Guard anyway. more... about Minding the Helm: An Unlikely Career in the U.S. Coast Guard

A Machine-Gunner in France: The Memoirs of Ward Schrantz, 35th Division, 1917-1919

— Vol. 16: of North Texas Military Biography and Memoir Series

Published: April, 2019  Pages: 400  Features: 44 b&w illus. 4 maps. Notes. Bib. Index.

This is the WWI memoir of Ward Schrantz, a National Guard officer and machine gun company commander in the Kansas-Missouri 35^th^ Division. He extensively documents his experiences and those of his men, from training at Camp Doniphan to their voyage across the Atlantic, and to their time in the trenches in France’s Vosges Mountains and ultimately to their return home. He devotes much of his memoir to the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, in which the 35^th^ Division suffered heavy casualties and made only moderate gains before being replaced by fresh troops. Schrantz also describes the daily life of a soldier, including living conditions, relations between officers and enlisted men, and the horrific experience of combat. more... about A Machine-Gunner in France: The Memoirs of Ward Schrantz, 35th Division, 1917-1919

Dream Kitchen

— Vol. 26: of Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry

Published: April, 2019  Pages: 98  Features: Poetry.

Owen McLeod’s extraordinary debut maps the contours of an ordinary life: the rise and fall of romantic love, the struggle against mental illness, and the unending quest for meaning and transcendence. Ranging from sonnets and sestinas to experimental forms, these poems are unified by their musicality, devotion to craft, and openness of heart. more... about Dream Kitchen

• Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry

Phantom in the Sky: A Marine's Back Seat View of the Vietnam War

— Vol. 15: of North Texas Military Biography and Memoir Series

Published: March, 2019  Pages: 400  Features: 31 b&w illus. Map. Notes. Bib. Index.

Listen to an interview with Terry L. Thorsen for the War and Life YouTube interview series hosted by Preston Jones of John Brown University. more... about Phantom in the Sky: A Marine's Back Seat View of the Vietnam War

Beyond the Quagmire: New Interpretations of the Vietnam War

Published: March, 2019  Pages: 432  Features: 11 b&w illus. 4 maps. Notes. Bib. Index.

In Beyond the Quagmire, thirteen scholars from across disciplines provide a series of provocative, important, and timely essays on the politics, combatants, and memory of the Vietnam War. more... about Beyond the Quagmire: New Interpretations of the Vietnam War

Probably Someday Cancer: Genetic Risk and Preventative Mastectomy

— Vol. 9: of Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Series

Published: February, 2019  Pages: 208  Features: 10 b&w illus. Notes. Bib.

Listen to Kim Horner’s interview on KERA’s Think with Krys Boyd. more... about Probably Someday Cancer: Genetic Risk and Preventative Mastectomy

• Foreword Reviews 2019 INDIEFAB Book of the Year Award Winner in Health

Tracing Darwin's Path in Cape Horn

Published: January, 2019  Pages: 256  Features: 170 color illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

Charles Darwin spent the majority of his 1831-1836 voyage around the world in southern South America, and his early experiences in the Cape Horn region seem to have triggered his first ideas on human evolution. Darwin was not only a field naturalist, but also a scholar of the observations of the European explorers who preceded him. This book illuminates the foundations of Cape Horn’s natural history that oriented Darwin’s own explorations and his ideas on evolution, which acquire the highest relevance for planetary sustainability and environmental ethics. more... about Tracing Darwin's Path in Cape Horn

The San Saba Treasure: Legends of Silver Creek

— Vol. 26: of Texas Folklore Society Extra Book

Published: December, 2018  Pages: 240  Features: 20 b&w illus. Index.

In 1868, four treasure hunters from San Marcos, Texas, searched for a lost mine on the San Saba River, near today’s Menard. It was popularized as folklore in J. Frank Dobie’s treasure legend classic Coronado’s Children. One hundred and fifty years later, a descendant of one of those four men set out to discover the history behind the legend. This book recounts that search, from the founding of the ill-fated 1757 mission on the San Saba River up to the last attempt, in 1990, to find the treasure in this particular legend. It describes Jim Bowie, a fake treasure map industry, murder trials, a rattlesnake dancer, fortunes lost, a very long Texas cave, and surprising twists to the story popularized by Dobie. more... about The San Saba Treasure: Legends of Silver Creek

Quantum Convention

— Vol. 17: of Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction

Published: November, 2018  Pages: 192 

Quantum Convention’s eight genre-bending stories balance precariously between reality and fantasy, the suburban and the magical, the quotidian and the strange. Caught at a crossroads in his marriage, a high school teacher attends a parallel universe convention, where he meets his multiple selves and explores the alternate paths of life’s what-ifs. more... about Quantum Convention

• Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction, 2018
• 2020 GLCA New Writers Award in Fiction

You Shook Me All Campaign Long: Music in the 2016 Presidential Election and Beyond

Published: November, 2018  Pages: 352  Features: Notes. Index. Open Access

Listen to Eric T. Kasper’s interview on Texas Public Radio’s The Source to learn more about the history of music use in presidential campaigns. more... about You Shook Me All Campaign Long: Music in the 2016 Presidential Election and Beyond

Flying with the Fifteenth Air Force: A B-24 Pilot's Missions from Italy during World War II

— Vol. 13: of North Texas Military Biography and Memoir Series

Published: October, 2018  Pages: 368  Features: 63 b&w illus. 2 maps. Notes. Bib. Index.

Listen to David Snead’s interview Flying with the Fifteenth Air Force on the Military History Inside Out podcast hosted by Cris Alvarez. more... about Flying with the Fifteenth Air Force: A B-24 Pilot's Missions from Italy during World War II

The Ranger Ideal Volume 2: Texas Rangers in the Hall of Fame, 1874-1930

Published: October, 2018  Pages: 816  Features: 48 b&w illus. 2 maps. Notes. Bib. Index.

Established in Waco in 1968, the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum honors the iconic Texas Rangers, a service that has existed, in one form or another, since 1823. They have become legendary symbols of Texas and the American West. more... about The Ranger Ideal Volume 2: Texas Rangers in the Hall of Fame, 1874-1930

The Phantom Vietnam War: An F-4 Pilot's Combat over Laos

— Vol. 12: of North Texas Military Biography and Memoir Series

Published: September, 2018  Pages: 416  Features: 54 b&w illus. Map. Notes. Bib. Index.

David R. “Buff” Honodel was a cocky young man with an inflated self-image when he arrived in 1969 at his base in Udorn, Thailand. His war was not in Vietnam; it was a secret one in the skies of a neighboring country almost unknown in America, attacking the Ho Chi Minh Trail that fed soldiers and supplies from North Vietnam into the South. Stateside he learned the art of flying the F-4, but in combat, the bomb-loaded fighter handled differently, targets shot back, and people suffered. Inert training ordnance was replaced by lethal weapons. In the air, a routine day mission turned into an unexpected duel with a deadly adversary. Complacency during a long night mission escorting a gunship almost led to death. A best friend died just before New Year’s. A RF-4 crashed into the base late in Buff’s tour of duty. more... about The Phantom Vietnam War: An F-4 Pilot's Combat over Laos

On the Jury Trial: Principles and Practices for Effective Advocacy

Published: September, 2018  Pages: 288  Features: 17 b&w illus. Index.

New in paperback! more... about On the Jury Trial: Principles and Practices for Effective Advocacy

A Different Face of War: Memories of a Medical Service Corps Officer in Vietnam

— Vol. 8: of North Texas Military Biography and Memoir Series

Published: August, 2018  Pages: 528  Features: 41 b&w illus. Map. Notes. Bib. Index.

Listen to an interview with James G. Van Straten for the War and Life YouTube interview series hosted by Preston Jones of John Brown University. more... about A Different Face of War: Memories of a Medical Service Corps Officer in Vietnam

• Selected by Major General Pat Sargent, Chief of the U.S. Army Medical Service Corps, for the Corps Chief's Reading List, May 2016

Ben Thompson: Portrait of a Gunfighter

— Vol. 20: of A. C. Greene Series

Published: August, 2018  Pages: 688  Features: 47 b&w illus. 3 maps. Notes. Bib. Index.

Ben Thompson was a remarkable man, and few Texans can claim to have crowded more excitement, danger, drama, and tragedy into their lives than he did. He was an Indian fighter, Texas Ranger, Confederate cavalryman, mercenary for a foreign emperor, hired gun for a railroad, an elected lawman, professional gambler, and the victor of numerous gunfights. more... about Ben Thompson: Portrait of a Gunfighter

War in East Texas: Regulators vs. Moderators

Published: July, 2018  Pages: 206  Features: 43 b&w illus. 2 maps. Notes. Bib. Index.

From 1840 through 1844 East Texas was wracked by murderous violence between Regulator and Moderator factions. More than thirty men were killed in assassinations, lynchings, ambushes, street fights, and pitched battles. The sheriff of Harrison County was murdered, and so was the founder of Marshall, as well as a former district judge. Senator Robert Potter, a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence, was slain by Regulators near his Caddo Lake home. Courts ceased to operate and anarchy reigned in Shelby County, Panola District, and Harrison County. Only the personal intervention of President Sam Houston and an invasion of the militia of the Republic of Texas halted the bloodletting. more... about War in East Texas: Regulators vs. Moderators

Old Riot, New Ranger: Captain Jack Dean, Texas Ranger and U.S. Marshal

— Vol. 17: of Frances B. Vick Series

Published: July, 2018  Pages: 544  Features: 104 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

Award-winning author Bob Alexander presents a biography of 20th-century Ranger Captain Jack Dean, who holds the distinction of being one of only five men to serve in both the Officer’s Corps of the Rangers and also as a President-appointed United States Marshal. more... about Old Riot, New Ranger: Captain Jack Dean, Texas Ranger and U.S. Marshal

The Best American Newspaper Narratives, Volume 5

Published: June, 2018  Pages: 392 

This anthology collects the ten winners of the 2016 Best American Newspaper Narrative Writing Contest at the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference, an event hosted by the Frank W. Mayborn Graduate Institute of Journalism at the University of North Texas. more... about The Best American Newspaper Narratives, Volume 5

They Called Him Buckskin Frank: The Life and Adventures of Nashville Franklyn Leslie

— Vol. 19: of A. C. Greene Series

Published: June, 2018  Pages: 272  Features: 31 b&w illus. 2 maps. Notes. Bib. Index.

Nashville Franklyn “Buckskin Frank” Leslie was a man of mystery during his lifetime. His reputation has rested on two gunfights—both in storied Tombstone, Arizona—but he was much more than a deadly gunfighter. Jack DeMattos and Chuck Parsons have combined their research efforts to help solve the questions of where Leslie came from and how he died. more... about They Called Him Buckskin Frank: The Life and Adventures of Nashville Franklyn Leslie

Military History of the West, Vol. 47

Published: June, 2018  Pages: 102 

The Military History of the West is a peer-reviewed journal focused on scholarly study of western US military history, including the Mississippi Valley and all states west of that line. The journal features articles on the Texas Revolution, the Mexican War, frontier military service, the Civil War, the Indian Wars, the Spanish-American War, Mexican border service, and the Texas National Guard in the twentieth century, including its service in World War I and World War II. more... about Military History of the West, Vol. 47

Theoria 24: Historical Aspects of Music Theory

Published: June, 2018  Pages: 196 

Theoria is an annual peer-reviewed journal on all aspects of the history of music theory. It includes critical articles representing the current stage of research, and editions of newly discovered or mostly unknown theoretical texts with translation and commentary. Analytical articles on recent or unknown repertory and methods are also published, as well as review articles on recent secondary literature and textbooks. Back issues are available from Texas A&M University Press. more... about Theoria 24: Historical Aspects of Music Theory

The AEF in Print: An Anthology of American Journalism in World War I

Published: May, 2018  Pages: 400  Features: 26 b&w illus. Map. Notes. Bib. Index.

The AEF in Print is an anthology that tells the story of U.S. involvement in World War I through newspaper and magazine articles—precisely how the American public experienced the Great War. From April 1917 to November 1918, Americans followed the war in their local newspapers and popular magazines. The book’s chapters are organized chronologically: Mobilization, Arrival in Europe, Learning to Fight, American Firsts, Battles, and the Armistice. Also included are topical chapters, such as At Sea, In the Air, In the Trenches, Wounded Warriors, and Heroes. more... about The AEF in Print: An Anthology of American Journalism in World War I

T-Bone Whacks and Caviar Snacks: Cooking with Two Texans in Siberia and the Russian Far East

— Vol. 5: of Great American Cooking Series

Published: April, 2018  Pages: 448  Features: 30 color illus. 30 b&w illus. Bib. Index.

Listen to the Montana Public Radio show The Food Guys discuss “Kulebyaka: Between The Salmon And The Pastry, What’s Not To Love?”, a recipe from T-Bone Whacks and Caviar Snacks. more... about T-Bone Whacks and Caviar Snacks: Cooking with Two Texans in Siberia and the Russian Far East

• Gourmand World Cookbook Awards Finalist, Silk Road Category, 2019

The Goat Songs

— Vol. 25: of Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry

Published: April, 2018  Pages: 82 

The poems in James Najarian’s debut collection are by turns tragic and mischievous, always with an exuberant attention to form. Najarian turns his caprine eye to the landscapes and history of Berks Country, Pennsylvania, and to the middle east of his extended Armenian family. These poems examine our bonds to the earth, to animals, to art and to desire. more... about The Goat Songs

• Winner of the Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry, 2017

From Santa Anna to Selena: Notable Mexicanos and Tejanos in Texas History since 1821

Published: March, 2018  Pages: 400  Features: 28 b&w illus. Notes. Index.

Learn more about Dr. Joseph and her passion for Texas history at her website Texas Joseph. more... about From Santa Anna to Selena: Notable Mexicanos and Tejanos in Texas History since 1821

• Clotilde P. Garcia Tejano Book Prize Award, Tejano Genealogy Society of Austin, 2018
• Ottis Locke Best Book from the East Texas Historical Association, 2018

Captain Jack Helm: A Victim of Texas Reconstruction Violence

— Vol. 18: of A. C. Greene Series

Published: March, 2018  Pages: 336  Features: 35 b&w illus. Map. Notes. Bib. Index.

