Happy Independence Day

**Snite** · 03-11-2010, 00:42

I don't care if you post the pages. I've studied Texas history for years from more than one author. And quite honestly, what does a redcoat know about Texas history? I don't care what some "respected in the UK" putz has to say. You're wrong. I know you're wrong. And you likely won't admit to being wrong so kindly go jump off a cliff.

**Louis VI the Fat** · 03-11-2010, 02:10

Simon Schama is a truly phenomenal historian. He speaks with authority about the French Revolutionary era, the Dutch Golden Age, and the whole of British history. He's equally well qualified in arts history. If he has studied something long and hard, I'm not going to dismiss it outright.

The question is - did Schama study American history long and hard, or are his television programs by now becoming too reliant on the work of staff and secondary literature? Great as Schama is, there must be a limit to the amount of time anybody has. His work on America has been critised for this, including factual incorrectness:

The American Future is a sort of ersatz companion book to a four-part documentary series by the same name that Schama is starring in for the BBC. As of this writing, it has only recently aired (and it will assuredly make its way to PBS in due time). The description offered by the BBC would be nice if applicable to the book: “Simon Schama travels through America to dig deep into the conflicts of its history as a way to understand the country’s contemporary political situation.” Perhaps the television series both digs deep and arrives at some understanding. In print, The American Future does neither. It is, in fact, the worst Schama book this reviewer has ever read.

This does not necessarily mean it is not worth reading. Simon Schama’s worst is better than most people’s best. Yet because he is such a sterling historian elsewhere, it is all the more disappointing to see him phone it in here. The structure of the book purports to examine the American past as a means of discerning its future, and he does this in ways that vary wildly from interesting to absurd.

[...]

Even as he strains — or doesn’t — to make a case for his chosen narrative set-pieces wrested from American history, the reader of The American Future is left with the troubling sense that Schama has perhaps not done his due diligence in sourcing and research. There are the odd, Edmund Morris-style digressions into first-person recollection that cannot possibly be anything but fiction: “Sonofabitch,” Schama has yet another Meigs think just before dying at the Battle of the Bulge, “if it was this cold then you think the mud would’ve frozen … Clean it out, get into Deutschland, finish them off, good guys win, bad guys, very bad guys, lose.” Did any soldier actually think this? It is perilously close to tinny Hollywood rhetoric — what a British expat professor thinks an American infantryman speaks like — and if Schama made it up, shame on him. And if he has documentary evidence that the fallen Meigs of World War Two expressed these thoughts, shame on him for presenting it as his own weird reconstruction.

The reader’s confidence in these episodes, strewn throughout the book, is further marred by the occasional factual error. “[T]he second president of the Texan Republic was a Tejano,” Schama writes, though depending on how you count it, Sam Houston and Mirabeau Lamar were not Tejanos of any sort. There never was a Tejano president of the Republic of Texas: Schama is probably referring to Lorenzo de Zavala, who was interim vice-president of the Republic during the Texas War of Independence. Or rather, one of Schama’s graduate students is probably referring to de Zavala. This is emblematic of the minimal attention the author appears to have given this work, which stands in such regrettable contrast to his earlier, justly famed efforts.
http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/87476.html

American history, the presentation thereof, is also critised for being often prone to a politicised narrative. America's history keeps being rewritten. Especially where it concerns sensitive topics like race and minorities.

As for Texas and Tejanos - I haven't the faintest clue who presents the more plausible story here.
Tejanos certainly were not driven out. Their impact on Texas history is clear. It is also clear that Texas has a history of Anglo expansion. Where, between these two, lies the most proper representation of Texas' history, I don't know.

**Louis VI the Fat** · 03-14-2010, 00:51

Originally Posted by Louis VI the Fat

American history, the presentation thereof, is also critised for being often prone to a politicised narrative. America's history keeps being rewritten. Especially where it concerns sensitive topics like race and minorities.

A very timely article in today's NYT:

Texas Conservatives Win Curriculum Change

Published: March 12, 2010

AUSTIN, Tex. — After three days of turbulent meetings, the Texas Board of Education on Friday approved a social studies curriculum that will put a conservative stamp on history and economics textbooks, stressing the superiority of American capitalism, questioning the Founding Fathers’ commitment to a purely secular government and presenting Republican political philosophies in a more positive light.

The vote was 10 to 5 along party lines, with all the Republicans on the board voting for it.
The board, whose members are elected, has influence beyond Texas because the state is one of the largest buyers of textbooks. In the digital age, however, that influence has diminished as technological advances have made it possible for publishers to tailor books to individual states.

In recent years, board members have been locked in an ideological battle between a bloc of conservatives who question Darwin’s theory of evolution and believe the Founding Fathers were guided by Christian principles, and a handful of Democrats and moderate Republicans who have fought to preserve the teaching of Darwinism and the separation of church and state.
Since January, Republicans on the board have passed more than 100 amendments to the 120-page curriculum standards affecting history, sociology and economics courses from elementary to high school. The standards were proposed by a panel of teachers.

“We are adding balance,” said Dr. Don McLeroy, the leader of the conservative faction on the board, after the vote. “History has already been skewed. Academia is skewed too far to the left.”
Battles over what to put in science and history books have taken place for years in the 20 states where state boards must adopt textbooks, most notably in California and Texas. But rarely in recent history has a group of conservative board members left such a mark on a social studies curriculum.