In Captain Jack Helm, Chuck Parsons explores the life of John Jackson “Jack” Helm, whose main claim to fame has been that he was a victim of man-killer John Wesley Hardin. That he was, but he was much more in his violence-filled lifetime during Reconstruction Texas. First as a deputy sheriff, then county sheriff, and finally captain of the notorious Texas State Police, he developed a reputation as a violent and ruthless man-hunter. He arrested many suspected lawbreakers, but often his prisoner was killed before reaching a jail for “attempting to escape.” This horrific tendency ultimately brought about his downfall. Helm’s aggressive enforcement of his version of “law and order” resulted in a deadly confrontation with two of his enemies in the midst of the Sutton-Taylor Feud. more... about Captain Jack Helm: A Victim of Texas Reconstruction Violence

Higher Education in Texas: Its Beginnings to 1970

Published: February, 2018  Pages: 368  Features: 20 b&w photos. Notes. Bib. Index.

Higher Education in Texas is the first book to tell the history, defining events, and critical participants in the development of higher education in Texas from approximately 1838 to 1970. Charles Matthews, Chancellor Emeritus of the Texas State University System, begins the story with the land grant policies of the Spanish, Mexicans, Republic of Texas, and the State of Texas that led to the growth of Texas. Religious organizations supplied the first of many colleges, years before the Texas Legislature began to fund and support public colleges and universities. more... about Higher Education in Texas: Its Beginnings to 1970

No Hope for Heaven, No Fear of Hell: The Stafford-Townsend Feud of Colorado County, Texas, 1871-1911

— Vol. 1: of Texas Local

Published: February, 2018  Pages: 352  Features: 44 b&w photos. Map. Notes. Bib. Index.

Two family names have come to be associated with the violence that plagued Colorado County, Texas, for decades after the end of the Civil War: the Townsends and the Staffords. Both prominent families amassed wealth and achieved status, but it was their resolve to hold on to both, by whatever means necessary, including extra-legal means, that sparked the feud. Elected office was one of the paths to success, but more important was control of the sheriff’s office, which gave one a decided advantage should the threat of gun violence arise. more... about No Hope for Heaven, No Fear of Hell: The Stafford-Townsend Feud of Colorado County, Texas, 1871-1911

All Over the Map: True Heroes of Texas Music

— Vol. 11: of North Texas Lives of Musicians Series

Published: January, 2018  Pages: 320  Features: 80 b&w photos. Notes. Bib. Index.

A lavishly illustrated collection of forty-two profiles of Texas music pioneers, most underrated or overlooked, All Over the Map: True Heroes of Texas Music covers the musical landscape of a most musical state. The first edition was published in 2005 to wide acclaim. This second edition includes updated information, a bonus section of six behind-the-scenes heroes, and fifteen new portraits of Lefty Frizzell, Janis Joplin, and others, spanning such diverse styles as blues, country, hip-hop, conjunto, gospel, rock, and jazz. more... about All Over the Map: True Heroes of Texas Music

Legends and Life in Texas: Folklore from the Lone Star State, in Stories and Song

— Vol. 72: of Publications of the Texas Folklore Society

Published: December, 2017  Pages: 320  Features: 70 b&w illus. Notes. Index.

There is sometimes a fine line between history and folklore. This Publication of the Texas Folklore Society tells stories about real-life characters from Texas’s history, as well as personal reflections about life from diverse perspectives throughout the last century. The first section covers legendary characters like Davy Crockett and Sam Houston, and people who were bigger or bolder than others, yet seem to have been forgotten. The second section includes works that examine songs of our youth, as well as the customs associated with music, whether it’s on a football field or in a prison yard. The works in the final section recall memories of a simpler time, when cars and home appliances lacked modern conveniences, and when it was a treat just to go and “visit” with family and friends. All of these works capture something of our past, if only to carry it on and keep it alive for generations to come. more... about Legends and Life in Texas: Folklore from the Lone Star State, in Stories and Song

Donut Dolly: An American Red Cross Girl's War in Vietnam

— Vol. 6: of North Texas Military Biography and Memoir Series

Published: November, 2017  Pages: 384  Features: 35 b&w illus. 1 map. Notes. Bib. Index.

Listen to an interview with Joann Puffer Kotcher for the War and Life YouTube interview series hosted by Preston Jones of John Brown University. more... about Donut Dolly: An American Red Cross Girl's War in Vietnam

• Branson Stars and Flags Award, 2012

ActivAmerica

— Vol. 16: of Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction

Published: November, 2017  Pages: 192 

Drawing from fairy tales, ghost stories, and science-fiction, the stories in ActivAmerica explore how we confront (and exert) power and re-imagine ourselves through sports and athletic activities. A group of girls starts an illicit hockey league in a conservative suburb. A recently separated woman must run a mile a day in order to maintain her new corporate health insurance. Children impacted by environmental disaster create a “mutant soccer team.” Two sisters are visited by an Olympic gymnast who demands increasingly dangerous moves from them. Sports allow the characters to form communities on soccer fields and hidden lakes, in overgrown backyards and across Ping-Pong tables. Throughout the collection, however, athletic risk also comes with unexpected, often unsettling results. more... about ActivAmerica

• Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction, 2017

The Ranger Ideal Volume 1: Texas Rangers in the Hall of Fame, 1823-1861

Published: October, 2017  Pages: 672  Features: 50 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

Established in Waco in 1968, the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum honors the iconic Texas Rangers, a service which has existed, in one form or another, since 1823. They have become legendary symbols of Texas and the American West. Thirty-one Rangers, with lives spanning more than two centuries, have been enshrined in the Hall of Fame. more... about The Ranger Ideal Volume 1: Texas Rangers in the Hall of Fame, 1823-1861

Yesterday There Was Glory: With the 4th Division, A.E.F., in World War I Gerald Andrew Howell

— Vol. 11: of North Texas Military Biography and Memoir Series

Published: September, 2017  Pages: 464  Features: 45 b&w illus. 5 maps. Notes. Bib. Index.

In 1946, World War I veteran and self-described “buck private in the rear rank” Gerald Andrew Howell finished a memoir of the experiences of his squad from the 39^th^ Infantry Regiment, 4^th^ Division, and their “moments of horror, tragedy, humor, amour, [and] promiscuity” in Europe. This was “the old Army as it used to be,” Howell explains—the saga of the “down-trodden doughboy.” A few months later Howell was dead, his manuscript unpublished. Jeffrey Patrick discovered the memoir and the author’s correspondence with publishers and took on the task of bringing it to publication at last. more... about Yesterday There Was Glory: With the 4th Division, A.E.F., in World War I Gerald Andrew Howell

We Were Going to Win, or Die There: With the Marines at Guadalcanal, Tarawa, and Saipan: Roy H. Elrod

— Vol. 10: of North Texas Military Biography and Memoir Series

Published: September, 2017  Pages: 320  Features: 32 b&w illus. 3 maps. Notes. Bib. Index.

In 1940, native West Texan Roy H. Elrod joined the Marine Corps. A few years later his unit, the 8th Marine Regiment, went into the fight at Guadalcanal, where he commanded a platoon of 37 mm gunners. They endured Japanese attacks, malarial tropical weather, and starvation rations. His combat leadership earned him a Silver Star and a battlefield promotion. more... about We Were Going to Win, or Die There: With the Marines at Guadalcanal, Tarawa, and Saipan: Roy H. Elrod

• Colonel Joseph Alexander Award, Marine Corps Heritage Foundation, 2018

Accidental Activists: Mark Phariss, Vic Holmes, and Their Fight for Marriage Equality in Texas

— Vol. 8: of Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Series

Published: August, 2017  Pages: 480  Features: 55 color illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

In early 2013 same-sex marriage was legal in only ten states and the District of Columbia. That year the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Windsor appeared to open the door to marriage equality. In Texas, Mark Phariss and Vic Holmes, together for sixteen years and deeply in love, wondered why no one had stepped across the threshold to challenge their state’s 2005 constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage. They agreed to join a lawsuit being put together by Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLD. more... about Accidental Activists: Mark Phariss, Vic Holmes, and Their Fight for Marriage Equality in Texas

• Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards Finalist, 2018

Theoria 23: Historical Aspects of Music Theory

Published: August, 2017  Pages: 196 

Theoria is an annual peer-reviewed journal on all aspects of the history of music theory. It includes critical articles representing the current stage of research, and editions of newly discovered or mostly unknown theoretical texts with translation and commentary. Analytical articles on recent or unknown repertory and methods are also published, as well as review articles on recent secondary literature and textbooks. Back issues are available from Texas A&M University Press. more... about Theoria 23: Historical Aspects of Music Theory

Death on the Lonely Llano Estacado: The Assassination of J. W. Jarrott, a Forgotten Hero

— Vol. 17: of A. C. Greene Series

Published: July, 2017  Pages: 240  Features: 29 b&w illus. 3 maps. Notes. Bib. Index.

In the winter of 1901, James W. Jarrott led a band of twenty-five homesteader families toward the Llano Estacado in far West Texas, newly opened for settlement by a populist Texas legislature. But frontier cattlemen who had been pasturing their herds on the unfenced prairie land were enraged by the encroachment of these “nesters.” In August 1902 a famous hired assassin, Jim Miller, ambushed and murdered J. W. Jarrott. Who hired Miller? This crime has never been solved, until now. more... about Death on the Lonely Llano Estacado: The Assassination of J. W. Jarrott, a Forgotten Hero

Texas Rangers: Lives, Legend, and Legacy

Published: July, 2017  Pages: 656  Features: 107 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

Authors Bob Alexander and Donaly E. Brice grappled with several issues when deciding how to relate a general history of the Texas Rangers. Should emphasis be placed on their frontier defense against Indians, or focus more on their role as guardians of the peace and statewide law enforcers? What about the tumultuous Mexican Revolution period, 1910-1920? And how to deal with myths and legends such as One Riot, One Ranger? more... about Texas Rangers: Lives, Legend, and Legacy

Ordered West: The Civil War Exploits of Charles A. Curtis

— Vol. 13: of War and the Southwest Series

Published: June, 2017  Pages: 704  Features: 31 b&w illus. 4 maps. Notes. Bib. Index.

During the Civil War, Charles Curtis served in the 5th United States Infantry on the New Mexico and Arizona frontier. He spent his years from 1862 to 1865 on garrison duty, interacting with Native Americans, both hostile and friendly. Years after his service and while president of Norwich University, Curtis wrote an extensive memoir of his time in the Southwest. Curtis’s reminiscences detail his encounters with Indians, notable military figures, eccentrics, and other characters from the Old West—including Kit Carson—as well as the construction of Fort Whipple and expeditions against the Navajo and Apache. more... about Ordered West: The Civil War Exploits of Charles A. Curtis

• Finalist for the 2018 New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards in Biography

The Best American Newspaper Narratives, Volume 4

Published: June, 2017  Pages: 240 

This anthology collects the ten winners of the 2016 Best American Newspaper Narrative Writing Contest at the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference, an event hosted by the Frank W. Mayborn Graduate Institute of Journalism at the University of North Texas. more... about The Best American Newspaper Narratives, Volume 4

Military History of the West, Vol. 46

Published: June, 2017  Pages: 102 

The Military History of the West is a peer-reviewed journal focused on scholarly study of western US military history, including the Mississippi Valley and all states west of that line. The journal features articles on the Texas Revolution, the Mexican War, frontier military service, the Civil War, the Indian Wars, the Spanish-American War, Mexican border service, and the Texas National Guard in the twentieth century, including its service in World War I and World War II. more... about Military History of the West, Vol. 46

Graham Barnett: A Dangerous Man

Published: May, 2017  Pages: 400  Features: 17 b&w illus. Map. Notes. Bib. Index.

Graham Barnett was killed in Rankin, Texas, on December 6, 1931. His death brought an end to a storied career, but not an end to the legends that claimed he was a gunman, a hired pistolero on both sides of the border, a Texas Ranger known for questionable shootings in Company B under Captain Fox, a deputy sheriff, a bootlegger, and a possible “fixer” for both law enforcement and outlaw organizations. In real life he was a good cowboy, who provided for his family the best way he could, and who did so by slipping seamlessly between the law enforcement community and the world of illegal liquor traffickers. Stories say he killed unnumbered men on the border, but he stood trial only twice and was acquitted both times. more... about Graham Barnett: A Dangerous Man

John Ringo, King of the Cowboys: His Life and Times from the Hoo Doo War to Tombstone, Second Edition

— Vol. 6: of A. C. Greene Series

Published: April, 2017  Pages: 384  Features: 22 b&w illus. 2 maps. Notes. Bib. Index.

Western gunman John Ringo is most well-known for his role in Tombstone for backing the Cowboys against the Earps. In his youth he became embroiled in the blood feud turbulence of post-Reconstruction Texas and the Mason County “Hoo Doo” War, then shot it out with Victorio’s raiders during a deadly confrontation in New Mexico before going to Tombstone in territorial Arizona. There Ringo championed the largely Democratic ranchers against the Earp brothers and Doc Holliday, finally being part of the posse that hounded these fugitives from Arizona. In the end, Ringo died mysteriously in the Arizona desert, his death welcomed by some, mourned by others, wrongly claimed by a few. more... about John Ringo, King of the Cowboys: His Life and Times from the Hoo Doo War to Tombstone, Second Edition

Ornament

— Vol. 24: of Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry

Published: April, 2017  Pages: 84 

In this debut collection, Anna Lena Phillips Bell explores the foothills of the Eastern U.S., and the old-time Appalachian tunes and Piedmont blues she was raised to love. With formal dexterity—in ballads and sonnets, Sapphics and amphibrachs—the poems in Ornament traverse the permeable boundary between the body and the natural world. more... about Ornament

• Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry in Poetry 2016
• North Carolina Poetry Society's Brockman-Campbell Book Award Honorable Mention

Stilwell and Mountbatten in Burma: Allies at War, 1943-1944

— Vol. 3: of American Military Studies

Published: April, 2017  Pages: 288  Features: 7 b&w illus. 3 maps. Notes. Bib. Index.

Stilwell and Mountbatten in Burma explores the relationship between American General Joseph “Vinegar Joe” Stilwell and British Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten in the China-Burma-India Theater (CBI) and the South East Asia Command (SEAC) between October 1943 and October 1944, within the wider context of Anglo-American relations during World War II. Using original material from both British and American archives, Jonathan Templin Ritter discusses the military, political, and diplomatic aspects of Anglo-American cooperation, the personalities involved, and where British and American policies both converged and diverged over Southeast Asia. more... about Stilwell and Mountbatten in Burma: Allies at War, 1943-1944

Single Star of the West: The Republic of Texas, 1836-1845

Published: March, 2017  Pages: 576  Features: 8 b&w illus. Map. Notes. Bib. Index.

Does Texas’s experience as a republic make it unique among the other states? In many ways, Texas was an “accidental republic” for nearly ten years, until Texans voted overwhelmingly in favor of annexation to the United States after winning independence from Mexico. more... about Single Star of the West: The Republic of Texas, 1836-1845

• 2017 Book of the Year, Alamo Society

Changing the Tune: The Kansas City Women's Jazz Festival, 1978-1985

Published: March, 2017  Pages: 352  Features: 40 b&w photos. Notes. Bib. Index.

Even though the potential passage of the Equal Rights Amendment had cracked glass ceilings across the country, in 1978 jazz remained a boys’ club. Two Kansas City women, Carol Comer and Dianne Gregg, challenged that inequitable standard. With the support of jazz luminaries Marian McPartland and Leonard Feather, inaugural performances by Betty Carter, Mary Lou Williams, an unprecedented All-Star band of women, Toshiko Akiyoshi’s band, plus dozens of Kansas City musicians and volunteers, a casual conversation between two friends evolved into the annual Kansas City Women’s Jazz Festival (WJF). more... about Changing the Tune: The Kansas City Women's Jazz Festival, 1978-1985

Living in the Woods in a Tree: Remembering Blaze Foley

— Vol. 2: of North Texas Lives of Musicians Series

Published: February, 2017  Pages: 288  Features: 25 b&w illus. Index.

Now an Independent Film more... about Living in the Woods in a Tree: Remembering Blaze Foley

Eavesdropping on Texas History

Published: February, 2017  Pages: 352  Features: 26 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

Mary L. Scheer has assembled fifteen contributors to explore special moments in Texas history. The contributors assembled for this anthology represent many of the “all stars” among Texas historians: two State Historians of Texas, two past presidents of TSHA, four current or past presidents of ETHA, two past presidents of WTHA, nine fellows of historical associations, two Fulbright Scholars, and seven award-winning authors. Each is an expert in his or her field and provided in some fashion an answer to the question: At what moment in Texas history would you have liked to have been a “fly on the wall” and why? The choice of a moment and the answers were both personal and individual, ranging from familiar topics to less well-known subjects. more... about Eavesdropping on Texas History

Sutherland Springs, Texas: Saratoga on the Cibolo

— Vol. 2: of Texas Local

Published: February, 2017  Pages: 320  Features: 50 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

In Sutherland Springs, Texas, Richard B. McCaslin explores the rise and fall of this rural community near San Antonio primarily through the lens of its aspirations to become a resort spa town, because of its mineral water springs, around the turn of the twentieth century. Texas real estate developers, initially more interested in oil, brought Sutherland Springs to its peak as a resort in the early twentieth century, but failed to transform the farming settlement into a resort town. The decline in water tables during the late twentieth century reduced the mineral water flows, and the town faded. Sutherland Springs’s history thus provides great insights into the importance of water in shaping settlement. more... about Sutherland Springs, Texas: Saratoga on the Cibolo

WASP of the Ferry Command: Women Pilots, Uncommon Deeds

Published: January, 2017  Pages: 416  Features: 47 b&w photos. Notes. Bib. Index.

Listen to Vick Mickunas’ interview with Sarah Byrn Rickman, author of WASP of the Ferry Command - Women Pilots, Uncommon Deeds on WSYO’s Book Nook. more... about WASP of the Ferry Command: Women Pilots, Uncommon Deeds

Journal of Schenkerian Studies 9

Published: December, 2016  Pages: 240 

The Journal of Schenkerian Studies is a peer-reviewed journal published annually by the Center for Schenkerian Studies and the University of North Texas Press under the guidance of Timothy Jackson, Stephen Slottow, and an expert editorial board. more... about Journal of Schenkerian Studies 9

Thirty-three Years, Thirty-three Works: Celebrating the Contributions of F. E. Abernethy, Texas Folklore Society Secretary-Editor, 1971-2004

— Vol. 71: of Publications of the Texas Folklore Society

Published: December, 2016  Pages: 384  Features: 65 b&w illus. Notes. Index.

Francis Edward “Ab” Abernethy served as the Secretary-Editor of the Texas Folklore Society for over three decades, managing the organization’s daily operations and helping it grow. He edited two dozen volumes of the PTFS series and wrote the three volumes of the Society’s history. This Publication of the Texas Folklore Society celebrates Ab Abernethy’s years of leadership in collecting, preserving, and presenting the folklore of Texas and the Southwest. The prefaces to some of the more memorable edited volumes are included, along with articles he wrote on music, teaching, anecdotes about historical figures and events, and “cultural” examinations of the things we hold dear. In all, these pieces tell us what was important to Ab. In part, these topics are also what was—and still is—important to the Texas Folklore Society. more... about Thirty-three Years, Thirty-three Works: Celebrating the Contributions of F. E. Abernethy, Texas Folklore Society Secretary-Editor, 1971-2004

Proof: Photographs from Four Generations of a Texas Family

Published: November, 2016  Pages: 224  Features: 38 color photos. 155 b&w photos.

Listen to an interview on the podcast New Books in Photography with Byrd M. Williams IV, author of Proof: Photographs from Four Generations of a Texas Family. more... about Proof: Photographs from Four Generations of a Texas Family

The Expense of a View

— Vol. 15: of Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction

Published: November, 2016  Pages: 196 

Listen to an interview on the podcast New Books in Psychology with Polly Buckingham, author of The Expense of a View. more... about The Expense of a View

• Winner of the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction 2016

Women in Civil War Texas: Diversity and Dissidence in the Trans-Mississippi

Published: October, 2016  Pages: 336  Features: 17 b&w photos. 4 maps. Notes. Index.

Women in Civil War Texas is the first book dedicated to the unique experiences of Texas women during this time. It connects Texas women’s lives to southern women’s history and shares the diversity of experiences of women in Texas during the Civil War. more... about Women in Civil War Texas: Diversity and Dissidence in the Trans-Mississippi

• Winner of the Ottis Lock Award for Best Book on East Texas History, East Texas State Historical Association, 2017
• Liz Carpenter Award For Best Book on the History of Women 2016

Texan Identities: Moving beyond Myth, Memory, and Fallacy in Texas History

Published: September, 2016  Pages: 320  Features: 15 b&w photos. Notes. Bib. Index.

Texan Identities rests on the assumption that Texas has distinctive identities that define “what it means to be Texan,” and that these identities flow from myth and memory. What constitutes a Texas identity and how may such change over time? What myths, memories, and fallacies contribute to making a Texas identity? Are all the myths and memories that define Texas identity true or are some of them fallacious? Is there more than one Texas identity? more... about Texan Identities: Moving beyond Myth, Memory, and Fallacy in Texas History

Convict Cowboys: The Untold History of the Texas Prison Rodeo

— Vol. 10: of North Texas Crime and Criminal Justice Series

Published: August, 2016  Pages: 464  Features: 50 b&w photos. Notes. Bib. Index.

Listen to an interview on the podcast New Books in History with Mitchel P. Roth, author of Convict Cowboys: The Untold History of the Texas Prison Rodeo. more... about Convict Cowboys: The Untold History of the Texas Prison Rodeo

Rounded Up in Glory: Frank Reaugh, Texas Renaissance Man

Published: August, 2016  Pages: 480  Features: 20 color and 20 b/w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

Frank Reaugh (1860–1945; pronounced “Ray”) was called “the Dean of Texas artists” for good reason. His pastels documented the wide-open spaces of the West as they were vanishing in the late nineteenth century, and his plein air techniques influenced generations of artists. His students include a “Who’s Who” of twentieth-century Texas painters: Alexandre Hogue, Reveau Bassett, and Lucretia Coke, among others. He was an advocate of painting by observation, and encouraged his students to do the same by organizing legendary sketch trips to West Texas. Reaugh also earned the title of Renaissance man by inventing a portable easel that allowed him to paint in high winds, and developing a formula for pastels, which he marketed. A founder of the Dallas Art Society, which became the Dallas Museum of Art, Reaugh was central to Dallas and Oak Cliff artistic circles for many years until infighting and politics drove him out of fashion. He died isolated and poor in 1945. more... about Rounded Up in Glory: Frank Reaugh, Texas Renaissance Man

• Publication Award from the Center for the Advancement and Study of Early Texas Art (CASETA), 2017

Shoot the Conductor: Too Close to Monteux, Szell, and Ormandy

— Vol. 7: of Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Series

Published: August, 2016  Pages: 336  Features: 50 b&w photos. Notes. Index.

UNT College of Music and UNT Press co-sponsored a talk by Anshel Brusilow and Robin Underdahl on their book, 2015 more... about Shoot the Conductor: Too Close to Monteux, Szell, and Ormandy

• Foreword Reviews 2015 INDIEFAB Book of the Year Award Winner in Performing Arts & Music, Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference Book Manuscript Competition

The View from the Back of the Band: The Life and Music of Mel Lewis

— Vol. 10: of North Texas Lives of Musicians Series

Published: July, 2016  Pages: 416  Features: 31 b&w photos. Notes. Bib. Index.

Mel Lewis (1929-1990) was born Melvin Sokoloff to Jewish Russian immigrants in Buffalo, New York. He first picked up his father’s drumsticks at the age of two and at 17 he was a full-time professional musician. The View from the Back of the Band is the first biography of this legendary jazz drummer. For over fifty years, Lewis provided the blueprint for how a drummer could subtly support any musical situation. While he made his name with Stan Kenton and Thad Jones, and with his band at the Village Vanguard, it was the hundreds of recordings that he made as a sideman and his ability to mentor young musicians that truly defined his career. more... about The View from the Back of the Band: The Life and Music of Mel Lewis

Inside John Haynie's Studio

Published: July, 2016  Pages: 304  Features: 44 photos. Index.

What was it about the way John Haynie approached trumpet lessons that made such an impression on so many of his students? What were his instructions? How did the lessons transfer from the studio to the recital hall to their life after college? Come inside the studio and relive some of these students’ lessons. Take a seat on the other side of the stand from master teacher John Haynie. more... about Inside John Haynie's Studio

Independent, Original and Progressive: Celebrating 125 Years of UNT

Published: July, 2016  Pages: 144  Features: 77 color and 183 b&w illus.

Joshua C. Chilton first described UNT as “independent, original and progressive” in his inaugural speech opening the university in 1890. In the 125 years since then the university has more than lived up to his expectations. The University Archive holds countless photographs, artifacts and publications which tell the remarkable story of the University of North Texas from its beginnings in a downtown hardware store to its place today as the one of the nation’s largest public universities. This book features stories about the people and events that helped to define the character and spirit of UNT. Each story is illustrated with photographs and artifacts specially chosen from the Special Collections department and the Music Library, both part of the UNT Libraries, whose staff are proud to share these wonderful memories with you. more... about Independent, Original and Progressive: Celebrating 125 Years of UNT

Theoria 22: Historical Aspects of Music Theory

Published: June, 2016  Pages: 196 

Theoria is an annual peer-reviewed journal on all aspects of the history of music theory. It includes critical articles representing the current stage of research, and editions of newly discovered or mostly unknown theoretical texts with translation and commentary. Analytical articles on recent or unknown repertory and methods are also published, as well as review articles on recent secondary literature and textbooks. Back issues are available from Texas A&M University Press. more... about Theoria 22: Historical Aspects of Music Theory

Military History of the West, Vol. 45

Published: June, 2016  Pages: 102 

The Military History of the West is a peer-reviewed journal focused on scholarly study of western US military history, including the Mississippi Valley and all states west of that line. The journal features articles on the Texas Revolution, the Mexican War, frontier military service, the Civil War, the Indian Wars, the Spanish-American War, Mexican border service, and the Texas National Guard in the twentieth century, including its service in World War I and World War II. more... about Military History of the West, Vol. 45

The Best American Newspaper Narratives, Volume 3

Published: June, 2016  Pages: 400 

This anthology collects the ten winners of the 2014 Best American Newspaper Narrative Writing Contest, run by the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference. The event is hosted by the Frank W. Mayborn Graduate Institute of Journalism at the University of North Texas. The contest honors exemplary narrative work and encourages narrative nonfiction storytelling at newspapers across the United States. more... about The Best American Newspaper Narratives, Volume 3

The Performing Set: The Broadway Designs of William and Jean Eckart

Published: May, 2016  Pages: 256  Features: 521 color illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

Bill and Jean Eckart were stage designers and producers at the peak of the musical, and their designs revolutionized Broadway productions. An Eckart set became part of the performance on stage, equal at times to an actor. They were best known for their designs for Damn Yankees (1955); Once Upon a Mattress (1959), in which Carol Burnett made her Broadway debut; and Mame (1966) with Angela Lansbury. Andrew B. Harris uses production stills and the Eckarts’ sketches from every show they worked on to illustrate (with more than 500 color illustrations) the magic behind an Eckart design. more... about The Performing Set: The Broadway Designs of William and Jean Eckart

• Finalist, George Freedley Memorial Award, The Theatre Library Association, 2006
• Golden Pen Award, United States Institute for Theatre Technology, 2007

Booker's Point

— Vol. 23: of Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry

Published: April, 2016  Pages: 84 

Bernard A. Booker, wry old Maine codger and unofficial mayor of Ell Pond, is the subject of Booker’s Point, an oral history-inspired portrait-in-verse. Weaving storytelling, natural history, and the poetry of place, the collection evokes the sensibility of rural New England and the pleasures of a good story. more... about Booker's Point

• Winner of the Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry 2015
• Book Award for Poetry, Maine Literary Awards, 2017

Whiskey River Ranger: The Old West Life of Baz Outlaw

— Vol. 16: of Frances B. Vick Series

Published: April, 2016  Pages: 448  Features: 100 b&w photos. Notes. Bib. Index.

Captain Frank Jones, a famed nineteenth-century Texas Ranger, said of his company’s top sergeant, Baz Outlaw (1854-1894), “A man of unusual courage and coolness and in a close place is worth two or three ordinary men.” Another old-time Texas Ranger declared that Baz Outlaw “was one of the worst and most dangerous” because “he never knew what fear was.” But not all thought so highly of him. In Whiskey River Ranger, Bob Alexander tells for the first time the full story of this troubled Texas Ranger and his losing battle with alcoholism. more... about Whiskey River Ranger: The Old West Life of Baz Outlaw

Raza Rising: Chicanos in North Texas

— Vol. 10: of Al Filo: Mexican American Studies Series

Published: March, 2016  Pages: 304  Features: 34 b&w photos. Notes. Bib. Index.