Efforts by Hispanic board members to include more Latino figures as role models for the state’s large Hispanic population were consistently defeated, prompting one member, Mary Helen Berlanga, to storm out of a meeting late Thursday night, saying, “They can just pretend this is a white America and Hispanics don’t exist.”

“They are going overboard, they are not experts, they are not historians,” she said. “They are rewriting history, not only of Texas but of the United States and the world.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/ed...me&ref=general

**The Lurker Below** · 03-14-2010, 06:30

That's very unfortunate. School textbooks cater to Texas and California. The publisher's please the curriculum needs of one or the other and the districts throughout the rest of the country have little choice but to work with whatever they offer.

**Megas Methuselah** · 03-15-2010, 04:15

Live forever!

**al Roumi** · 03-11-2010, 11:28

Originally Posted by Snite

I don't care if you post the pages. I've studied Texas history for years from more than one author. And quite honestly, what does a redcoat know about Texas history? I don't care what some "respected in the UK" putz has to say. You're wrong. I know you're wrong. And you likely won't admit to being wrong so kindly go jump off a cliff.

Great, so you respond by being a rascist yourself? Can you not see that reacting like that might make the allegations seem more plausible?

Plus ca change, moins ca change...

I have got hold of digital camera now, I will post later. Your lack of enquiry and utter self belief are unfortunately painting a big target on you for me (or anyone) who thinks it's important and good that people question history and what they are lead to believe.

**Strike For The South** · 03-11-2010, 16:05

Originally Posted by Snite

I don't care if you post the pages. I've studied Texas history for years from more than one author. And quite honestly, what does a redcoat know about Texas history? I don't care what some "respected in the UK" putz has to say. You're wrong. I know you're wrong. And you likely won't admit to being wrong so kindly go jump off a cliff.

Calm down there cowboy.

Originally Posted by alh_p

Great, so you respond by being a rascist yourself? Can you not see that reacting like that might make the allegations seem more plausible?

Plus ca change, moins ca change...

I have got hold of digital camera now, I will post later. Your lack of enquiry and utter self belief are unfortunately painting a big target on you for me (or anyone) who thinks it's important and good that people question history and what they are lead to believe.

He's not being a racist, he's being a xenophobe.

If you could just post some excerts that would be wonderful. I'm certianly not going to argue the tejanos were treated badly and some did leave but I'm certianly not buying wholesale expulsion and genocide, South Texas has had a very large continous Tejano population since about 1718 (San Antonio EST.)

**Strike For The South** · 03-11-2010, 16:13

I would also point out that the Southern Americans who moved into Texas in the late 60s and 70s considerd all Texans "tejanos" including the central europeans and anglos who settled here. Hell Tejano music is pretty much spicy polka.

That is the real disconnect here. Seguin was actually a frenchman (ethnically, he was certianly not the mestizo as he is often portrayed) and they did charge him with aiding the Mexican army (now how true that was....) But I would point he came back to Texas and was elected Justice of the peace twice in bexar county (My County fwiw) and once in wilson county.

The real oppersion of Tejanos truly only started once Southeners (mostly confederate veterans) came to make their fortune in Texas and even then it was exploitation not genocide. Before that the oppersion amounted to little more than land grabs from emprazarios.

**al Roumi** · 03-11-2010, 18:22

Originally Posted by Strike For The South

He's not being a racist, he's being a xenophobe.

He's not really being xenophobic either, just a

.

From memory, Simon Schama doesn't say that all "Mexican" texans were kicked out, just that there was a lot of ugly race related violence and oppression, as a probable result of which many Mexican Texans left Texas.

The term "Tejano" seems to mean a lot and different things in different circumstances... My prior use of it (in this thread) has been to describe those non-Anglo people who were inhabitants of "Texas" and Mexican subjects before Texas' independance. I certainly couldn't really call them indigenous either -at least not without causing considerable offense to Megas!

**The Lurker Below** · 03-11-2010, 20:37

I can't imagine why but this reminds me of a tasteless joke I am compelled to share:

4 people are on board a plane when one engine goes bad and the pilot declares they'll have to drop some weight or crash. He believes if one person would jump out it would be okay. The Frenchman sincerely looks them over and declares "Viva la Franca!" before hurling himself out. The pilot expresses his regret that another will have to go. The Brit despises their company anyhow and yells "God save the Queen!" as he jumps away. Still overweight the pilot is certain that if one more goes it will be enough. The Texan looks out the door in contemplation, looks back at the Mexican, looks out the door again, grabs the Mexican, tossing him out, and yells "Remember the Alamo!" as he does so.

**al Roumi** · 03-11-2010, 20:58

OK, finally sorted my self out. Link below to mediafire download of double page spreads from Simon Schama's book. God knows how many copyright laws I'm breaching, I don't intend to infringe them beyond the needs of a source...

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=0...7b5d7f10aaff85

Each pic is about 3MB, I hope they have survived the upload and remain legible.

Edit:

"Viva la Franca" ???

**Louis VI the Fat** · 03-11-2010, 21:14

Guys! I just found the full text of Simon Schama's book on Google books! Go check it out!

Oh wait, All_p just went through all that trouble. I'll spare him the link then.

'Vive la France', but a good joke is not to be nitpicked.