Based on articles written for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, author Richard J. Gonzales draws on his educational, inner-city and professional life experiences to weave eyewitness testimony into issues facing Chicanos, including economic, health, education, criminal justice, politics, immigration, and cultural issues. Raza Rising offers first-hand observations, supported by well-documented scholarly research, of Chicanos’ growth and subsequent struggles to participate fully in North Texas’ political and economic life. more... about Raza Rising: Chicanos in North Texas

Riding for the Lone Star: Frontier Cavalry and the Texas Way of War, 1822-1865

— Vol. 2: of American Military Studies

Published: February, 2016  Pages: 464  Features: 35 b&w photos. 5 maps. Notes. Bib. Index.

The idea of Texas was forged in the crucible of frontier warfare between 1822 and 1865, when Anglo-Americans adapted to mounted combat north of the Rio Grande. This cavalry-centric arena, which had long been the domain of Plains Indians and the Spanish Empire, compelled an adaptive martial tradition that shaped early Lone Star society. Beginning with initial tactical innovation in Spanish Tejas and culminating with massive mobilization for the Civil War, Texas society developed a distinctive way of war defined by armed horsemanship, volunteer militancy, and short-term mobilization as it grappled with both tribal and international opponents. more... about Riding for the Lone Star: Frontier Cavalry and the Texas Way of War, 1822-1865

Traqueros: Mexican Railroad Workers in the United States, 1870-1930

— Vol. 6: of Al Filo: Mexican American Studies Series

Published: February, 2016  Pages: 256  Features: Map. Notes. Bib. Index.

Perhaps no other industrial technology changed the course of Mexican history in the United States—and Mexico—than did the coming of the railroads. Tens of thousands of Mexicans worked for the railroads in the United States, especially in the Southwest and Midwest. Construction crews soon became railroad workers proper, along with maintenance crews later. Extensive Mexican American settlements appeared throughout the lower and upper Midwest as the result of the railroad. The substantial Mexican American populations in these regions today are largely attributable to 19th- and 20th-century railroad work. Only agricultural work surpassed railroad work in terms of employment of Mexicans. more... about Traqueros: Mexican Railroad Workers in the United States, 1870-1930

Against the Grain: Colonel Henry M. Lazelle and the U.S. Army

— Vol. 9: of North Texas Military Biography and Memoir Series

Published: December, 2015  Pages: 432  Features: 36 b&w photos. Notes. Bib. Index.

Henry Martyn Lazelle (1832-1917) was the only cadet in the history of the U.S. Military Academy to be suspended and sent back a year (for poor grades and bad behavior) and eventually return as Commandant of the Corps of Cadets. After graduating from West Point in 1855, he scouted with Kit Carson, was wounded by Apaches, and spent nearly a year as a “paroled” prisoner-of-war at the outbreak of the Civil War. Exchanged for a Confederate officer, he took command of a Union cavalry regiment, chasing Mosby’s Rangers throughout northern Virginia. more... about Against the Grain: Colonel Henry M. Lazelle and the U.S. Army

Tales of Texas Cooking: Stories and Recipes from the Trans-Pecos to the Piney Woods and High Plains to the Gulf Prairies

— Vol. 70: of Publications of the Texas Folklore Society

Published: December, 2015  Pages: 352  Features: 60 b&w illus. Notes. Index.

According to Renaissance woman and Pepper Lady Jean Andrews, although food is eaten as a response to hunger, it is much more than filling one’s stomach. It also provides emotional fulfillment. This is borne out by the joy many of us feel as a family when we get in the kitchen and cook together and then share in our labors at the dinner table. Food is comfort, yet it is also political and contested because we often are what we eat—meaning what is available and familiar and allowed. more... about Tales of Texas Cooking: Stories and Recipes from the Trans-Pecos to the Piney Woods and High Plains to the Gulf Prairies

A History of Fort Worth in Black & White 165 Years of African-American Life

Published: November, 2015  Pages: 400  Features: 35 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

A History of Fort Worth in Black & White fills a long-empty niche on the Fort Worth bookshelf: a scholarly history of the city’s black community that starts at the beginning with Ripley Arnold and the early settlers, and comes down to today with our current battles over education, housing, and representation in city affairs. The book’s sidebars on some noted and some not-so-noted African Americans make it appealing as a school text as well as a book for the general reader. more... about A History of Fort Worth in Black & White 165 Years of African-American Life

Last Words of the Holy Ghost

— Vol. 14: of Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction

Published: November, 2015  Pages: 240 

In 2011, Ben Sharony adapted the collection’s title story “Last Words of the Holy Ghost” into a short film; the film premiered at the Los Angeles Short Film Festival and went on to win two international awards. more... about Last Words of the Holy Ghost

• Winner of the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction 2015

Storming the City: U.S. Military Performance in Urban Warfare from World War II to Vietnam

— Vol. 1: of American Military Studies

Published: October, 2015  Pages: 400  Features: 22 b&w photos. 8 maps. Notes. Bib. Index.

In an increasingly urbanized world, urban terrain has become a greater factor in military operations. Simultaneously, advances in military technology have given military forces sharply increased capabilities. The conflict comes from how urban terrain can negate or degrade many of those increased capabilities. What happens when advanced weapons are used in a close-range urban fight with an abundance of cover? more... about Storming the City: U.S. Military Performance in Urban Warfare from World War II to Vietnam

• Selected for Marine Commandant's Professional Reading List for all senior enlisted men and all Majors and Lieutenant-Colonels, 2017
• History/Military Book Club Selection, 2015

The Royal Air Force in American Skies: The Seven British Flight Schools in the United States during World War II

Published: October, 2015  Pages: 464  Features: 20 b&w photos. Map. Notes. Bib. Index.

By early 1941, Great Britain stood alone against the aerial might of Nazi Germany and was in need of pilots. The Lend-Lease Act allowed for the training of British pilots in the United States and the formation of British Flying Training Schools. These unique schools were owned by American operators, staffed with American civilian instructors, supervised by British Royal Air Force officers, utilized aircraft supplied by the U.S. Army Air Corps, and used the RAF training syllabus. more... about The Royal Air Force in American Skies: The Seven British Flight Schools in the United States during World War II

From Wright Field, Ohio, to Hokkaido, Japan General Curtis E. LeMay's Letters to His Wife Helen, 1941–1945

Published: October, 2015  Pages: 400  Features: 5 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

In 1942, Colonel Curtis E. LeMay and his 305th Bomb Group left Syracuse, New York, bound for England, where they joined the Eighth Air Force and Royal Air Force in war against Germany and her allies. Over the next three years LeMay led American air forces in Europe, India, China, and the Pacific against the Axis powers. His efforts yielded advancement through the chain of command to the rank of Major General in command of the XXIst Bomber Command, the most effective strategic bombing force of the war. more... about From Wright Field, Ohio, to Hokkaido, Japan General Curtis E. LeMay's Letters to His Wife Helen, 1941–1945

Free Blacks in Antebellum Texas

Published: September, 2015  Pages: 320  Features: Notes. Bib. Index.

Free Blacks in Antebellum Texas collects the essays of Harold R. Schoen and Andrew Forest Muir, early scholars who conducted the most complete studies on the topic, although neither published a book. Schoen published six articles on “The Free Negro in Republic of Texas” and Muir four articles on free blacks in Texas before the Civil War. more... about Free Blacks in Antebellum Texas

Pacific Blitzkrieg: World War II in the Central Pacific

Published: July, 2015  Pages: 336  Features: 35 b&w photos. 5 maps. Notes. Bib. Index.

Pacific Blitzkrieg closely examines the planning, preparation, and execution of ground operations for five major invasions in the Central Pacific (Guadalcanal, Tarawa, the Marshalls, Saipan, and Okinawa). The commanders on the ground had to integrate the U.S. Army and Marine Corps into a single striking force, something that would have been difficult in peacetime, but in the midst of a great global war, it was a monumental task. Yet, ultimate success in the Pacific rested on this crucial, if somewhat strained, partnership and its accomplishments. Despite the thousands of works covering almost every aspect of World War II in the Pacific, until now no one has examined the detailed mechanics behind this transformation at the corps and division level. more... about Pacific Blitzkrieg: World War II in the Central Pacific

• History/Military Book Club Selection, 2013
• Distinguished Writing Award in Operational/Battle History, from the Army Historical Foundation, 2014
• Selected by General Raymond Odierno, 38th Army Chief of Staff, for the U.S. Army Chief of Staff's Professional Reading List, February 2014
• Crader Family Book Prize in American Values

Combat Chaplain: A Thirty-Year Vietnam Battle

Published: July, 2015  Pages: 312  Features: 35 b&w illus. 5 maps. Index.

Chaplain James D. Johnson broke all the rules to be with his men. He chose to accompany them, unarmed, on their daily combat operations, a decision made against the recommendations of his superiors. During what would be the final days for some, he offered his ministry not from a pulpit but on the battlefields—in hot landing zones and rice paddies, in hospitals, aboard ship, and knee-deep in mud. He even found time for baptisms in the muddy Mekong River. more... about Combat Chaplain: A Thirty-Year Vietnam Battle

Military History of the West, Vol. 44

Published: June, 2015  Pages: 100 

The Military History of the West is a peer-reviewed journal focused on scholarly study of western US military history, including the Mississippi Valley and all states west of that line. The journal features articles on the Texas Revolution, the Mexican War, frontier military service, the Civil War, the Indian Wars, the Spanish-American War, Mexican border service, and the Texas National Guard in the twentieth century, including its service in World War I and World War II. more... about Military History of the West, Vol. 44

The Notorious Luke Short: Sporting Man of the Wild West

— Vol. 16: of A. C. Greene Series

Published: June, 2015  Pages: 352  Features: 55 b&w photos. Notes. Bib. Index.

Luke Short perfected his skills as a gambler in locations that included Leadville, Tombstone, Dodge City, and Fort Worth. In 1883, in what became known as the “Dodge City War,” he banded together with Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and others to protect his ownership interests in the Long Branch Saloon—an event commemorated by the famous “Dodge City Peace Commission” photograph. more... about The Notorious Luke Short: Sporting Man of the Wild West

• Co-Founders Best Book Award from Westerners International, September 2016

The Best American Newspaper Narratives, Volume 2

Published: June, 2015  Pages: 512 

This anthology collects the twelve winners of the 2013 Best American Newspaper Narrative Writing Contest, run by the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference. The event is hosted by the Frank W. Mayborn Graduate Institute of Journalism at the University of North Texas. The contest honors exemplary narrative work and encourages narrative nonfiction storytelling at newspapers across the United States. more... about The Best American Newspaper Narratives, Volume 2

Making JFK Matter: Popular Memory and the 35th President

Published: May, 2015  Pages: 418  Features: 19 b&w photos. Notes. Bib. Index.

In Making JFK Matter, Paul Santa Cruz examines how popular memory of John F. Kennedy has been used politically by various interest groups, primarily the city of Dallas, Lyndon Johnson, and Robert Kennedy, as well as how the memory of Kennedy has been portrayed in various museums. Santa Cruz argues that we have memorialized JFK not simply out of love for him or admiration for the ideals he embodied, but because invoking his name carries legitimacy and power. Memory can be employed to accomplish particular ends: for example, the passage of long overdue civil rights legislation, or even successfully running for political office. more... about Making JFK Matter: Popular Memory and the 35th President

Death on Base: The Fort Hood Massacre

— Vol. 9: of North Texas Crime and Criminal Justice Series

Published: May, 2015  Pages: 384  Features: 28 b&w photos. Notes. Bib. Index.

When Army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan walked into the Fort Hood Soldier Readiness Processing Center and opened fire on soldiers within, he perpetrated the worst mass shooting on a United States military base in our country’s history. Death on Base is an in-depth look at the events surrounding the tragic mass murder that took place on November 5, 2009, and an investigation into the causes and influences that factored into the attack. more... about Death on Base: The Fort Hood Massacre

Other Psalms

— Vol. 22: of Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry

Published: April, 2015  Pages: 84 

In his debut collection, Jordan Windholz recasts devotional poetics and traces the line between faith and its loss. Other Psalms gives voice to the skeptic who yet sings to the silence that “swells with the noise of listening.” If faith is necessary, this collection suggests, it is necessary as material for its own unmaking. Without a doubt, these are poems worth believing in, announcing, as they do, a new and necessary voice in American poetry. more... about Other Psalms

• Winner of the Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry 2014

Katherine Anne Porter's Ship of Fools: New Interpretations and Transatlantic Contexts

Published: April, 2015  Pages: 240  Features: 17 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

Containing pieces by distinguished scholars including Darlene Harbour Unrue and Robert Brinkmeyer, this book is the first full investigation of the links between Porter’s only novel and European intellectual history. Beginning with Sebastian Brant, author of the late medieval Narrenschiff, whom she acknowledges in her Preface to Ship of Fools, Porter’s image of Europe emerges as more complex, more knowledgeable, and more politically nuanced than previous critics have acknowledged. Ship of Fools is in conversation with Europe’s humanistic tradition as well as with the political moments of 1931 and 1962, the years that elapsed from the novel’s conception to its completion. more... about Katherine Anne Porter's Ship of Fools: New Interpretations and Transatlantic Contexts

Return of the Gar

— Vol. 3: of Southwestern Nature Writing Series

Published: March, 2015  Pages: 288  Features: 61 b&w illus. Bib.

Listen to Return of the Gar featuring Return of the Gar author Mark Spitzer, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services researcher Lindsey Lewis, and University of Central Arkansas biologist Reid Adams discuss the often misunderstood alligator gar. more... about Return of the Gar

Six-Shooters and Shifting Sands: The Wild West Life of Texas Ranger Captain Frank Jones

— Vol. 15: of Frances B. Vick Series

Published: March, 2015  Pages: 512  Features: 100 b&w photos. Notes. Bib. Index.

Many well-read students, historians, and loyal aficionados of Texas Ranger lore know the name of Texas Ranger Captain Frank Jones (1856-1893), who died on the Texas-Mexico border in a shootout with Mexican rustlers. In Six-Shooters and Shifting Sands, Bob Alexander has now penned the first full-length biography of this important nineteenth-century Texas Ranger. more... about Six-Shooters and Shifting Sands: The Wild West Life of Texas Ranger Captain Frank Jones

The Twenty-five Year Century: A South Vietnamese General Remembers the Indochina War to the Fall of Saigon

Published: February, 2015  Pages: 448  Features: 8 b&w photos. 16 Maps. Notes. Index.

For Victor Hugo, the nineteenth century could be remembered by only its first two years, which established peace in Europe and France’s supremacy on the continent. For General Lam Quang Thi, the twentieth century had only twenty-five years: from 1950 to 1975, during which the Republic of Vietnam and its Army grew up and collapsed with the fall of Saigon. This is the story of those twenty-five years. more... about The Twenty-five Year Century: A South Vietnamese General Remembers the Indochina War to the Fall of Saigon

• Military Book Club selection, 2002

Theoria 21: Historical Aspects of Music Theory

Published: January, 2015  Pages: 196 

Theoria is an annual peer-reviewed journal on all aspects of the history of music theory. It includes critical articles representing the current stage of research, and editions of newly discovered or mostly unknown theoretical texts with translation and commentary. Analytical articles on recent or unknown repertory and methods are also published, as well as review articles on recent secondary literature and textbooks. Back issues are available from Texas A&M University Press. more... about Theoria 21: Historical Aspects of Music Theory

Economics: From the Dismal Science to the Moral Science

Published: January, 2015  Pages: 268 

Adam Smith published The Theory of Moral Sentiments in 1759 and established the ethical foundation for The Wealth of Nations (1776) as well as the important role played by custom and fashion in shaping behaviors and outcomes. Kendall P. Cochran believed in Smith’s emphasis on value-driven analysis and seeking solutions to major problems of the day. Cochran believed that economists moved too far in the direction of analysis free of words like ought and should, and he devoted his career to establishing that economics is a moral science. more... about Economics: From the Dismal Science to the Moral Science

Short Call: Snippets from the Smallest Places in Texas, 1935-2000

— Vol. 24: of Texas Folklore Society Extra Book

Published: December, 2014  Pages: 160  Features: 15 b&w photos.

The Texas Folklore Society has been publishing a regular volume of folklore research (our PTFS series) for the past several decades. Most of these books are what we call miscellanies, compilations of the works of multiple folklorists, and they feature articles on many types of lore. We’ve also published over twenty “Extra Books,” which are single-author manuscripts that examine a more focused topic. more... about Short Call: Snippets from the Smallest Places in Texas, 1935-2000

Folktales from the Helotes Settlement

— Vol. 25: of Texas Folklore Society Extra Book

Published: December, 2014  Pages: 160  Features: 15 b&w photos. Index.

The Texas Folklore Society has been publishing a regular volume of folklore research (our PTFS series) for the past several decades. Most of these books are what we call miscellanies, compilations of the works of multiple folklorists, and they feature articles on many types of lore. We’ve also published over twenty “Extra Books,” which are single-author manuscripts that examine a more focused topic. more... about Folktales from the Helotes Settlement

Three Decades of Engendering History: Selected Works of Antonia I. Castañeda

— Vol. 9: of Al Filo: Mexican American Studies Series

Published: December, 2014  Pages: 400  Features: 10 b&w photos. Map. Notes. Bib. Index.

Three Decades of Engendering History collects ten of Antonia I. Castañeda’s best articles, including the widely circulated article “Engendering the History of Alta California, 1769-1848,” in which Castañeda took a direct and honest look at sex and gender relations in colonial California, exposing stories of violence against women as well as stories of survival and resistance. Other articles included are the prize-winning “Women of Color and the Rewriting of Western History,” and two recent articles, “Lullabies y Canciones de Cuna” and “La Despedida.” The latter two represent Castañeda’s most recent work excavating, mapping, and bringing forth the long and strong post-WWII history of Tejanas. Finally, the volume includes three interviews with Antonia Castañeda that contribute the important narrative of her lived experience—the “theory in the flesh” and politics of necessity that fueled her commitment to transformative scholarship that highlights gender and Chicanas as a legitimate line of inquiry. more... about Three Decades of Engendering History: Selected Works of Antonia I. Castañeda

The Upshaws of County Line: An American Family

Published: November, 2014  Pages: 144  Features: 59 duotones. Index.

Guss, Felix, and Jim Upshaw founded the community of County Line in the 1870s in northwest Nacogdoches County, in deep East Texas. As with hundreds of other relatively autonomous black communities created at that time, the Upshaws sought a safe place to raise their children and create a livelihood during Reconstruction and Jim Crow Texas. more... about The Upshaws of County Line: An American Family

• Ottis Locke Best Book of a Historical Photographic/Artistic Nature from the East Texas Historical Association, 2015

The Year of Perfect Happiness

— Vol. 13: of Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction

Published: November, 2014  Pages: 192 

The sharp-witted stories in Becky Adnot-Haynes’ debut collection explore the secret lives of people—how they deal with the parts of themselves that they choose not to share with their closest confidants—and with the world. A pole-vaulter practices his sport only before dawn. A recently divorced woman signs up for a hallucinogenic drug excursion in the Arizona desert. An uncertain girlfriend goes out into the world wearing a false pregnancy belly. more... about The Year of Perfect Happiness

• Winner of the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction 2014

A Day for Dancing: The Life and Music of Lloyd Pfautsch

— Vol. 9: of North Texas Lives of Musicians Series

Published: November, 2014  Pages: 256  Features: 26 b&w illus. App. Notes. Bib. Index.

After earning his theology degree from Union Seminary in New York, Lloyd Pfautsch (1921–2003) found his true calling in church music. He was invited to Southern Methodist University in 1958 to start their graduate program in sacred music and remained there for 34 years. Outside the university, he formed the Dallas Civic Chorus and led it for 25 years. He was nationally known for his conducting and the quality of the musicians he produced as well as for his compositions, many of which are illustrated here with his handwritten notations. more... about A Day for Dancing: The Life and Music of Lloyd Pfautsch

Goodbye Gluten: Happy Healthy Delicious Eating with a Texas Twist

— Vol. 4: of Great American Cooking Series

Published: October, 2014  Pages: 224  Features: 30 color illus.

Goodbye Gluten Recipe Card: Warm Chocolate Pudding Cake with Kahlua Whipped Cream more... about Goodbye Gluten: Happy Healthy Delicious Eating with a Texas Twist

Conducting Concerti: A Technical and Interpretive Guide

Published: September, 2014  Pages: 416  Features: Notes. Index.

This book examines 43 great concerti and discusses, in detail, the technical, aural, rehearsal, and intra-personal skills that are required for “effortless excellence.” Maestro Itkin wrote this book for conductors first encountering the concerto repertoire and for those wishing to improve their skills about this important, and often understudied, literature. Often misunderstood is the fact that both the physical technique and the score study process require a substantially different and more nuanced approach than with the major symphonic repertoire. In short, this is the book that Itkin wished had been available when he was a student and young professional. more... about Conducting Concerti: A Technical and Interpretive Guide

Women and the Texas Revolution

Published: September, 2014  Pages: 256  Features: 15 b&w photos. Notes. Bib. Index.

Historically, wars and revolutions have offered politically and socially disadvantaged people the opportunity to contribute to the nation (or cause) in exchange for future expanded rights. Although shorter than most conflicts, the Texas Revolution nonetheless profoundly affected not only the leaders and armies, but the survivors, especially women, who endured those tumultuous events and whose lives were altered by the accompanying political, social, and economic changes. more... about Women and the Texas Revolution

• Winner of the Liz Carpenter Award for Research in the History of Women, Texas State Historical Association, 2012

Jade Visions: The Life and Music of Scott LaFaro

— Vol. 4: of North Texas Lives of Musicians Series

Published: August, 2014  Pages: 352  Features: 25 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Discography. Index.

Jade Visions was selected as a title within the Best of the Best from University Presses 2010 program and presented at the annual American Library Association conference. You can view the C-SPAN BookTV video of the program featuring Jade Visions (at the 01:19:45 hour mark for a seven-minute discussion). more... about Jade Visions: The Life and Music of Scott LaFaro

• Winner of the Best Book of 2009, Jazz Division, sponsored by AllAboutJazz-New York, 2009
• Selected for "Best of the Best" from University Presses, ALA Annual Conference, 2010
• Winner of the 2010 Association for Recorded Sound Collections Award for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research in Jazz, 2010

Texas Ranger N. O. Reynolds, the Intrepid

— Vol. 14: of Frances B. Vick Series

Published: August, 2014  Pages: 464  Features: 81 b&w photos. Map. Notes. Bib. Index.

Historians Chuck Parsons and Donaly E. Brice present a complete picture of N. O. Reynolds (1846-1922), a Texas Ranger who brought a greater respect for the law in Central Texas. Reynolds began as a sergeant in famed Company D, Frontier Battalion in 1874. He served honorably during the Mason County “Hoo Doo” War and was chosen to be part of Major John B. Jones’s escort, riding the frontier line. In 1877 he arrested the Horrells, who were feuding with their neighbors, the Higgins party, thus ending their Lampasas County feud. Shortly thereafter he was given command of the newly formed Company E of Texas Rangers. more... about Texas Ranger N. O. Reynolds, the Intrepid

Nancy Love and the WASP Ferry Pilots of World War II

— Vol. 4: of North Texas Military Biography and Memoir Series

Published: July, 2014  Pages: 352  Features: 35 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

She flew the swift P-51 and the capricious P-38, but the heavy, four-engine B-17 bomber and C-54 transport were her forte. This is the story of Nancy Harkness Love who, early in World War II, recruited and led the first group of twenty-eight women to fly military aircraft for the U.S. Army. more... about Nancy Love and the WASP Ferry Pilots of World War II

• Sarah Byrn Rickman, author, awarded the Seventh Annual Combs Gates Award by the National Aviation Hall of Fame for her outstanding work on the women pilots of World War II, 2010

Bad Company and Burnt Powder: Justice and Injustice in the Old Southwest

— Vol. 13: of Frances B. Vick Series

Published: July, 2014  Pages: 512  Features: 106 b&w photos. Notes. Bib. Index.

Bad Company and Burnt Powder is a collection of twelve stories of when things turned “Western” in the nineteenth-century Southwest. Each chapter deals with a different character or episode in the Wild West involving various lawmen, Texas Rangers, outlaws, feudists, vigilantes, lawyers, and judges. Covered herein are the stories of Cal Aten, John Hittson, the Millican boys, Gid Taylor and Jim and Tom Murphy, Alf Rushing, Bob Meldrum and Noah Wilkerson, P. C. Baird, Gus Chenowth, Jim Dunaway, John Kinney, Elbert Hanks and Boyd White, and Eddie Aten. more... about Bad Company and Burnt Powder: Justice and Injustice in the Old Southwest

Journal of Schenkerian Studies 8

Published: June, 2014  Pages: 240 

The Journal of Schenkerian Studies is a peer-reviewed journal published annually by the Center for Schenkerian Studies and the University of North Texas Press under the guidance of Timothy Jackson, Stephen Slottow, and an expert editorial board. more... about Journal of Schenkerian Studies 8

The Horrell Wars: Feuding in Texas and New Mexico

— Vol. 15: of A. C. Greene Series

Published: June, 2014  Pages: 240  Features: 16 b&w photos. 1 map. Notes. Bib. Index.

For decades the Horrell brothers of Lampasas, Texas, have been portrayed as ruthless killers and outlaws, but author David Johnson paints a different picture of these controversial men. The Horrells were ranchers, but some thought that they built their herds by rustling. Their initial confrontation with the State Police at Lampasas in 1873 marked the most disastrous shootout in Reconstruction history. The brothers and loyal friends then fled to New Mexico, where they became entangled in what would later evolve into the violent Lincoln County War. The brothers returned to Texas, where in time they became involved in the Horrell-Higgins War. The family was nearly wiped out following the feud when two of the brothers were killed by a mob. Only one member of the family, Sam, Jr., lived to old age and died of natural causes. more... about The Horrell Wars: Feuding in Texas and New Mexico

Zen of the Plains: Experiencing Wild Western Places

— Vol. 2: of Southwestern Nature Writing Series

Published: May, 2014  Pages: 288  Features: 40 b&w photos. 5 maps. Notes. Bib. Index.

Although spare, sweeping landscapes may appear “empty,” plains and prairies afford a rich, unique aesthetic experience—one of quiet sunrises and dramatic storms, hidden treasures and abundant wildlife, infinite horizons and omnipresent wind, all worthy of contemplation and celebration. In this series of narratives, photographs, and hand-drawn maps, Tyra Olstad blends scholarly research with first-hand observation to explore topics such as wildness and wilderness, travel and tourism, preservation and conservation, expectations and acceptance, and even dreams and reality in the context of parks, prairies, and wild, open places. In so doing, she invites readers to reconsider the meaning of “emptiness” and ask larger, deeper questions such as: how do people experience the world? How do we shape places and how do places shape us? Above all, what does it mean to experience that exhilarating effect known as Zen of the plains? more... about Zen of the Plains: Experiencing Wild Western Places

The Best American Newspaper Narratives of 2012

Published: May, 2014  Pages: 224 

This anthology collects the ten winners of the 2012 Best American Newspaper Narrative Writing Contest at the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference, which is hosted by the Frank W. Mayborn Graduate Institute of Journalism at the University of North Texas. The contest honors exemplary narrative work and encourages narrative nonfiction storytelling at newspapers across the United States. more... about The Best American Newspaper Narratives of 2012

In the Permanent Collection

— Vol. 21: of Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry

Published: April, 2014  Pages: 80 

Trying to make sense of a disordered world, Stefanie Wortman’s debut collection examines works of art as varied as casts of antique sculpture, 19th-century novels, and even scenes from reality television to investigate the versions of order that they offer. These deft poems yield moments of surprising levity even as they mount a sharp critique of human folly. more... about In the Permanent Collection

• Winner of the Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry, 2013

Small Town America in World War II: War Stories from Wrightsville, Pennsylvania

Published: April, 2014  Pages: 464  Features: 23 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

Historians acknowledge that World War II touched every man, woman, and child in the United States. In Small Town America in World War II, Ronald E. Marcello uses oral history interviews with civilians and veterans to explore how the citizens of Wrightsville, Pennsylvania, responded to the war effort. Interviews with citizens and veterans are organized in sections on the home front; the North African-Italian, European, and Pacific theatres; stateside military service; and occupation in Germany. Throughout Marcello provides introductions and contextual narrative on World War II as well as annotations for events and military terms. more... about Small Town America in World War II: War Stories from Wrightsville, Pennsylvania

The Original Guitar Hero and the Power of Music: The Legendary Lonnie Johnson, Music, and Civil Rights

— Vol. 8: of North Texas Lives of Musicians Series

Published: April, 2014  Pages: 384  Features: 23 b&w photos. Notes. Bib. Index.

Listen to the Dean Alger interview on the Big Road Blues Show: Big Road Blues Show (Rochester, NY); this show was called, New Orleans, They Call It the Land of Dreams — The Legendary Lonnie Johnson. more... about The Original Guitar Hero and the Power of Music: The Legendary Lonnie Johnson, Music, and Civil Rights

D-Day in History and Memory: The Normandy Landings in International Remembrance and Commemoration

Published: March, 2014  Pages: 320  Features: 12 b&w photos. 1 map. Notes. Bib. Index.

Over the past sixty-five years, the Allied invasion of Northwestern France in June 1944, known as D-Day, has come to stand as something more than a major battle. The assault itself formed a vital component of Allied victory in the Second World War. D-Day developed into a sign and symbol; as a word it carries with it a series of ideas and associations that have come to symbolize different things to different people and nations. As such, the commemorative activities linked to the battle offer a window for viewing the various belligerents in their postwar years. more... about D-Day in History and Memory: The Normandy Landings in International Remembrance and Commemoration

Captain W. W. Withenbury's 1838–1842 "Red River Reminiscences"

Published: March, 2014  Pages: 352  Features: 10 maps. Notes. Index.

W. W. Withenbury was a famous river boat captain during the mid-1800s. In retirement, he wrote a series of letters for the Cincinnati Commercial, under the title “Red River Reminiscences.” Jacques Bagur has selected and annotated 39 letters describing three steamboat voyages on the upper Red River from 1838 to 1842. more... about Captain W. W. Withenbury's 1838–1842 "Red River Reminiscences"

A Lawless Breed: John Wesley Hardin, Texas Reconstruction, and Violence in the Wild West

— Vol. 14: of A. C. Greene Series

Published: February, 2014  Pages: 512  Features: 83 b&w photos. 3 maps. Notes. Bib. Index.

John Wesley Hardin’s name spread terror in much of Texas in the years following the Civil War as the most wanted fugitive with a $4000 reward on his head. A Texas Ranger wrote that he killed men just to see them kick. Hardin began his killing career in the late 1860s and remained a wanted man until his capture in 1877 by Texas Rangers and Florida law officials. He certainly killed twenty men; some credited him with killing forty or more. more... about A Lawless Breed: John Wesley Hardin, Texas Reconstruction, and Violence in the Wild West

In the Governor's Shadow: The True Story of Ma and Pa Ferguson

Published: February, 2014  Pages: 400  Features: 28 b&w photos. Notes. Bib. Index.

In 1915 Governor James Ferguson began his term in Texas bolstered by a wave of voter enthusiasm and legislative cooperation so great that few Texans anticipated anything short of a successful administration. His campaign was based on two key elements: his appeal to the rural constituency and a temporary hiatus from the effects of the continuous Prohibition debate. In reality, Jim Ferguson had shrewdly sold a well-crafted image of himself to Texas voters, carrying into office a bevy of closely guarded secrets about his personal finances, his business acumen, and his relationship with Texas brewers. Those secrets, once unraveled, ultimately led to charges brought against Governor Ferguson via impeachment. more... about In the Governor's Shadow: The True Story of Ma and Pa Ferguson

Cowboys, Cops, Killers, and Ghosts: Legends and Lore in Texas

— Vol. 69: of Publications of the Texas Folklore Society

Published: December, 2013  Pages: 368  Features: 70 b&w illus. Notes. Index.

This Publication of the Texas Folklore Society has something for everyone. The first section features a good bit of occupational lore, including articles on cowboys—both legendary ones and the relatively unknown men who worked their trade day by day wherever they could. You’ll also find a unique, personal look at a famous outlaw and learn about a teacher’s passion for encouraging her students to discover their own family culture, as well as unusual weddings, somewhat questionable ways to fish, and one woman’s love affair with a bull. more... about Cowboys, Cops, Killers, and Ghosts: Legends and Lore in Texas

The Roots of Latino Urban Agency

— Vol. 8: of Al Filo: Mexican American Studies Series

Published: November, 2013  Pages: 192  Features: Map. Notes. Bib. Index. Open Access

The Roots of Latino Urban Agency is now available as a free e-book via Knowledge Unlatched.​ more... about The Roots of Latino Urban Agency

In These Times the Home Is a Tired Place

— Vol. 12: of Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction

Published: November, 2013  Pages: 152 

Publishers Weekly interviews Jessica Hollander, winner of the Katherine Anne Porter Prize: Life Turned Up a Notch: PW Talks with Jessica Hollander. more... about In These Times the Home Is a Tired Place

• Winner of the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction 2013

Magellanic Sub-Antarctic Ornithology: First Decade of Long-Term Bird Studies at the Omora Ethnobotanical Park, Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve, Chile

Published: November, 2013  Pages: 400  Features: 85 color photos. 36 color maps. 132 tables. Notes. Bib. Index.

The first synthesis of current knowledge of forest and wetland birds in the world’s southernmost forests, this book contains both original work by Rozzi and Jiménez and the results of a decade of research conducted by the scientists associated with the Omora Park. The first part is a guide to the forest bird populations and habitats in the Reserve, and a summary of the data recorded for the bird species captured with mist-nets and banded. The information is given in two pages for each species, with English, Spanish, and scientific names, as well as a full-color photo, distribution maps, a table with original morphological information, a figure indicating abundance rates, and a brief description of the species’ main features. more... about Magellanic Sub-Antarctic Ornithology: First Decade of Long-Term Bird Studies at the Omora Ethnobotanical Park, Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve, Chile

Morning Comes to Elk Mountain: Dispatches from the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge

— Vol. 1: of Southwestern Nature Writing Series

Published: October, 2013  Pages: 272  Features: 15 b&w photos. 20 color photos. 1 map. Index.

Announcing the first book in the Southwestern Nature Writing Series. This series is intended to include books in the narrative tradition of John Graves’ Goodbye to a River that reflect a modern sensibility and awareness of the environmental issues facing the region as well as considering questions of environmental justice, ecological restoration, and sustainable communities. more... about Morning Comes to Elk Mountain: Dispatches from the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge

Reflections on the Neches: A Naturalist's Odyssey along the Big Thicket's Snow River

— Vol. 3: of Temple Big Thicket Series

Published: October, 2013  Pages: 376  Features: 16 b&w photos. 29 line drawings. 20 maps. Index.

New in Paperback: Reflections on the Neches is the story of a sixty-three-year-old woman who builds a backwater boat and journeys down the Neches River in East Texas, telling both the story of her river float trip and the natural history and folklore of the region. The Neches, one of the last “wild” rivers in Texas, is now being subjected to dams. Watson’s story captures the wildness of the river and imparts a detailed history of its people and wildlife. Profusely illustrated with maps, drawings, and photographs, it will appeal to all interested in the Big Thicket region and those indulging a feeling of wanderlust—and float trips—down the river. more... about Reflections on the Neches: A Naturalist's Odyssey along the Big Thicket's Snow River

• Texas Institute of Letters Carr P. Collins Award, runner-up, 2004

The Diaries of John Gregory Bourke Volume 5: May 23, 1881–August 26, 1881

Published: October, 2013  Pages: 560  Features: 71 b&w photos. 4 maps. App.

John Gregory Bourke kept a monumental set of diaries beginning as a young cavalry lieutenant in Arizona in 1872, and ending the evening before his death in 1896. As aide-de-camp to Brigadier General George Crook, he had an insider’s view of the early Apache campaigns, the Great Sioux War, the Cheyenne Outbreak, and the Geronimo War. Bourke’s writings reveal much about military life on the western frontier, but he also was a noted ethnologist, writing extensive descriptions of American Indian civilization and illustrating his diaries with sketches and photographs. more... about The Diaries of John Gregory Bourke Volume 5: May 23, 1881–August 26, 1881

Tracking the Texas Rangers: The Twentieth Century

— Vol. 12: of Frances B. Vick Series

Published: September, 2013  Pages: 320  Features: 14 b&w photos. Map. Notes. Bib. Index.

Tracking the Texas Rangers: The Twentieth Century is an anthology of fifteen previously published articles and chapter excerpts covering key topics of the Texas Rangers during the twentieth century. The task of determining the role of the Rangers as the state evolved and what they actually accomplished for the benefit of the state is a difficult challenge. The actions of the Rangers fit no easy description. There is a dark side to the story of the Rangers; during the Mexican Revolution, for example, some murdered with impunity. Others sought to restore order in the border communities as well as in the remainder of Texas. It is not lack of interest that complicates the unveiling of the mythical force. With the possible exception of the Alamo, probably more has been written about the Texas Rangers than any other aspect of Texas history. more... about Tracking the Texas Rangers: The Twentieth Century

Command Culture: Officer Education in the U.S. Army and the German Armed Forces, 1901-1940, and the Consequences for World War II

Published: August, 2013  Pages: 368  Features: 31 b&w photos. Notes. Bib. Index.

Please visit the New Books Network website to listen to an interview with the author. more... about Command Culture: Officer Education in the U.S. Army and the German Armed Forces, 1901-1940, and the Consequences for World War II

• Distinguished Writing Award in Institutional/Functional History, from the Army Historical Foundation, 2011
• Selected by General Raymond Odierno for the U.S. Army Chief of Staff's Professional Reading List, March 2012
• Winner of the Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Writing Award, 2012
• Selected by Lieutenant General David Morrison, Chief of Army (Australia), for the Chief of Army's Reading List, 2012
• Selected by General James F. Amos, Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, as required reading for all senior enlisted men and all Majors and Lieutenant-Colonels, 2013
• Selected by Major General H.R. McMaster at the Maneuver Center of Excellence, Fort Benning, for the Leader Development Study Program, 2013

Dog Trots and Mud Cats: The Texas Log House

Published: August, 2013  Pages: 160  Features: 112 b&w photos. 3 maps. Notes. Bib.

Log cabins and houses are more than historical curiosities. Throughout the nineteenth century, they were symbols of American frontier ingenuity. Their images were used in political campaigns and on commercial products to represent trustworthiness and quality. When new building techniques were developed, however, they became representatives of the primitive past that were best left behind. Now log dwellings are making a comeback for urbanites trying to get back to the land. more... about Dog Trots and Mud Cats: The Texas Log House

The Sutton-Taylor Feud: The Deadliest Blood Feud in Texas

— Vol. 7: of A. C. Greene Series

Published: July, 2013  Pages: 400  Features: 46 b&w illus. 1 map. 7 apps. Notes. Bib. Index.

New in Paperback: The Sutton-Taylor Feud in Texas began shortly after the Civil War ended and continued into the 1890s. William E. Sutton was the only Sutton involved, but he had many friends to wage warfare against the large Taylor family and their deadly supporter, John Wesley Hardin. Mobs formed in Comanche County in retaliation for John Wesley Hardin’s killing of a Brown County deputy sheriff. One mob “liberated” three prisoners from the DeWitt County jail, thoughtfully hanging them close to the cemetery for the convenience of their relatives. An ambush party killed James Cox, slashing his throat from ear to ear—as if the buckshot in him was not sufficient. A doctor and his son were called from their home and brutally shot down. Texas Rangers attempted to quell the violence, but when they were called away, the killing began again. more... about The Sutton-Taylor Feud: The Deadliest Blood Feud in Texas

• Second place for Best Book of 2009 by Westerners International

Life with a Superhero: Raising Michael Who Has Down Syndrome

— Vol. 6: of Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Series

Published: July, 2013  Pages: 288  Features: 25 b&w photos. Notes.

Please visit Kathryn U. Hulings’s new website to learn more about her book, Life with a Superhero: Raising Michael Who Has Down Syndrome. more... about Life with a Superhero: Raising Michael Who Has Down Syndrome

• Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference Book Manuscript Competition

Theoria 20: Historical Aspects of Music Theory

Published: June, 2013 

Theoria is an annual peer-reviewed journal on all aspects of the history of music theory. It includes critical articles representing the current stage of research, and editions of newly discovered or mostly unknown theoretical texts with translation and commentary. Analytical articles on recent or unknown repertory and methods are also published, as well as review articles on recent secondary literature and textbooks. Back issues are available from Texas A&M University Press. more... about Theoria 20: Historical Aspects of Music Theory

Journal of Schenkerian Studies 7

Published: June, 2013  Pages: 240 

The Journal of Schenkerian Studies is a peer-reviewed journal published annually by the Center for Schenkerian Studies and the University of North Texas Press under the guidance of Timothy Jackson, Stephen Slottow, and an expert editorial board. more... about Journal of Schenkerian Studies 7

I Fought a Good Fight: A History of the Lipan Apaches

Published: June, 2013  Pages: 528  Features: 26 b&w photos. 11 maps. Notes. Bib. Index.

This history of the Lipan Apaches, from archeological evidence to the present, tells the story of some of the least known, least understood people in the Southwest. These plains buffalo hunters and traders were one of the first groups to acquire horses, and with this advantage they expanded from the Panhandle across Texas and into Coahuila. Around 1700, the Comanches began forcing Eastern Apaches from their haunts, but they didn’t yield easily and from then on were the Comanches’ stubborn enemies. more... about I Fought a Good Fight: A History of the Lipan Apaches

• First runner-up for a Zia Award from New Mexico Press Women, 2015
• Winner of the New Mexico-Arizona Book Award in History, Fray Francisco Atanasio Dominguez Award, Historical Society of New Mexico, 2014

Civil War General and Indian Fighter James M. Williams: Leader of the 1st Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry and the 8th U.S. Cavalry

— Vol. 12: of War and the Southwest Series

Published: May, 2013  Pages: 320  Features: 37 b&w photos. 3 maps. Notes. Bib. Index.

The military career of General James Monroe Williams spanned both the Civil War and the Indian Wars in the West, yet no biography has been published to date on his important accomplishments, until now. From his birth on the northern frontier, westward movement in the Great Migration, rush into the violence of antebellum Kansas Territory, Civil War commands in the Trans-Mississippi, and as a cavalry officer in the Indian Wars, Williams was involved in key moments of American history. Like many who make a difference, Williams was a leader of strong convictions, sometimes impatient with heavy-handed and sluggish authority. more... about Civil War General and Indian Fighter James M. Williams: Leader of the 1st Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry and the 8th U.S. Cavalry

• William Henry Seward Award for Excellence in Civil War Biography, Civil War Forum of Metropolitan New York, 2014

Riding Lucifer's Line: Ranger Deaths along the Texas-Mexico Border

— Vol. 11: of Frances B. Vick Series

Published: May, 2013  Pages: 464  Features: 60 b&w photos. Notes. Bib. Index.

The Texas-Mexico border is trouble. Haphazardly splashing across the meandering Rio Grande into Mexico is—or at least can be—risky business, hazardous to one’s health and well-being. Kirby W. Dendy, the Chief of Texas Rangers, corroborates the sobering reality: “As their predecessors for over one hundred forty years before them did, today’s Texas Rangers continue to battle violence and transnational criminals along the Texas-Mexico border.” more... about Riding Lucifer's Line: Ranger Deaths along the Texas-Mexico Border

Finish Forty and Home: The Untold World War II Story of B-24s in the Pacific

— Vol. 5: of Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Series

Published: April, 2013  Pages: 408  Features: 39 b&w photos. 1 map. Notes. Bib. Index.

Finish Forty and Home was selected as a title within the Best of the Best from University Presses 2012 program and presented at the annual American Library Association conference. You can view the C-SPAN BookTV video of the program featuring this title (at the 1:02:45 hour mark for a seven-minute discussion). more... about Finish Forty and Home: The Untold World War II Story of B-24s in the Pacific

• Main Selection of the History/Military Book Club, 2011
• Selected for "Best of the Best" from University Presses, ALA Annual Conference, 2012
• Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference Book Manuscript Competition

Heggie and Scheer's Moby-Dick: A Grand Opera for the Twenty-first Century

Published: April, 2013  Pages: 240  Features: 230 color photos. Notes. Bib. Index.

Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer’s grand opera Moby-Dick was a stunning success in the world premiere production by the Dallas Opera in 2010. Robert K. Wallace attended the final performance of the Dallas production and has written this book so readers can experience the process by which this contemporary masterpiece was created and performed on stage. Interviews with the creative team and draft revisions of the libretto and score show the opera in the process of being born. Interviews with the principal singers and the production staff follow the five-week rehearsal period into the world premiere production, each step of the way illustrated by more than two hundred color photographs by Karen Almond. more... about Heggie and Scheer's Moby-Dick: A Grand Opera for the Twenty-first Century

Club Icarus

— Vol. 20: of Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry

Published: April, 2013  Pages: 80 

With muscular language and visceral imagery, Club Icarus bears witness to the pain, the fear, and the flimsy mortality that births our humanity as well as the hope, humor, love, and joy that completes it. This book will appeal to sons and fathers, to parents and children, to those tired of poetry that makes no sense, to those who think lyric poetry is dead, to those who think the narrative poem is stale, to those who think that poetry has sealed itself off from the living world, and to those who appreciate the vernacular as the language of living and the act of living as something worth putting into language. more... about Club Icarus

• Winner of the Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry 2012

Through Time and the Valley

— Vol. 2: of Western Life Series

Published: April, 2013  Pages: 256  Features: 31 b&w photos. Map. Bib. Index.

The isolated Canadian River in the Texas Panhandle stretched before John Erickson and Bill Ellzey as they began a journey through time and what the locals call “the valley.” They went on horseback, as they might have traveled it a century before. Everywhere they went they talked, worked, and swapped stories with the people of the valley, piecing together a picture of what life has been like there for a hundred years. Through Time and the Valley is their story of the river—its history, its lore, its colorful characters, the comedies and tragedies that valley people have spun yarns about for generations. Outlaws, frontier wives, Indian warriors, cowboys, craftsmen, dance-hall girls, moonshiners, inventors, ranchers—all are part of the Canadian River country heritage that gives this book its vitality. more... about Through Time and the Valley

Bad Boy from Rosebud: The Murderous Life of Kenneth Allen McDuff

Published: March, 2013  Pages: 384  Features: 63 b&w photos. Notes. Bib. Index.

In October of 1989, the State of Texas set Kenneth Allen McDuff, the Broomstick Murderer, free on parole. By choosing to murder again, McDuff became the architect of an extraordinarily intolerant atmosphere in Texas. The spasm of prison construction and parole reforms—collectively called the “McDuff Rules”—resulted from an enormous display of anger vented towards a system that allowed McDuff to kill, and kill again. Bad Boy from Rosebud is a chilling account of the life of one of the most heartless and brutal serial killers in American history. Gary M. Lavergne goes beyond horror into an analysis of the unbelievable subculture in which McDuff lived. Equally compelling are the lives of remarkable law enforcement officers determined to bring McDuff to justice, and their seven-year search for his victims. more... about Bad Boy from Rosebud: The Murderous Life of Kenneth Allen McDuff

Chicano Education in the Era of Segregation

— Vol. 7: of Al Filo: Mexican American Studies Series

Published: March, 2013  Pages: 240  Features: 10 b&w photos. Notes. Bib. Index.

Chicano Education in the Era of Segregation analyzes the socioeconomic origins of the theory and practice of segregated schooling for Mexican-Americans from 1910 to 1950. Gilbert G. Gonzalez links the various aspects of the segregated school experience, discussing Americanization, testing, tracking, industrial education, and migrant education as parts of a single system designed for the processing of the Mexican child as a source of cheap labor. The movement for integration began slowly, reaching a peak in the 1940s and 1950s. The 1947 Mendez v. Westminster case was the first federal court decision and the first application of the Fourteenth Amendment to overturn segregation based on the “separate but equal” doctrine. This paperback features an extensive new Preface by the author discussing new developments in the history of segregated schooling. more... about Chicano Education in the Era of Segregation

They Called Them Soldier Boys: A Texas Infantry Regiment in World War I

— Vol. 11: of War and the Southwest Series

Published: March, 2013  Pages: 352  Features: 21 b&w photos. 5 maps. Notes. Bib. Index.

They Called Them Soldier Boys offers an in-depth study of soldiers of the Texas National Guard’s Seventh Texas Infantry Regiment in World War I, through their recruitment, training, journey to France, combat, and their return home. Gregory W. Ball focuses on the fourteen counties in North, Northwest, and West Texas where officers recruited the regiment’s soldiers in the summer of 1917, and how those counties compared with the rest of the state in terms of political, social, and economic attitudes. Through the use of Selective Service Registration cards, a sample of 1,096 members of the regiment provides enough data to suggest a portrait of the officers and enlisted men based on age, occupation, marital status, dependents, and other criteria, an approach common to analyses of soldiers in other wars but which has not been done before in studies of World War I soldiers. more... about They Called Them Soldier Boys: A Texas Infantry Regiment in World War I

• Winner of two Communicator Awards for Cover (overall) and Cover (design), 2013

This Corner of Canaan: Essays on Texas in Honor of Randolph B. Campbell

Published: February, 2013  Pages: 480  Features: 17 b&w photos. Notes. Bib. Index.

Randolph B. “Mike” Campbell has spent the better part of the last five decades helping Texans rediscover their history, producing a stream of definitive works on the social, political, and economic structures of the Texas past. Through meticulous research and terrific prose, Campbell’s collective work has fundamentally remade how historians understand Texan identity and the state’s southern heritage, as well as our understanding of such contentious issues as slavery, westward expansion, and Reconstruction. Campbell’s pioneering work in local and county records has defined the model for grassroots research and community studies in the field. More than any other scholar, Campbell has shaped our modern understanding of Texas. more... about This Corner of Canaan: Essays on Texas in Honor of Randolph B. Campbell

First Timers and Old Timers: The Texas Folklore Society Fire Burns On

— Vol. 68: of Publications of the Texas Folklore Society

Published: December, 2012  Pages: 400  Features: 90 b&w illus. Notes. Index.

“The Texas Folklore Society has been alive and kicking for over one hundred years now, and I don’t really think there’s any mystery as to what keeps the organization going strong. The secret to our longevity is simply the constant replenishment of our body of contributors. We are especially fortunate in recent years to have had papers given at our annual meetings by new members—young members, many of whom are college or even high school students. more... about First Timers and Old Timers: The Texas Folklore Society Fire Burns On

Houston Blue: The Story of the Houston Police Department

— Vol. 8: of North Texas Crime and Criminal Justice Series

Published: November, 2012  Pages: 496  Features: 50 b&w photos. Notes. Bib. Index.

Houston Blue offers the first comprehensive history of one of the nation’s largest police forces, the Houston Police Department. Through extensive archival research and more than one hundred interviews with prominent Houston police figures, politicians, news reporters, attorneys, and others, authors Mitchel P. Roth and Tom Kennedy chronicle the development of policing in the Bayou City from its days as a grimy trading post in the 1830s to its current status as the nation’s fourth largest city. Combining the skills of historian, criminologist, and journalist, Roth and Kennedy reconstruct the history of a police force that has been both innovative and controversial. more... about Houston Blue: The Story of the Houston Police Department

Venus in the Afternoon

— Vol. 11: of Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction

Published: November, 2012  Pages: 192 

The short stories in this rich debut collection embody in their complexity Alice Munro’s description of the short story as “a world seen in a quick, glancing light.” In chiseled and elegant prose, Lieberman conjures wildly disparate worlds. A middle aged window washer, mourning his wife and an estranged daughter, begins to grow attached to a young woman he sees through the glass; a writer, against his better judgment, pursues a new relationship with a femme fatale who years ago broke his heart; and the daughter of a Holocaust survivor struggles with the delicate decision of whether to finally ask her aging mother how it was that she survived. It is all here—the exigencies of love, of lust, the raw, unlit terrain of grief. Whether plumbing the darker depths or casting a humorous eye on a doomed relationship, these stories never force a choice between tragedy and redemption, but rather invite us into the private moments and crucibles of lives as hungry and flawed as our own. more... about Venus in the Afternoon

• Winner of the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction

Theoria 19: Historical Aspects of Music Theory

Published: October, 2012 

Theoria is an annual peer-reviewed journal on all aspects of the history of music theory. It includes critical articles representing the current stage of research, and editions of newly discovered or mostly unknown theoretical texts with translation and commentary. Analytical articles on recent or unknown repertory and methods are also published, as well as review articles on recent secondary literature and textbooks. Back issues are available from Texas A&M University Press. more... about Theoria 19: Historical Aspects of Music Theory

Cataclysm: General Hap Arnold and the Defeat of Japan

Published: September, 2012  Pages: 352  Features: 27 b&w illus. Gloss. Notes. Bib. Index.

No published work examines General Henry H. “Hap” Arnold’s role in depth during the Pacific War of 1944-1945, in the context of planning for the destruction of Japan. In this new study, Herman S. Wolk, retired Senior Historian of the U.S. Air Force, examines the thinking of Hap Arnold, Commanding General, Army Air Forces (AAF), during World War II. Specifically, Wolk concentrates on Arnold’s leadership in crafting the weapons, organization, and command of the strategic bombing offensive against Japan, which culminated in Japan’s capitulation in the summer of 1945, ending the Pacific War. more... about Cataclysm: General Hap Arnold and the Defeat of Japan

Tracking the Texas Rangers: The Nineteenth Century

— Vol. 10: of Frances B. Vick Series

Published: September, 2012  Pages: 384  Features: 9 b&w photos. Map. Notes. Bib. Index.

Tracking the Texas Rangers is an anthology of sixteen previously published articles and chapter excerpts, arranged in chronological history, covering key topics of the intrepid and sometimes controversial law officers named the Texas Rangers. Determining the role of the Rangers as the state evolved and what they actually accomplished for the benefit of the state is a difficult challenge—the actions of the Rangers fit no easy description. There is a dark side to the story of the Rangers; during the war with Mexico, for example, some murdered, pillaged, and raped. Yet these same Rangers eased the resultant United States victory. Even their beginning and the first use of the term “Texas Ranger” have mixed and complex origins. more... about Tracking the Texas Rangers: The Nineteenth Century

He Rode with Butch and Sundance: The Story of Harvey "Kid Curry" Logan

— Vol. 13: of A. C. Greene Series

Published: August, 2012  Pages: 464  Features: 50 b&w photos. Map. Notes. Bib. Index.

Pinned down by a posse, the wounded outlaw’s companions urged him to escape through the gulch. “Don’t wait for me,” he replied, “I’m all in and might as well end it right here.” Placing his revolver to his right temple, he pulled the trigger for the last time, thus ending the life of the notorious “Kid Curry” of the Wild Bunch. more... about He Rode with Butch and Sundance: The Story of Harvey "Kid Curry" Logan

Texas Ranger John B. Jones and the Frontier Battalion, 1874-1881

— Vol. 9: of Frances B. Vick Series

Published: August, 2012  Pages: 432  Features: 38 b&w photos. Notes. Bib. Index.

In 1874, the Texas legislature created the Frontier Battalion, the first formal, budgeted organization as an arm of state government of what historically had been periodic groups loosely referred to as Texas Rangers. Initially created to combat the menace of repeated raids of Indians from the north and from Mexico into frontier counties, the Battalion was led by an unusual choice: a frail, humorless Confederate veteran from Navarro County, John B. Jones. Under Jones’s leadership, the Battalion grew in sophistication, moving from Indian fighting to capturing Texas’s bad men, such as John Wesley Hardin and Sam Bass. Established during the unsettled time of Reconstruction, the Rangers effectively filled a local law enforcement void until competency was returned to local sheriffs’ and marshals’ offices. more... about Texas Ranger John B. Jones and the Frontier Battalion, 1874-1881

• Best Book Award from the Wild West History Association, 2013

The Johnson-Sims Feud: Romeo and Juliet, West Texas Style

— Vol. 9: of A. C. Greene Series

Published: July, 2012  Pages: 224  Features: 60 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

The Johnson and Sims families were pioneer ranchers, settling in the same region—Lampasas and Burnet counties—in the dangerous years just before the Civil War. After the war two couples from the next generation, Billy and Nannie Johnson and Dave and Laura Belle Sims, established large ranches—forty or more sections each—in adjoining counties, Scurry and Kent, in West Texas. more... about The Johnson-Sims Feud: Romeo and Juliet, West Texas Style

The Deadliest Outlaws: The Ketchum Gang and the Wild Bunch, Second Edition

— Vol. 8: of A. C. Greene Series

Published: July, 2012  Pages: 592  Features: 59 b&w illus. 6 Maps. Notes. Bib. Index.

After Tom Ketchum had been sentenced to death for attempting to hold up a railway train, his attorneys argued that the penalty was “cruel and unusual” for the offense charged. The appeal failed and he became the first individual—and the last—ever to be executed for a crime of this sort. He was hanged in 1901; in a macabre ending to his life of crime, his head was torn away by the rope as he fell from the gallows. more... about The Deadliest Outlaws: The Ketchum Gang and the Wild Bunch, Second Edition

Journal of Schenkerian Studies 6

Published: June, 2012 

The Journal of Schenkerian Studies is a peer-reviewed journal published annually by the Center for Schenkerian Studies at the University of North Texas. The journal features articles on all facets of Schenkerian thought, including theory, analysis, pedagogy, and historical aspects. Back issues can be obtained from Texas A&M University Press. more... about Journal of Schenkerian Studies 6

The McLaurys in Tombstone, Arizona: An O.K. Corral Obituary

— Vol. 12: of A. C. Greene Series

Published: June, 2012  Pages: 416  Features: 22 b&w illus. 3 maps. Notes. Bib. Index.

On a chilly October afternoon in 1881, two brothers named Tom and Frank McLaury were gunned down on the streets of Tombstone, Arizona, by the Earp brothers and Doc Holliday. The deadly event became known as the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, and in a quirk of fate, the brothers’ names became well-known, but only as bad men and outlaws. Did they deserve that reputation? more... about The McLaurys in Tombstone, Arizona: An O.K. Corral Obituary

Confessions of a Horseshoer

— Vol. 8: of Western Life Series

Published: May, 2012  Pages: 272  Features: 23 b&w photos.

Confessions of a Horseshoer offers a close and personal look at the mind-set of a professional horseshoer (farrier) who also happens to be a college professor. The book, an ironic and playful view of the many unusual animals (and people) Ron Tatum has encountered over thirty-seven years, is nicely balanced between straightforward presentation, self-effacing humor, and lightly seasoned wisdom. It captures the day-to-day life of a somewhat cantankerous old guy, who has attitude and strong opinions. more... about Confessions of a Horseshoer

Ground Pounder: A Marine's Journey through South Vietnam, 1968-1969

— Vol. 7: of North Texas Military Biography and Memoir Series

Published: May, 2012  Pages: 368  Features: 13 b&w photos. 1 map. Notes. Bib.

In early February of 1968, at the beginning of the Tet Offensive, Private First Class Gregory V. Short arrived in Vietnam as an eighteen-year-old U.S. Marine. Amid all of the confusion and destruction, he began his tour of duty as an 81mm mortarman with the 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, which was stationed at Con Thien near the DMZ. While living in horrendous conditions reminiscent of the trenches in World War I, his unit was cut off and constantly being bombarded by the North Vietnamese heavy artillery, rockets, and mortars. more... about Ground Pounder: A Marine's Journey through South Vietnam, 1968-1969

• History/Military Book Club Selection, 2012
• Branson Stars and Flags Book Award, 2012

Miniature Forests of Cape Horn: Ecotourism with a Hand Lens

Published: April, 2012  Pages: 400  Features: 250 color illus. Bib.

In the humid forests of Cape Horn, a single tree can host more than 100 species of little epiphyte plants. The floor of the forest and the rocks are also covered by numerous species of liverworts, mosses, and lichens. The decision to stop at a tree or rock and explore these “miniature forests” generates an authentic ecotourism experience. In a small area we can spend several minutes or hours with a magnifying glass or camera discovering the colors, shapes, and textures of the most diverse organisms of Cape Horn. more... about Miniature Forests of Cape Horn: Ecotourism with a Hand Lens

Death of a Ventriloquist

— Vol. 19: of Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry

Published: April, 2012  Pages: 80 

This debut collection includes love songs and prayers, palinodes and pleas, short histories and tragic tales as well as a series of ventriloquist poems that track the epiphanies and consequences of speaking in a voice other than one’s own. Other poems speak to a Beloved and the highs and lows of parenthood and personhood—all with music and verve, with formal dexterity, with sadness and humor, with an intimate voice that can both whisper in our ears and grab us by the collar and implore us to listen. more... about Death of a Ventriloquist

• Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry

Tips, Tools, and Techniques to Care for Antiques, Collectibles, and Other Treasures

— Vol. 5: of Practical Guide Series

Published: April, 2012  Pages: 144  Features: 25 illus. Bib.

What common baking ingredient can conceal white rings on furniture? (Crushed pecans.) How do you detect a repair in a pottery vase you want to buy? (Look at it under a black light.) What’s the best way to remove water damage from your great-grandfather’s Bible? (Put it in your freezer.) more... about Tips, Tools, and Techniques to Care for Antiques, Collectibles, and Other Treasures

Still the Arena of Civil War: Violence and Turmoil in Reconstruction Texas, 1865-1874

Published: March, 2012  Pages: 480  Features: 16 b&w photos. 3 maps. Notes. Bib. Index.

Following the Civil War, the United States was fully engaged in a bloody conflict with ex-Confederates, conservative Democrats, and members of organized terrorist groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, for control of the southern states. Texas became one of the earliest battleground states in the War of Reconstruction. Throughout this era, white Texans claimed that Radical Republicans in Congress were attempting to dominate their state through “Negro-Carpetbag-Scalawag rule.” In response to these perceived threats, whites initiated a violent guerilla war that was designed to limit support for the Republican Party. They targeted loyal Unionists throughout the South, especially African Americans who represented the largest block of Republican voters in the region. more... about Still the Arena of Civil War: Violence and Turmoil in Reconstruction Texas, 1865-1874

Antebellum Jefferson, Texas: Everyday Life in an East Texas Town

Published: February, 2012  Pages: 640  Features: 92 illus. Bib essay. Index.

Founded in 1845 as a steamboat port at the entryway to western markets from the Red River, Jefferson was a thriving center of trade until the steamboat traffic dried up in the 1870s. During its heyday, the town monopolized the shipping of cotton from all points west for 150 miles. Jefferson was the unofficial capital of East Texas, but it was also typical of boom towns in general. more... about Antebellum Jefferson, Texas: Everyday Life in an East Texas Town

Californio Voices: The Oral Memoirs of Jose Maria Amador and Lorenzo Asisara

— Vol. 3: of Al Filo: Mexican American Studies Series

Published: January, 2012  Pages: 360  Features: 11 photos, 1 map. App. Notes. Bib. Index.

In the early 1870s, Hubert H. Bancroft and his assistants set out to record the memoirs of early Californios, one of them being eighty-three-year-old Don José María Amador, a former “Forty-Niner” during the California Gold Rush and soldado de cuera at the Presidio of San Francisco. Amador tells of reconnoitering expeditions into the interior of California, where he encountered local indigenous populations. He speaks of political events of Mexican California and the widespread confiscation of the Californios’ goods, livestock, and properties when the United States took control. A friend from Mission Santa Cruz, Lorenzo Asisara, also describes the harsh life and mistreatment the Indians faced from the priests. more... about Californio Voices: The Oral Memoirs of Jose Maria Amador and Lorenzo Asisara

Hide, Horn, Fish, and Fowl: Texas Hunting and Fishing Lore

— Vol. 67: of Publications of the Texas Folklore Society

Published: December, 2011 

What would cause someone to withstand freezing temperatures in a cramped wooden box for hours on end, or stand in waist-high rushing waters, flicking a pole back and forth over and over—in many cases with nothing whatsoever to show for his efforts? Why is it that, into the twenty-first century, with the convenience of practically any type of red meat or fish available at the local supermarket, we continue to hunt game and fish on open waters? The answer is that no matter how sophisticated we think we are, no matter how technologically advanced we become, there is still something deep within us that beckons us to “the hunt.” more... about Hide, Horn, Fish, and Fowl: Texas Hunting and Fishing Lore

Out of Time

— Vol. 10: of Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction

Published: November, 2011  Pages: 128 

A sweet slipstream stew, a call and response to Hemingway’s In Our Time, Geoff Schmidt’s debut collection Out of Time is a meditation on meaning and mortality, and the ways that story and the imagined life can sustain us. In these stories, vengeful infants destroy and rebuild the world, rivalrous siblings and their mother encounter witches and ghosts and the possessed, Barack Obama and Keith Richards smoke their last cigarettes, men and women with cancer variously don gorilla suits or experience all time simultaneously. Time is running out for all of the people in these stories, yet the power of language, the human ability to tell, to imagine and invent, is a redemptive force. more... about Out of Time

• Winner of the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction

Written in Blood: The History of Fort Worth's Fallen Lawmen, Volume 2, 1910-1928

Published: October, 2011  Pages: 464  Features: 45 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

In 2010 Written in Blood: The History of Fort Worth’s Fallen Lawmen, Volume 1, told the stories of thirteen Fort Worth law officers who died in the line of duty between 1861 and 1909. Now Richard F. Selcer and Kevin S. Foster are back with Volume 2 covering another baker’s dozen line-of-duty deaths that occurred between 1910 and 1928. The stories are grouped into two sections: When Blood Ran in the Streets, 1910-1919 and Life Was Cheap, 1920-1928. Not counting the two officers who died of natural causes (meningitis and drowning), these are more tales of murder, mayhem, and dirty work from all branches of local law enforcement: police, sheriff’s deputies, constables, and special officers, just like in Volume 1. more... about Written in Blood: The History of Fort Worth's Fallen Lawmen, Volume 2, 1910-1928

The Big Thicket Guidebook: Exploring the Backroads and History of Southeast Texas

— Vol. 6: of Temple Big Thicket Series

Published: October, 2011  Pages: 848  Features: 100 illus. 16 maps. Bib. Index.

Start your engines and follow the backroads, the historical paths, and the scenic landscape that were fashioned by geologic Ice Ages and traveled by Big Thicket explorers as well as contemporary park advocates–all as diverse as the Big Thicket itself. From Spanish missionaries to Jayhawkers, and from timber barons to public officials, you will meet some unusual characters who inhabited an exceptional region. The Big Thicket and its National Preserve contain plants and animals from deserts and swamps and ecosystems in between, all together in one amazing Biological Crossroad. The fifteen tours included with maps will take you through them all. more... about The Big Thicket Guidebook: Exploring the Backroads and History of Southeast Texas

Constables, Marshals, and More: Forgotten Offices in Texas Law Enforcement

— Vol. 7: of North Texas Crime and Criminal Justice Series

Published: September, 2011  Pages: 208  Features: 11 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

Most students of criminal justice, and the general public as well, think of policing along the three basic types of municipal, sheriff, and state police. Little is known about other avenues of police work, such as the constable. In policing textbooks, when a position such as constable is mentioned, only a line or two is presented, hardly enough to indicate it is of any importance. And yet constables and numerous other alternative policing positions are of vital importance to law enforcement in Texas and in other states. more... about Constables, Marshals, and More: Forgotten Offices in Texas Law Enforcement

Nassau Plantation: The Evolution of a Texas German Slave Plantation

Published: September, 2011  Pages: 368  Features: 19 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

The first printing of this title accidentally dropped the endnotes to Chapter 13; these notes are available for viewing in the Excerpt field below. more... about Nassau Plantation: The Evolution of a Texas German Slave Plantation

Stan Kenton: This Is an Orchestra!

— Vol. 5: of North Texas Lives of Musicians Series

Published: August, 2011  Pages: 400  Features: 40 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.

Stan Kenton (1911—1979) formed his first full orchestra in 1940 and soon drew record-breaking crowds to hear and dance to his exciting sound. He continued to tour and record unrelentingly for the next four decades. Stan Kenton: This Is an Orchestra! sums up the mesmerizing bandleader at the height of his powers, arms waving energetically, his face a study of concentration as he cajoled, coaxed, strained, and obtained the last ounce of energy from every musician under his control. more... about Stan Kenton: This Is an Orchestra!

Be a Poet!

Published: August, 2011  Pages: 420  Features: 9 b&w illus. Bib. Index.

Originally published in 2007 by Twickenham Press, Be a Poet! is a friendly, accessible guidebook for beginning poets of all ages and situations, containing many exercises designed to expand their repertoire of rhythms and forms. Bogen uses examples from canonical poets like Carl Sandburg and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, as well as three contemporary poets whom she has interviewed personally about their writing habits and tricks. This handbook for the poetically inclined includes in-depth coverage of words and how to use them effectively, plus chapters on rhyming, rhythm, the iamb from blank verse to the various forms of the sonnet, and exotica like art songs, Pindaric and Horatian odes, and terza rima. Its concluding appendix listing addresses of writers’ organizations is especially useful. more... about Be a Poet!

Vengeance Is Mine: The Scandalous Love Triangle That Triggered the Boyce-Sneed Feud

— Vol. 11: of A. C. Greene Series

Published: July, 2011  Pages: 336  Features: 36 b&w photos. 1 map. Notes. Bib. Index.

Almost half a century after the Boyce-Sneed feud in West Texas erupted in bloodshed in 1912, two Texas historians attempted to write about the affair. But no one would talk to them. Lewis Nordyke abandoned the idea, and C. L. Sonnichsen, another chronicler of Texas feuds, wrote that it was “too soon to talk about the Boyce-Sneed affair.” Not until the 1990s did the whole story emerge, when descendants of the feuding families finally called a truce, opened the family archives, and shared family legends. And what a tale it proved to be–a classic saga of passion, violence, and revenge, of retribution but never redemption. more... about Vengeance Is Mine: The Scandalous Love Triangle That Triggered the Boyce-Sneed Feud

Rawhide Ranger, Ira Aten: Enforcing Law on the Texas Frontier

— Vol. 8: of Frances B. Vick Series

Published: July, 2011  Pages: 528  Features: 100 b&w photos. Notes. Bib. Index.

Ira Aten (1862-1953) was the epitome of a frontier lawman. When as a youth he heard of the killing by Rangers of the notorious outlaw Sam Bass at Round Rock, Aten’s neighborhood, he altered his plans of being a cowboy and instead set his sights on becoming a Texas Ranger. At age twenty he enrolled in Company D during the transition of the Rangers from Indian fighters to topnotch peace officers. This unit—and Aten—would have a lively time making their mark in nineteenth-century Texas. more... about Rawhide Ranger, Ira Aten: Enforcing Law on the Texas Frontier

• Best Book Award from the Wild West History Association, 2012

Dennis Brain: A Life in Music

— Vol. 7: of North Texas Lives of Musicians Series

Published: May, 2011  Pages: 400  Features: 69 b&w photos. Notes. Bib. Index.

The British horn player Dennis Brain (1921-1957) is commonly described by such statements as “the greatest horn player of the 20th Century,” “a genius,” and “a legend.” He was both a prodigy and popularizer, famously performing a concerto on a garden hose in perfect pitch. On his usual concert instrument his tone was of unsurpassed beauty and clarity, complemented by a flawless technique. The recordings he made with Herbert von Karajan of Mozart’s horn concerti are considered the definitive interpretations. more... about Dennis Brain: A Life in Music

• Certificate of Merit for Best Research in Recorded Classical Music, an ARSC Award for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research from the Association for Recorded Sound Collections, 2012